ARK VR Review and Setup Guide - ARK: Survival Evolved VR and ARK Park

So, you want to play ARK VR.

Of course you do! ARK: Survival Evolved is a hit survival game on the flatscreen for its incredible mix of base building, survival mechanics, and most importantly the ability to train and ride your very own dinosaurs.

Of course the only thing greater than nurturing a dino egg, raising a dino baby, and then riding that dinosaur on the flatscreen is doing all of that in VR! So ARK: Survival Evolved VR is a fantastic idea, and luckily the developers of ARK added VR support some time ago.

Of course not all games with VR support are necessarily great to play in VR, and so here we’ll delve into whether or not VR ARK is worth it and taking a look at the ARK game made specifically for Virtual Reality, ARK Park.

To give a quick answer, no ARK: Survival Evolved VR is not very good. In fact it’s pretty terrible, though you might be able to get it sort of kind of working correctly with a little luck and some patience. ARK VR hasn’t received an update from the developers in ages and was clearly not very well supported from the beginning.

ARK Park is an actually okay ARK VR experience, but also suffers from being old, looking bad, and not having extremely engaging touch controls or gameplay.

Though if you are really craving the dinosaur raising and riding experience, then ARK Park is probably your best bet, unfortunately it isn’t nearly as expansive as ARK: Survival Evolved, or offer nearly as much of an engaging experience.

That’s the verdict, but if you want to find out how to set up ARK VR and why we’ve come to these conclusions, then check out the detailed ARK VR review and setup guide below.

ARK: Survival Evolved VR Review

So as I just mentioned ARK: Survival Evolved in VR is bad, really, really bad.

It might be the worst VR mode to a flatscreen game that I’ve ever written about here on Reality Remake.

See how fuzzy anything past the rock looks? It’s even worse when you’re in VR

It’s very clear that the VR support is extremely minimal, and as we’ll cover in the setup section below, weirdly difficult to even get running due to poor optimization.

Though you don’t need to know about that to realize how poorly optimized ARK VR is, it looks absolutely terrible.

Everything is fuzzy even up close. The lighting is overwhelming in VR and looking anywhere near the sun is uncomfortably bright on reasonable settings, so you have to turn your brightness down, but then even somewhat dark areas are almost impossible to see properly.

These screenshots don’t look good, but even they don’t do justice to how difficult this game was to play in VR.

The settings menu doesn’t even look right

You have to squint a lot, whether it’s to see at anything more than five meters in front of you, or to look at any of the menus.

More than anything else what makes ARK VR hard to play is how poorly the VR view is adjusted for more modern VR technology like the Oculus Quest 3 or 2.

Your right eye and left eye pictures are smashed too closely together by default, and this not only makes the already poor visuals headache inducing, but also makes reading menus next to impossible unless you close one eye and focus really hard on the blurry letters.

Even getting some footage and screenshots was hard in ARK VR

Even when you get ARK VR running this is something you’ll have to do a lot, because unless you’ve gotten really lucky and your settings already happen to work well in Virtual Reality, you’ll be doing a lot of adjusting your graphical settings to get VR ARK looking at least somewhat presentable.

If you can deal with that then you might find ARK VR somewhat enjoyable.

All of the gameplay of ARK: Survival Evolved is still there, though the added immersive benefits of Virtual Reality are kind of lacking not only in the visuals.

There are no touch controls, and you’ll be using your mouse and keyboard still, which isn’t necessarily bad in and of itself. You control your arms with whatever tool you are using by moving your mouse around, and instead of moving your entire head like on the flatscreen your tool will point in the direction you’re moving your mouse.

If this worked well then it could be a fun VR game

This is actually a pretty cool system, but what makes it extremely annoying is just how broken ARK: Survival Evolved VR is.

I could never get my head to line up with my arms, so I always had to look over awkwardly to the right a little bit to actually see what I was facing.

Interacting with a lot of objects is also annoying, and you’ll often have to look up above the thing you’re trying to interact with for your interaction button to work. The hotbar doesn’t show up either, and so you’ll have to go into the inventory menu to change what you have equipped, or memorize what’s assigned to what key on your hotbar.

ARK VR is an unsupported mess that clearly never got the time and attention it needed to be playable. If you’re still interested then the guide on setting up and running ARK VR is further down in this article in the section marked “How To Set Up ARK VR.”

