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The 3 Best WW2 Games on the Oculus Quest 2

Who doesn’t like a good WW2 game? From the FPS to RTS genres World War 2 has been a backdrop for some of gaming’s biggest hits. Though strangely enough the most global conflict in human history has not been very prevalent in Virtual Reality… yet, here’s the 3 best WW2 games for the Quest 2.

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Sniper Elite VR

As covered in our review of the game, Sniper Elite VR heavily skews its gameplay in a way not conducive to how everyone plays shooters. As the name implies the game is heavily focused on sniping, though there are some opportunities to get up close and personal with shotguns and SMGs.

That being said, the premise is very cool. You are an Italian partisan, desperately holding out and doing your best to thwart the Nazi regime to prepare for the Allied Invasion to come. There are a couple of cool character moments in the game, though the story is not what you should play this for.

The gameplay, which is part combat with a variety of WW2 weaponry and part sneaking and assassinating Nazi patrols, is overall very solid. Missions are varied in location and theme. You get a lot of choice on how you want to approach situations and what weapons you bring with you. While sniping is often mandatory, there are also plenty of areas where going in guns blazing while throwing grenades and firing your SMG is just as viable.

Sniper Elite VR combines the more novel gameplay concepts of the Sniper Elite franchise (such as firing your rifle when a plane flies over to cover the sound of the shot) with an interesting setting during World War 2. These create a Virtual Reality game that, while not the most well rounded of VR shooters, is still interesting for VR aficionados, snipers, and World War 2 fans.

Warplanes: Battles over Pacific

Rather than a Virtual Reality shooter, Warplanes: Battles over Pacific is a VR flight simulator that is heavily geared towards flying combat in the Pacific Theater of World War 2. You can use both American and Japanese planes of the era to fly through combat missions and win by destroying enemy air and ground targets. These targets consist of a variety of things from fighter aircraft, to barrage balloons, to convoy trucks, to AA flak guns, to storage buildings.

The controls are a huge draw for this game. While you can do what you need with just your controller buttons, you can also do a lot of actions, like throttling and changing the direction of the plane, by using your virtual hands to grip the controls through physical representations in your cockpit. Want to throttle up? Then grab the throttle and push it forward.

This is much more immersive that just hitting some buttons, you can actually use the real plane controls like you are in the cockpit yourself. Warplanes: Battles over Pacific makes full use of being a Virtual Reality game in this way.

Though once you get the hang of it the gameplay can be a little repetitive. The missions follow the same formula. Destroy some primary target, usually they are one type of enemy on the map, like all enemy fighters, all ships, or all barrage balloons, while destroying or avoiding other enemies on the map. You get bonus points for destroying all enemies before eliminating your primary target.

This is cool but the missions ultimately all end up having the same rhythm to them, though the maps are varied and so are the combinations of enemies. Still, you would be hard pressed to find a better combat flight simulator on the Quest 2. The developers clearly took a lot of lessons from their first, World War 1 themed game Warplanes: WW1 Fighters to make a very polished WW2 flying game.

The Multiplayer is also fantastic. You can do Co-op missions with others as well as dogfight against them in Deathmatch. This gives you a chance to use your WW2 flying skills competitively, and is really where the replayability of this game is. Like the Singleplayer there is little variety in the game modes here, but the variety comes from the other players in the game. That being said it can be a little difficult to find a full lobby, depending on the time of day.

Overall if you want to fly combat missions in VR on your Quest 2, Warplanes: Battles over Pacific cannot be beaten.

Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond

Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond was widely speculated to be the premier WW2 game for Virtual Reality. The unfortunate truth is that while Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond has some solid moments in its Single Player, and seems to hit all of the bases of a World War 2 Shooter. It’s lackluster Multiplayer and overly frenetic pacing means it fell so short of everyone’s expectations that it remains relevant only because of the absence of better choices for VR WW2 shooting.

Unlike Sniper Elite: VR this game does not depend on Sniping so heavily, though there are some sniper sections in it. Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond does the exact opposite of depending on any particular mode of play, instead it throws an absolute ton of them at you. You’ll be shooting from a farmhouse in one mission and then dropping bombs in a plane in the next. Meanwhile a bevy of cutscenes interrupt each experience.

In the earlier missions there is far more time spent in cutscenes than in combat. If you manage to make it through the by-the-numbers World War 2 story that is neither believable nor interesting with characters that are one dimensional and that get very annoying over time, then you will be blessed with a few minutes of actual gameplay. This does even out in the later chapters of the game, and there are, later on, some cool moments shooting bazookas at tanks and assaulting a railway gun solo.

