As an average VR enjoyer, I’m absolutely baffled by the current state of VR gaming.<p>2018-2020: barely limping along compared to the early hype, but still getting 2-3 “groundbreaking” titles per year that mostly live up to expectations<p>Spring 2020: Half Life Alyx is released to a flurry of (mostly deserved) 10/10s across the board<p>October 2020: FB releases the Quest 2 and proceeds to beat the combined lifetime sales of the rest of the VR industry in under 18 months. Essentially moving the same number of units as the PS5 during that period (to be fair, Sony had shortage issues)<p>Winter 2020-Present: imagine a tumbleweed lazily rolling through a deserted casino town<p>Most of 2021 was a cope period where enthusiasts believed the drought was due to game publishers pivoting to the Quest’s mobile chipset. But at this point, especially after the Quest Pro reveal and the second Connect with no updates on the two announced AAA titles (Assassin’s Creed and GTA:SA), sentiment seems to be shifting towards a desperate hope that PSVR2 will save the VR gaming industry.<p>What happened? 2020 brought the first AAA 10/10 VR exclusive title AND new hardware that absolutely demolished the sales of everything else released to date. And yet the market is SIGNIFICANTLY more dead than it was in 2019.<p>I can’t explain it. It’s not even a Nintendo Wii situation where it became clear the massive install base wasn’t interested in third party titles: there hasn’t even been a single big third party title released! RE4 VR and Bonelab come the closest and, by all accounts, they both sold extremely well.