Virtual reality gaming has officially grown up. Gone are the days of expensive, clunky setups that made you feel vaguely nauseous after ten minutes. Today's VR games are immersive, polished, and genuinely unlike anything you can experience on a flat screen. Whether you're playing on a Meta Quest 3, PlayStation VR2, or a PC-powered headset, the library of standout titles has never been stronger.
But with hundreds of options available, figuring out where to start – or what to add next to your collection – can be overwhelming. This list cuts through the noise and focuses on the games that deliver the most complete, memorable VR experience available right now. Not just technically impressive, but actually fun to play for hours at a time.
Beat Saber
Half-Life: Alyx
Resident Evil 4 VR
Pistol Whip
Asgard's Wrath 2
Moss (Book II)
Superhot VR
The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners
Gran Turismo 7 (PSVR2)
Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy's Edge
Best for: Everyone – absolute must-own for any headset
If there's one game that defines VR gaming to the mainstream, it's Beat Saber. You wield two lightsaber-style blades and slash through colored blocks flying toward you in time with music, dodging obstacles and following the rhythm. It sounds simple because the concept is simple. The execution is where it becomes extraordinary.
Beat Saber is physically engaging in a way that almost no flat-screen game can replicate. After a few songs on Expert difficulty, you'll have worked up a legitimate sweat. The movement feels natural immediately, the feedback when you hit blocks is satisfying from the first swing, and the progression curve keeps you challenged without frustrating you. The base game comes with a strong track list, and an extensive DLC library lets you add everything from Billie Eilish to Linkin Park to Green Day packs.
It's also the most socially accessible VR game available – easy enough that someone who has never tried VR can pick up and enjoy it in minutes, deep enough that veteran players are still chasing perfection years later. If you own a VR headset and don't own Beat Saber, fix that immediately.
Key benefit: Instant fun, genuine workout, endlessly replayable.
Available on: Meta Quest, PSVR2, PC VR
Best for: PC VR owners who want the definitive story-driven VR experience
Valve built Half-Life: Alyx as a ground-up VR experience, and the result is still the clearest proof that VR can host a AAA-quality narrative game. Set between Half-Life 1 and 2, you play as Alyx Vance navigating a dystopian city occupied by the alien Combine forces. The story is compelling, the environments are dense with detail, and the physical interaction with the world – picking up objects, loading a revolver round by round, solving puzzles by manipulating objects in 3D space – creates a level of presence no controller-based game can match.
The gunplay is deliberate and weighty, enemies require real strategy rather than just pointing and shooting, and the approximately 15-hour campaign packs enough variety to stay fresh throughout. The gravity gloves, which let you pull objects toward you from a distance, are one of the most satisfying mechanics in any VR game ever made.
This is the game that convinces skeptics that VR is more than a gimmick. It requires a PC VR setup (Valve Index, Meta Quest via Link, or similar) which limits its audience, but if you have the hardware, it's non-negotiable.
Key benefit: Best narrative and environmental design in VR, full AAA production quality.
Available on: PC VR (SteamVR)
Best for: Horror fans, action game fans, Quest 2/3 owners
Capcom's remake of Resident Evil 4 was already a masterpiece. The Meta Quest exclusive VR version takes that masterpiece and drops you directly inside it. You are Leon S. Kennedy. You physically reload your shotgun. You hold up your hands in front of your face when enemies attack. You look around corners instead of just pressing a stick to do it.
The transformation from flat screen to VR fundamentally changes the emotional experience of the game. Tension levels that feel manageable on a TV screen become visceral and uncomfortable in VR – in the best possible way. The controls are exceptionally well-adapted, making physical actions like reloading, aiming, and inventory management feel intuitive rather than clunky. It covers a solid chunk of the original game's runtime and is one of the best uses of an evening in any VR library.
The only caveat: some sequences that work fine on screen can be genuinely distressing in VR. If you're sensitive to horror, start on lower difficulty and take breaks.
Key benefit: Turns a beloved game into a completely new experience through physical immersion.
Available on: Meta Quest 2 and 3
Best for: Players who want rhythm-game energy with action-movie aesthetics
Pistol Whip is what happens when you combine Beat Saber's rhythm mechanics with an on-rails shooter and the visual style of a stylized action film. You move through procedurally generated environments, automatically advancing down a corridor while shooting enemies in time with a driving electronic soundtrack. The synchronization between the music and the enemy placements is the core genius of the design – headshots feel musical, movement has rhythm, and the whole experience blurs the line between gaming and dancing.