Though as you finally get more shooter gameplay than gimmicks, the appeal of the game starts to shine through. You finally get a chance to immerse yourself into the combat and have fun going from classic World War 2 setpiece to classic World War 2 setpiece as you do your part in breaking down the Nazi regime. Overall the campaign varies between boring you with too many cutscenes and being genuinely entertaining when it gives you time to really get into the World War 2 combat.

The shooting is decent for VR, though it brings no real innovations. When you get more combat to chew on, then the occasional gimmick, like a metal detector you use to tip toe through a field of land mines, is more welcome as it serves as a break from the combat, rather than an infuriating obstacle.

Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond also has multiplayer. The modes consist of “Spawn, wander around, and shoot the first opponent you see.” The shooting itself is not well implemented either, a few weapons are clearly far better than all others, making the diversity of weapons non existent. After you get the hang of it you will just use two or three weapons, or get slaughtered by those who know better. There is nothing special that will hold your attention.

Overall Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond is not worth its high price for the small amount of decent gameplay there is to be found inside. I only recommend it if you are completely out of better VR shooters to play, or have such a love for the WW2 setting that you absolutely must get more of it in Virtual Reality. This game would have been a huge hit in the 2000s, but now feels outdated and boring.

Well there you have it, the 3 Best WW2 games on the Oculus Quest 2.

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7 Best VR Games for Sniping on the Meta Quest 2

Sniping has long been a sacred art among those who enjoy first person shooters. Sniping well takes skill, speed, patience, and great map knowledge to do well. Being a sniper also requires precision in singleplayer and multiplayer games. For an enthusiast of Virtual Reality gaming or the Meta Quest 2, you may be wondering, what games give you a great sniping experience? Well here they are, broken down from not so good, to the best on the platform for an aspiring sharpshooter. Staring with number 7.

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7. Resident Evil 4 VR

You may not think of Resident Evil 4 VR as a sniping game, and you’d largely be right. It is full of tight corridors, twisting hallways, and a bunch of Ganados very intent on getting in close and eating your face. On the other hand a bolt action, and later semi automatic, sniper rifle is available in this game. They are very powerful, and very satisfying to get headshots with. As a Ganados’s head will explode when it takes such massive damage.

There are a few sections in Resident Evil 4 VR where the combat arena is large and the enemies are far enough away that you can use the sniper rifle effectively. These areas come often enough to give Resident Evil VR a slot on this list, since the Meta Quest 2 has a limited selection of games involving sniper rifles (for now). Mostly, however, the sniper rifles work great here as improvised one shot kill shotguns instead of long range weapons.

6. The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners

Ah, The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners is such a great VR game that shows what Virtual Reality games can be. It has a large number of guns, but only one that seems like it could be considered a sniper rifle. That would be the Bolt Action Rifle, which can be unlocked a few levels into the game, or found in the ruins of New Orleans if you know where to look. Like in most games this rifle is hard hitting and difficult to load. Especially difficult in this case, as the bolt is extremely janky and not very well implemented, which is a thing not often said about The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners.

Overall there are not many sections that seem much like sniping sections, with the exception of one level in the Aftershocks free DLC that gives the player a view of a battlefield through a window, and a free rifle just sitting there. Hunting season for sure, and very satisfying for sniping. Otherwise there isn’t even a scope for the bolt action rifle, or for any other firearms in the game.

Still, we’ll count The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners as a sniping game, mostly because the AI, human or zombie, needs to get really close to actually notice you. This gives plenty of chances for hiding, shooting, and scooting even from close range. A scope isn’t really needed, and the gameplay can still scratch a sniper’s itch.

5. Population: One

Population: One is the Fortnite of VR, though it is smaller in scope and, luckily, nobody is capable of building an entire apartment complex in the span of 5 seconds. Just like Fortnite there are plenty of sniper rifles in Population: One.

Just like in Fortnite they are far from the best weapons in the game, and in fact aren’t used very often due to their lack of power when compared to other weapons. An assault rifle can hit a target from medium range and do damage much more quickly than a sniper rifle, because the sniper needs to have its bolt cycled after every shot. So assault rifles and SMGs tend to get a lot more love than sniper rifles do in Population: One.

That all being said sniper rifles are the only long range option, and their bullets can be accurate pretty far away. Still, unless an enemy player is already at dangerously low health, it’s not a one shot kill. Also, they are notoriously difficult to aim when compared to sniper rifles in other games. Looking down the scope of a sniper rifle in Population: One is particularly hard, and until you get a lot of practice it can feel like you are aiming at something properly and missing it for no reason.

4. Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond

Now we are getting into the territory of proper sniping games. Though in Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond only expect to find sniper rifles in the singleplayer. It would be a mystery why you would still be playing the multiplayer of this game at all, but if you do don’t expect to get any sniper kills. The singleplayer of Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond features a couple of different sniper rifles, and due to its World War 2 setting, all are bolt action.

Cycling the bolts on those weapons is pretty smooth, and so is looking down their scopes. The impact of the rifle doesn’t feel, with most enemies later on in the game just shrugging those rounds off and continuing to run around. Though sometimes you can still get a very satisfying looking headshot. Also, the sim-like faces of the enemies aren’t super fun to stare at through an optic.

Most combat in Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond is done up close or at medium range. Though there are a few segments where sniping is practically the only option, or is heavily encouraged. These segments are great if you love sniping, like one memorable part where you defend a French village from atop a bombed out church. Still, if sniping is all you’re after then Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond will leave you wanting more.

The same can be said for just about every other category you could put on a World War 2 shooter. In all aspects Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond only delivers a little of what you desire.

3. Contractors

Contractors is a multiplayer shooter that is fast paced and encourages quick fights with fast respawn times and objectives. It is the Call of Duty of Virtual Reality. Just like in Call of Duty the sniping is pretty good, but not the best. The game is pretty fast paced, and so you’ll get enemy players sneaking up behind you a lot, so you need to move constantly just like they will. So you can’t really hold down one spot for long. That could be a good or bad thing depending on who you ask.

As for the weaponry there is a huge variety of guns you can attach long range scopes to. Even Assault rifles have optics that reach two or four times magnification. Weapons intended for sniping, like the M1A, pack a lot of punch and are very accurate. The scopes themselves are intuitive to use and don’t have that annoying quality of constantly floating in and out of your vision like those in Population: One.

That all being said the maps of Contractors do not have many areas that encourage sniping, because they tend to be closed in and favor short or medium range combat. There are a few spots on some maps that are great for sniping on, but those are not common.

2. Onward

If you’re looking for a multiplayer Virtual Reality game to become an expert sniper in, Onward is it. Where Contractors is the Call of Duty of Virtual Reality, Onward is the more thoughtful and slower cousin. It’s sort of like Ready or Not or Squad, or even Counter Strike: Global Offensive. Each team is small and each player is taken down very easily with only a few hits. With a sniper rifle even a single hit is easily fatal, and wow are the sniper rifles good.

They’re modern, and have a wide variety of addons and scopes to choose from. If you want to have a 4x optic for sniping, but a small collimator on the side for up close conflict, that’s possible. As with all weapons in Onward the sniper rifles have great detail, and feel responsive and intuitive to use. There’s even a bipod for some rifles.

Landing a shot gives immediate results. Sniper rifles are powerful, and landing a hit is very satisfying. Due to the slow pace of the game there are many opportunities to set up in a position, or change positions after firing off a few rounds. Communication with your teammates via your shoulder radio can also give you good opportunities to find out where your opponents are hiding.

On top of that most Onward maps feature multiple open areas, where a single sniper can easily take out enemy team members as they try to pass through. Unlike other games Onward gives a sniper many opportunities to take long shots and make full use of their chosen rifle.

With great weapon variety and choices, great weapon feel, and a great selection of maps to choose from, Onward is the best multiplayer experience for sniping.

Sniper Elite VR

Unlike all of these other games, Sniper Elite VR, like the name says, is focused on sniping. That is really what makes it a sniper’s paradise in Virtual Reality. The vast majority of weapons are sniper rifles, and the vast majority of areas are geared toward sniping. Enemies are far away and there are ample spots to shoot from. Areas are very often wide open and encourage the use of a scoped weapon.

Sure there are SMGs and Pistols to use as well in Sniper Elite VR, but here they are the weapons that are only used occasionally, as the sniper rifle is in all of these other games. Very often sniping will be the main objective of a map, and sniping is always the way to get the most points and to dispatch enemies the quickest. A soldier that might take an entire burst from an SMG to kill can easily be taken down with a single sniper bullet.

For more on the game in general, check out our review. Though if you like sniping you certainly won’t be disappointed in Sniper Elite VR. The only drawback is that sometimes the rifles feel a little floaty, and move too easily with a slight twitch of your hand. Otherwise they handle beautifully, and the scopes feel realistic and straightforward to look through and aim with.

For a singleplayer sniper experience, Sniper Elite VR cannot be beaten. For an experience focused on snipers, sniping, and sniper rifles in VR, there is nothing else like it.

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