So what about the game that was meant for VR?

ARK Park Review

So the Virtual Reality mode for ARK: Survival Evolved is hot garbage, but there is also an ARK game made specifically for VR called ARK Park.

Though if you already own ARK: Survival Evolved keep in mind that ARK Park is a separate game that at the time of writing costs forty dollars on Steam. Whether or not this is worth it for a functioning ARK VR experience depends on how badly you want it.

When first starting ARK Park and (thankfully) launching it just like any other PCVR game with no additional setup steps or difficulties, it is clear pretty quickly that this game hasn’t seen a meaningful update in years.

It looks very fuzzy, but not as bad as ARK: Survival Evolved VR.

ARK Park is functional, if a little confusing, from the start

At least unlike ARK: Survival Evolved’s VR mode, the pictures of your two headset lenses are properly spaced apart, and you can see everything as intended. So while ARK Park doesn’t look great it is at least functional.

That’s going to be a theme here, it’s not great, but it does at least work.

Anyway your hands become futuristic teleporters in the game, even if you have slide movement enabled, and right when you start things are a little weird with the controls.

You’ll notice in the controls information screen and all of the tutorial prompts that ARK Park was clearly meant to be played using HTC Vive wands, which can be kind of confusing when you’re trying to figure out how to do things in the game using different controllers Even when the game tells you how.

ARK Park’s tutorial does have some obvious omissions like how to use slide movement. Move the left joystick while pushing it in.

I have no idea why the developers thought this would be a good idea, maybe to prevent you from moving yourself accidentally, but it is really awkward. Especially since slide movement is so slow.

Education game or dinosaur shooting simulator, you decide

ARK Park is one of the few VR games in which I’d actually recommend using teleport movement instead of slide movement.

Anyway once you figure all of that out you’re off to a tutorial that has some very cool moments but is far too long. You’re a tourist on one of ARK’s dinosaur islands, and instead of putting you in front of dinosaurs to start with you’re instead feeding and interacting with holographic dinosaurs first.

Considering there are many actual dinosaurs to interact with in the game, adding holographic versions to start with seems like kind of a waste of time, and just adds to the cumbersome length of the tutorial.

Though there is a very cool train ride, and soon enough you’re in the park itself.

At least seeing dinosaurs up close in Virtual Reality is awesome

From here ARK Park soon introduces you to what you do in the game. Collect dinosaur eggs, hatch them, nurture the babies, and then use, ride, and collect those dinos.

The first dinosaur ride is very cool, and then you’re off to learn how to collect resources, craft a weapon, and then shoot some dinosaurs in a tower defense segment.

Oh, were you expecting to fight hostile dinosaurs out in the wilds as you collect resources, keep yourself fed, and build a shelter? Well unfortunately ARK Park doesn’t provide a real ARK: Survival Evolved experience like that.

All of the combat is done in these odd tower defense segments where the dinosaurs run at an object you defend, and then you just shoot them with a variety of guns that all do not feel at all like guns.

You don’t even load them yourself like in most VR shooters, they just do a reload animation automatically when they’re empty.

The tower defense segments get very old very fast

There is some gathering and exploring a world, but not a huge overworld like in ARK: Survival Evolved.

Instead you get a few different and very small maps with some paths going through them. You gather resources by swinging a tool at an object, and you scan various pieces of wildlife as you look for eggs.

That’s about it. Looking at dinosaurs in Virtual Reality is cool, but the game itself is actually incredibly dull. There’s not much to do, and there’s not much to see other than the aforementioned dinosaurs.

So if you are really dying for any kind of ARK VR experience, give ARK Park a look as it’s the best one you’ll find right now. Though keep in mind that the only thing that makes this game like ARK: Survival Evolved or ARK: Survival Ascended is that you can raise dinosaurs. Interacting with them is the only interesting part, and that can’t prop up the game on its own.

Otherwise this game is probably never going to receive an update, and does not match the modern standards of VR gaming. It might have been okay five years ago, but now it looks bad and has repetitive and boring gameplay.

ARK Park is not even really a survival game, and all of the combat is just shooting dinosaurs that slowly run towards you.

How To Set Up ARK VR

When running ARK Survival Evolved in VR start by connecting your headset to your PC as you normally would to run any PCVR game.