The campaign mode adds story and progression, while the scene system lets you modify every element of a level – speed, art style, weapon type – to create endlessly varied runs. It's less physically demanding than Beat Saber but more tactically engaging, requiring you to dodge projectiles while maintaining accuracy. For players who want something that sits between a workout game and an action game, Pistol Whip is the perfect middle ground.
Key benefit: Action and rhythm combined in a way that feels fresh every session.
Available on: Meta Quest, PSVR2, PC VR
Best for: RPG fans who want a full-length VR adventure
Most VR games are experiences measured in hours. Asgard's Wrath 2 is a game measured in dozens of hours. This Norse mythology-based action RPG offers a full-scale campaign with melee combat, puzzle solving, character progression, crafting, and a world large enough to genuinely explore. For a VR title, the scope is staggering – this is closer in ambition to a standard console RPG than to most VR releases.
The combat system requires physical movement – you actually swing weapons, block with shields, and dodge attacks using your body rather than just pressing buttons. Enemy encounters are challenging and varied enough that you can't just flail and win. The puzzle design makes clever use of VR perspective and scale changes that simply wouldn't work on a flat screen. If you own a Meta Quest and want proof that VR can deliver a traditional gaming experience without compromise, this is it.
Key benefit: Full RPG depth in VR – the longest, most complete adventure available on standalone headsets.
Available on: Meta Quest 2 and 3
Best for: Players who want something beautiful, atmospheric, and quietly brilliant
Moss is different from almost every other game on this list. You play as a giant invisible presence guiding Quill, a small mouse hero, through miniature diorama-like environments. You're not inside the world – you're looking down at it, interacting with it from the outside. The perspective is unique and genuinely moving in a way that's hard to explain until you've experienced it.
The puzzle platforming is clever without being frustrating, and the emotional connection you develop with Quill – a character who acknowledges you, trusts you, and reacts to your presence – creates a level of warmth that most big-budget games miss entirely. Book II continues directly from the first game with expanded mechanics, a richer world, and a story that pays off the setup. Play Moss first if you haven't, then go straight into Book II.
Key benefit: Emotional depth and unique perspective that no other VR game delivers.
Available on: Meta Quest, PSVR2, PC VR
Best for: Players who want a puzzle game disguised as an action game
Superhot VR's entire design is built on one mechanic: time only moves when you move. Stand still and the slow-motion red-crystal enemies freeze mid-punch, mid-bullet, mid-swing. Move to dodge, grab a weapon, or attack, and the world lurches back into motion at the speed of your actions. It turns every encounter into a kinetic puzzle that you solve with your body.
The result is a game that makes you feel genuinely cooler than you have any right to feel. Dodging a bullet by leaning left while throwing a flung pistol at an incoming enemy is the kind of moment you'll replay in your head afterward. The campaign is short – roughly 2–3 hours – but tight and inventive throughout, with an abstract story that makes a surprisingly interesting comment on VR gaming itself. The challenge modes extend replayability significantly after the credits roll.
Key benefit: Unique, mind-bending mechanic that works better in VR than any medium imaginable.
Available on: Meta Quest, PSVR2, PC VR
Best for: Players who want a gritty survival game with real consequence
Saints & Sinners drops you into a post-apocalyptic New Orleans and makes you fight to survive it. You scavenge for resources, manage weight and inventory with physical movement, craft weapons, make moral decisions that affect the story, and fight off walkers using whatever you've managed to find and keep in working condition. The weapon physics are exceptional – bows require real draw technique, bladed weapons require the right angle to penetrate, and firearms need to be reloaded under pressure.
What separates this from most VR action games is the weight of every decision. Resources are scarce enough that choosing between repairing armor or crafting more arrows is a genuine dilemma. The survival loop is compelling, the world is atmospheric and well-written, and the physical combat creates a tension level that flat-screen games rarely match. Chapter 2 (Retribution) expands the story and world if you finish the first game and want more.
Key benefit: Best survival mechanics in VR, with physical gameplay that makes the genre feel brand new.
Available on: Meta Quest, PSVR2, PC VR
Best for: Racing fans and PSVR2 owners
Gran Turismo 7 on PSVR2 is arguably the most technically impressive VR experience currently available on any consumer headset. Sitting inside a car you've painstakingly tuned and customized, watching your hands on the virtual steering wheel, looking into corners with your actual head, and feeling the DualSense controller's haptic feedback simulate road texture and tire grip – it is the closest thing to actually driving a race car that most people will ever experience.
The racing itself is Gran Turismo at its best: deep tuning, hundreds of cars, real-world circuits reproduced in exceptional detail. VR doesn't change the gameplay – the physics, the progression, and the challenge are all standard Gran Turismo – but it transforms the experience of playing it in a way that makes flat-screen racing feel permanently lesser afterward. If you own PSVR2 and enjoy driving games at all, this is not optional.
