AC thVRsday
In his weekly column, Android Central Senior Content material Producer Nick Sutrich delves into all issues VR, from new {hardware} to new video games, upcoming applied sciences, and a lot extra.
When Mark Zuckerberg’s Fb purchased Oculus again in 2014, the corporate billed VR as “a robust candidate to emerge as the following social and communications platform.” Seven years later, in 2021, Fb rebranded to Meta in an effort to grow to be the de facto metaverse chief.
Within the 5 years since then, quite a bit has modified at Meta, however one factor is evident: the unique imaginative and prescient of VR as the following social and communications platform is changing into a actuality, even when the trail to get there appears very completely different from what was anticipated.
As an alternative of an all-encompassing capital-M Metaverse managed by a single firm (à la “Prepared Participant One”), a swath of free-to-play video games from small indie builders has taken root, serving as social hubs for thousands and thousands of Meta Quest players each month. Gorilla Tag started the motion in February 2021, and nobody on the time had any concept how it might basically rework VR in just some brief years.
“Once we began our studio, we have been constructing the mistaken video games,” stated Spencer Prepare dinner, CEO of Continuum, the studio behind the uber-popular Ug VR. The road got here from a 2026 GDC panel the place the studio helped clarify what made Ug VR the success it has grow to be and the way VR is completely different from what seemingly everybody thought.
It is a highly effective instance of how every medium has its personal attracts, and the way the identical sorts of video games that work on a TV-mounted console do not work on a head-mounted VR system.
Social first is the way you win
For years, Meta and plenty of VR-first builders chased the thought of making the following Grand Theft Auto, Mario, Uncharted, or Halo. Meta poured billions into gaming improvement, creating genuinely phenomenal titles worthy of 5-star opinions. It stacked up massive names like Batman: Arkham Shadow, Marvel’s Deadpool, The Strolling Lifeless, Murderer’s Creed Nexus, and so many extra, creating a robust library of video games any gamer ought to have been jealous of.
But it surely did not work, and nobody actually understands why. As an alternative, VR players by the thousands and thousands are coming again day after day to play social-first video games which might be (by builders’ personal admissions) easy experiences with out “polished mechanics” or “intelligent gameplay concepts”. It might sound damning if it did not work so effectively.
Sarcastically, all the largest VR video games lately comply with the recommendation Andrew Eiche laid out once I interviewed him a number of years in the past. Eiche is the CEO of Owlchemy Video games, creator of VR classics like Job Simulator and Trip Simulator, and people video games all comply with the thought of letting you roleplay with out letting exposition get in the way in which. In different phrases, you are not taking part in within the footwear of Cal Kestis or Kay Vess to save lots of the galaxy; you are taking part in in your personal footwear and a personality of your personal creation.
As well as, essentially the most profitable VR video games in 2026 are nearly completely designed to allow gamers to create and share content material on the world’s hottest social media platforms. From YouTube Shorts to TikTok, these video games’ movies amass thousands and thousands of views and have created actual success for the individuals taking part in them and having enjoyable making content material. It is an limitless wheel of enjoyable and success, and it retains giving beginning to extra video games prefer it.
For a number of years, something that regarded or moved like Gorilla Tag was rapidly known as a Gorilla Tag clone, however gamers have discovered that this label is solely incorrect. Titles like Yeeps, Scary Baboon, Wizherd, Digi Gods, and Ug VR all share comparable motion mechanics to Gorilla Tag, however there’s typically a particular gameplay hook that separates these titles from the remainder of the pack.
Final week, I spoke with Kyle Joyce, CEO of Enver Studios and creator of Scary Baboon, one of the vital widespread social VR video games right now. As you would possibly anticipate from the title, this one makes use of acquainted Gorilla Tag mechanics and the favored PS1-era artwork model, however blends it with horror-lite mechanics that followers of 5 Nights at Freddy’s and Poppy Playtime merely love.
The studio has expanded Scary Baboon lately with new co-op experiences that allow gamers work collectively to resolve issues, combat monsters, and discover the world. The important thing right here is that gamers aren’t preventing one another; they’re working collectively to outlive, and it is this idea that has additionally spawned the “friendslop” style.
To this point, seven million individuals have put in Scary Baboon (that is distinctive gamers, not installs), and Joyce informed me the retention fee is impressively excessive. This tracks with the Ug VR GDC video I linked earlier, the place Spencer Prepare dinner outlined a 70% retention fee among the many recreation’s viewers. Scary Baboon’s newest replace lets gamers combat again towards the monsters usually haunting the halls. Nonetheless, gamers must be good about weapon utilization as a result of monsters can grow to be enraged and invincible for some time if hit an excessive amount of.
Scary Baboon’s newest updates have been so widespread that the corporate has been capable of ink a cope with “a big, legacy IP” that’ll debut in an replace this July. Joyce says their numbers have persistently been up in latest months, owing to the success of each the most recent updates and the shift from “irritating PvP” to a friendlier co-op PvE expertise.
“Our viewers would quite play with their pals than towards them,” Joyce informed me. I can relate to this, as I discover myself gravitating towards non-PvP experiences increasingly more. That is particularly the case with free-to-play titles like Scary Baboon or Animal Firm, each of which I usually play with my son and have common content material updates to discover.
Joyce says his studio has been specializing in group suggestions and letting gamers drive the sport’s future, whereas additionally acknowledging that they cannot please everybody. Joyce stated this focus is why he began creating content material for the sport and participates in group occasions, serving to different gamers really feel concerned within the recreation’s creation.
Unsurprisingly, Ug VR’s creators say “our success comes from figuring out what entertains our gamers and from partaking with the group.” It is a very completely different mannequin from what has made video games profitable up to now, notably due to the velocity and voracity at which the group consumes and shares content material.
It is taken a stable decade of studying and rising, nevertheless it’s grow to be clear that VR video games do greatest when socializing or role-playing are the core expertise. Given the spectacular fee of development of these kinds of video games together with the stagnation of extra conventional video games, it is clear that VR’s success will look completely different from what many initially thought, however gamers who embrace this modification will discover a distinctive, partaking expertise that is really completely different from what’s obtainable on another online game medium.