If you’re using a Quest device such as an Oculus Quest 2 or 3 then start by connecting your headset to your PC using Airlink or Steam Link. If you’ve never done this before then check out how to do so in this article. While the article is specifically aimed at VTOL VR, you’ll find that the same steps work for any PCVR game, just run ARK: Survival Evolved instead of VTOL VR.

In short either run Oculus Airlink and run Steam VR from airlink, or run Steam Link to go directly to Steam VR. Then in your Steam VR home select ARK: Survival Evolved and start it.

Be careful once you actually start ARK: Survival Evolved though, because on your PC you’ll get a new window from steam asking you which of the various options you want to launch the game with. Only two of these will work in VR without crashing the game. The “extremely low memory” option or the “DirectX 10, Low-End Graphics” option.

The launch options for ARK: Survival Evolved

Since ARK VR is so poorly optimized any other option will cause the game to crash when you try to run VR mode.

Now you may or may not see the main menu of ARK appear in front of you in Steam VR home, and from there you can use your mouse to start or join a game. If you don’t see the ARK menu in Steam VR home then do so on your PC monitor.

Get into the game and once you’re there go to your Settings menu and go to Graphics. In the bottom right you’ll see a button that says “Enable VR HMD.”

The button to hit to enable VR mode in ARK

Once you do that put your VR headset back on if you were using your monitor, and you should now be seeing the game in Virtual Reality.

Of course as I mentioned in the review above you may have trouble seeing things. It’s hard to specifically tell you how to make your VR experience more pleasant, as that will depend a lot on what headset you are using and your graphics card.

If it’s difficult to see things then play around with your graphical settings like resolution and HUD scaling. ARK VR will never look great, but it can be manageable if you get your settings just right.

After running the game once and giving it a look you can also enable these options in Steam to try to get the game looking a little better by right clicking on the game in your Steam library, selecting Properties, and adding “-sm4 -d3d10” to the Launch Options at the bottom of the General tab.

Some additional launch options that may make the game look better

Anyway that’s all for this setup guide for ARK VR, and the review of both ARK: Survival Evolved VR and ARK Park. Hopefully this will work well enough for you to experience ARK in VR.

Hopefully the sequel to ARK: Survival Evolved, ARK 2, will offer better VR support some time in the future, or a mod will add decent Virtual Reality options to the game. For now that remains to be seen, and hopefully you can enjoy what VR ARK experiences are already available.

VTOL VR Gets New Plane: The EF-24G Mischief and Electronic Warfare Update

A couple of weeks after its announcement VTOL VR solo developer Baha has released the new VTOL VR plane known as the EF-24G Mischief to the public.

This new plane is purchasable as DLC on Steam for the price of twelve dollars, and is based on the real world F-14 tomcat. This plane also happened to be released on the exact same day of the year as the first flight of the Tomcat in 1970.

The EF-24G Mischief is intended as an Electronic Warfare fighter in VTOL VR, using jamming pods and sensors to hide from or confuse enemy missiles and radar systems.

Of course this new plane isn’t going to be the only one capable of utilizing jamming technology, with jamming equipment now available for other planes in this fantastic VR flight simulator.

There’s even some other new equipment available like the AIM-54 missile, but for now let’s talk some specifics on exactly what you can do with the EF-24 and more about the electronic warfare update, which massively changes VTOL VR.

The F-14 Tomcat In VTOL VR

The EF-24 is a very fun new addition to VTOL VR that makes great use of the new Electronic Warfare system.

On it, and various other aircraft like the F/A-26, you can mount AN/ALQ-245 Jammer pods, which allow you to spoof and jam signals for the enemy team.

We’ll talk more about this and the new Electronic Warfare system here shortly, but suffice to say it’s a massive change to VTOL VR that will completely revamp how the game is played, especially in Multiplayer, and the EF-24G is tailor made for it.

The AN/ALQ-245 Jammer Pod

The EF-24G Mischief itself bears many similarities to the F-45 (based on the real like F-35) in that the cockpit is extremely high tech when compared to older aircraft like the AV-42 or F/A-26. Though in many other respects this new plane is unlike any other.

Especially when using Electronic Warfare, there’s a lot of buttons to press on your various configurable touchscreens, and a lot of things to do to fly and fight as effectively as possible.