Key benefit: Unmatched visual fidelity and racing immersion on PSVR2.
Available on: PSVR2 only
Best for: Star Wars fans and players who want a narrative adventure without extreme difficulty
Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy's Edge puts you on the planet Batuu as a droid repair technician who gets caught up in a large-scale conflict involving the First Order, a pirate gang, and some legendary Jedi-era stories accessed through ancient relics. The environments are built with the same level of Star Wars visual care you'd expect from a franchise this protective of its aesthetic. The blaster combat is fluid and satisfying, lightsaber sequences feel genuinely earned when you reach them, and the story is written with enough wit to appeal beyond die-hard fans.
It's not the longest or most mechanically complex game on this list, but it's one of the most purely enjoyable. Everything works, nothing frustrates, and the Star Wars universe translates to VR beautifully. The IG-88 side missions, accessible as bonus content within the game, are worth playing on their own for the sheer joy of being a bounty hunter droid.
Key benefit: Pure Star Wars fantasy delivered with polish and charm – great entry point for newer VR players.
Available on: Meta Quest 2 and 3
The best game for you depends on two things: your headset and what kind of experience you're after.
If you own a Meta Quest 2 or 3, you have access to almost every game on this list, plus a standalone experience that needs no PC or console. Start with Beat Saber for accessibility, Asgard's Wrath 2 for depth, and Resident Evil 4 VR for pure impact.
If you own a PSVR2, Gran Turismo 7 and Pistol Whip are essential, and Moss Book II and Superhot VR round out a strong starter library.
If you have PC VR, Half-Life: Alyx is the non-negotiable starting point. Everything else on this list builds from there.
For players brand new to VR, start with shorter, more forgiving experiences – Beat Saber, Moss, or Star Wars – before jumping into longer or more intense games. Your body and your VR legs (the term for getting comfortable with extended VR sessions) will thank you.
Do any of these games cause motion sickness? Some do more than others. Beat Saber, Superhot VR, and Moss have very low motion sickness risk because movement is limited. Half-Life: Alyx and Saints & Sinners involve more free locomotion which can affect newer players. Most games include comfort settings like teleport movement and vignetting that reduce nausea significantly.
Which headset should I buy to access the most games on this list? Meta Quest 3 gives you the widest access – it plays all Quest titles natively and can connect to a PC for SteamVR titles like Half-Life: Alyx. It's the most versatile option at its price point.
Are any of these games multiplayer? Beat Saber has a multiplayer mode. Most of the others are single-player experiences. VR multiplayer is growing but the best experiences right now are predominantly solo.
How much space do I need to play these games? Most VR games work in a 6.5 x 6.5 foot play area, though you can play many of them seated or in smaller spaces. Beat Saber and Pistol Whip benefit from the most room. Moss and Gran Turismo 7 can be played fully seated.
Can beginners jump into any of these games? Yes – Beat Saber, Moss, and Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy's Edge are the friendliest entry points. Resident Evil 4 VR and Saints & Sinners are better suited to players who've spent a few sessions getting comfortable in VR first.
VR gaming is past the point of being an experiment. These ten games represent a library good enough to justify the hardware purchase entirely on their own. Whether you want a workout, a story, a survival challenge, or the thrill of driving a Ferrari through the streets of Tokyo, there's a VR experience here that delivers it better than anything else on the market.
Start with one. Put the headset on. In about ten minutes, you'll understand why the format has convinced millions of people that flat-screen gaming will never fully satisfy them again.
Beat Saber – Official Meta Store Page – https://www.meta.com/experiences/beat-saber/2448060205267808/
Half-Life: Alyx – Steam Store Page – https://store.steampowered.com/app/546560/HalfLife_Alyx/
Resident Evil 4 VR – Meta Quest Blog – https://www.meta.com/blog/quest/resident-evil-4-now-available-on-quest-2/
Asgard's Wrath 2 – Meta Store – https://www.meta.com/experiences/asgards-wrath-2/2603836099654226/
Pistol Whip – Official Site – https://www.pistolwhipgame.com/
Superhot VR – Steam Page – https://store.steampowered.com/app/617830/SUPERHOT_VR/
Gran Turismo 7 PSVR2 – PlayStation Blog – https://blog.playstation.com/2023/02/20/gran-turismo-7-gets-full-psvr2-support-at-launch/
Moss Book II – Polyarc Official Site – https://www.polyarcgames.com/moss-book-ii
The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners – Skydance Interactive – https://www.skydance.com/interactive/games/the-walking-dead-saints-sinners
Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy's Edge – ILMxLAB – https://ilmxlab.com/tales-from-the-galaxys-edge