That’s why it’s great that the EF-24G is also a two seater plane. You can have a copilot in the back to handle the Electronic Warfare pods or weapons.

While it’s completely possible to fly this new plane by yourself, it’s much harder to manage everything on your own.

Being the passenger can be just as fun as being the pilot

Still, you can always by yourself a little time by zooming away, which the EF-24G is very capable of doing just like it’s real life inspiration the F-14 Tomcat.

It’s now capable of the highest speeds in the game, at least when you sweep the wings back, because just like the F-14 the EF-24 can sweep its wings forward or back for maneuverability or straight up speed.

This, coupled with the new missiles available to it, make the EF-24G a fantastic plane for countering enemy air defenses, and generally confusing them.

There are a ton of features, old and new, that you can use with this plane. So many that we won’t discuss them all here, though the size of the EF-24Gs manual speaks for itself.

If you’ve just gotten ahold of the EF-24G there’s also a whole new Singleplayer campaign for the plane which focuses on its strengths in countering enemy ground based air defenses. It’s a ton of fun and a great way to get to know your way around the new aircraft.

The new campaign is hard at first, but fantastic

Electronic Warfare in VTOL VR

Though by far the biggest change to VTOL VR is not only the addition of the EF-24G, but the addition of Electronic Warfare in general in this fantastic modern VR flight simulator.

You used to always be able to trust your radar and radar warning system to show you exactly where enemies were and what type of craft they were flying. That’s no longer the case.

That’s a lot of incoming missiles, shame they’re aiming at imaginary planes

The new jammer pods, which can be mounted on many of the aircraft already present in the game as well as the EF-24G Mischief, mean that no electronic system is guaranteed to work as you’d expect it to anymore.

These jamming pods are capable of doing a number of different sorts of electronic warfare and different frequencies. Guidance systems can be flooded with noise to become unreliable, DRFM can be used to make one aircraft seem like a whole wing of them, and even basic functionality like navigation and communications equipment can be interfered with.

It’s truly a massive change for VTOL VR, and opens up many more options in how you can approach each combat encounter, or how you can be tricked into approaching them in the wrong way.

What’s even more incredible is the further addition of the ADM-160J decoy missile.

The ADM-160J Decoy/Jammer Missile

This is a missile that, like the name says, functions as a decoy and is capable of making itself look like an entire aircraft.

Not only that, but it can help you triangulate targets for your own missiles, and has jamming technology of its own to misdirect enemy air defenses. Suddenly what might seem like another EF-24 approaching you could just be a decoy missile.

There’s no limit to how these new technologies present in the game can be used for any number of operations, and makes the depth of the air combat simulation of VTOL VR far better.

That’s not even mentioning all of the new assets available not only in the new campaign like huge Early Warning Radars, Enemy Radar Jamming Trucks, and Missile Silos, but also in the VTOL VR mission editor for mission creators to use.

So if you’ve always wanted to feel like Maverick from Top Gun yourself and rule the air in an F-14 Tomcat, or want to see the new ways the game can be played, now is a fantastic time to get back into VTOL VR or try it for the first time. Though all of this new technology does make an already complicated game even more complicated. Once you understand it though, it’s truly a masterpiece.

Into The Radius Walkthrough And Guide - The Eighth Mission - Kids Playground

Stuck in Into The Radius? Wondering where to go and how to get there for your next mission?

Maybe you would just like to see what is in store for you before you get there, or you’d like to know if you’re properly prepared for your next mission in the Pechorsk Zone.

Well don’t worry we’ve got you covered with this walkthrough and guide for Into the Radius VR.

In this Into the Radius walkthrough we’ll detail how to progress through the main story “Top Priority” missions, with a couple of guiding tips thrown in here and there to make your adventure smoother.

The focus of these walkthrough articles will be the story missions, but we’ll throw in some general gameplay tips and other useful loot locations near your objectives.

These articles will also assume you’re playing the game on the Normal difficulty mode with Tutorials turned on, which is highly recommended for your first playthrough. This walkthrough will still be useful if you’re playing on Realistic difficulty, but some details like vendor prices or enemy placement and numbers will be different.

Here is every article in our complete Into the Radius VR Walkthrough:

• Into The Radius Walkthrough And Guide - The First Mission - Equipment Retrieval

• Into The Radius Walkthrough And Guide - The Second Mission - Total Recall

• Into The Radius Walkthrough And Guide - Repeatable Missions

• Into The Radius Walkthrough And Guide - The Third Mission - Fixing A Leak

• Into The Radius Walkthrough And Guide - The Fourth Mission - Flash In The Dark

• Into The Radius Walkthrough And Guide - The Fifth Mission - A Probing Move

• Into The Radius Walkthrough And Guide - The Sixth Mission - The Intrusion

• Into The Radius Walkthrough And Guide - The Seventh Mission - A Farewell Feast

• Into The Radius Walkthrough And Guide - The Eighth Mission - Kids Playground

• Into The Radius Walkthrough And Guide - The Final Mission - Ouroboros

• All Into The Radius VR Endings and How To Reach Them

Here we’ll be talking about the eighth Top Priority mission that you get in Into The Radius, A Farewell Feast, which brings you back to Kolkhoz Zarya to explore and fight your way through the train station and summon a ghost train with a one of a kind artifact.

Kids Playground - Loadout

The Kids Playground mission involves a lot of medium to close range combat, so you don’t want to bring a weapon that’s meant for long ranges. Most of your fighting will be done in and around the train station, so an assault or battle rifle is ideal.

Since at this point you’ll be Security Level 5, you might as well sprint for the best. That’s why we’re using the FN17, the most powerful and versatile assault rifle in Into the Radius.

It does degrade quickly, but not so quickly that you will need to bring along cleaning supplies for this mission if using this weapon in your loadout.

Of course you don’t have to bring the FN17 (aka SCAR) yourself, and this mission is perfectly manageable with an upgraded SMG or Security Level 3 or 4 rifle. At this point you know what you like best, but make sure you’re ready for very heavy resistance.

A sample loadout for the Kids Playground mission

Other than your primary weapon you may want to upgrade your sidearm as well if you haven’t for a while. In this sample loadout we’re using the Desert Eagle, but other powerful pistols like the OC-33 or M9 are also great end game firearms.

If you can’t afford the upgrades just yet then don’t worry, you can still finish this mission as long as you have plenty of ammunition, healing items, and a full set of armor. While in many missions silencers can be helpful, for the Kids Playground mission they are actually arguably a drawback, and in any case are unnecessary.

Other than that this loadout is fairly standard, though if you have some grenades sitting around now might be a good time to bring some along and use them. They might come in handy when clearing out the train station, but they are not a requirement to complete the mission.

As always once you’re kitted out accept the mission and head off.

The mission description for Kids Playground on the Terminal

Getting to Kolkhoz Zarya

Just like in the last mission you’ll be headed back to Kolkhoz Zarya, and we’ll be taking the same route through Bolotky Village as last time.

So take the rope line leading to Bolotky and then immediately turn north. Your destination is at the northern end of the train tracks.

The route through Bolotky Village

Shoot the few enemies in the woods as you head north, and avoid the Web Anomalies.

As always you’ll probably run into a small cluster of enemies by the oil tanker near the rope line to Kolkhoz Zarya. They should be really easy for you by this point in the game, so don’t worry too much about them.

The route to Kolkhoz Zarya

Once you’re at the rope make sure your health is topped up, you’re well fed, and your magazines are fully loaded. Kolkhoz Zarya is where the fight really begins.

Kids Playground - The Train Station

Very conveniently this path will spit you out right next to the train station in Kolkhoz Zarya.

So you’re already near your objective, but you still have a choice of how to get inside. You could walk along the train tracks along the left side of the building and take the front entrance.

This is riskier than it may seem, as you can attract enemies from the fields further to the west, and even be spotted by the BTR. Not to mention once you get inside you’ll be in the middle of the trainyard and potentially surrounded by enemies on all sides. As you’ll see from this route we won’t be doing that.

The route to the train station in Kolkhoz Zarya

A less exposed approach to the train station, and the one that we will take, is to head around the right hand, eastern side of the building.

Go around the right side of the train station

Once you get on the east side of the wall you’ll see an anomaly field beside the building. Luckily you can get inside without having to walk through any anomlies.

Though there will certainly be enemies roaming around the exterior of the wall, so take them down. Once the outside of the wall is clear of enemies you’ll see a gate leading inside the train station compound.

The gate leading into the compound on the east side

Be careful when going through this gate. Once you go through you’ll possibly be exposed to a Mimic Solider in the rafters inside the train station.

A lot of mimics hide up in the upper catwalks and on top of the train cards inside of the train station. So one or two might be able to see you and fire on you as you go through the gate.

Taking out a Mimic Soldier from the gate

Take that mimic out and any that might walk outside to try and support it. Once the coast is clear get out of the gate and go to the right, where there is a long building.

You could go straight inside the train station if you want, you’ll want to clear it out anyway, but there will be mimics on either side of the opening leading into it on this side.

There are a ton of mimics inside the train station itself, and if you want to even the odds in the fight you have a few options.

Clearing Out The Train Station

There is a puzzle of sorts to spawn the train which carries the artifact, and we’ll get to that soon, but the main obstacle to your success in the Kids Playground mission is definitely the large amount of firearm equipped mimics in and around the train station.

Just running in is risky and will likely end up with you getting mowed down from a hidden mimic up in a rafter or waiting in ambush by one of the entrances.

So let’s play this smart. Once you’re inside the compound go the train yard through another gate, just keep going around the train station the way you’ve already been headed after taking that right from the gate.

The Train Yard

There are some train cars scattered around, and most likely a few enemies around them.

Take those enemies out, so that any that are left will only be inside the train station. Keep in mind that there’s likely also a Rift around, and if that Rift is inside of the train station it will respawn enemies if you take too long.

Either way you have some time, so a good strategy to use to lure some enemies out of the train station is to make some noise outside, which you likely did when clearing the enemies out outside of the train station anyway.

This will cause some of them to come wandering out, which makes them much easier targets.

Try to draw some of the mimics outside if you can

So take out whatever enemies you can lure, and then when you’re ready to go outside take the entrance on the western most side of the train station.

This way in has the fewest enemies watching it, and has plenty of cover.

Always keep an eye on the ceiling as there will be a few mimics that hang out up there and shoot down at you when they can see you.

Your first target should be the Rift if you can hear it. Once you’re inside go from firing position to firing position, wait for the mimics to come to you, and if they don’t go a little deeper.

Make sure you stay healed and methodically clear out the train station. There will likely be enemies hanging out in the corners and platforms, especially near the huge hangar door on the east side of the building.

The easiest way to get taken down is to be ambushed while out in the open, so stay near cover and be ready to react.

A lot of mimics will be on top of train cars or in hiding up high

Grenades aren’t necessary but can be especially helpful in flushing enemy pockets out without having to expose yourself to them, though grenades aren’t extremely effective in Into the Radius, so they’re more useful as a tool to force enemies to change position than to actually destroy them.

Once the train station is clear of enemies worry about completing the mission. Regardless there are some good loot spawns in there, and clearing the place out makes it easy to take everything that you can. Luckily you won’t have to walk back to Vanno.

Kids Playground - Solving the Train Puzzle

The puzzle to spawn the ghost train and the artifact it carries is actually very easy, you might even do it by accident while fighting the mimics in the station.

It starts with a black statue of a child out in the trainyard near the bridge to the north of the train yard.

The first child statue

Touch the statue and you’ll get your first clue: “If the driver’s cab is red, point your flashlight straight ahead!”

This refers to the train right in front of the smaller of the two gates into the train station. You’ll see it’s light glowing red. Shine a Head Lamp or other flashlight at the red light and you’ll hear a click as it disappears.

That’s the first half of the puzzle.

The train with the red light

Once you’ve done that, you’ll notice another child statue inside of the train station in front of one of the gates leading into the train yard itself.

Touch this statue to get the second clue: “If the driver’s cab in green, point your light and you will win!”

The second child statue

This refers to a second train that is right beside this second child statue.

Just as with the first train shine a Head Lamp or other flashlight on to the green light and you’ll hear a click as it disappears.

The green train

Once you do that just walk back out to the train yard, and you’ll see a big black train that looks like a mimic version of a train right in front of the gate that we took to get inside of the train station, or rather the gate with the train that had the red light.

This is the “ghost train” that I mentioned earlier.

The train that appears when you solve the puzzle

When you get close you’ll also notice your detector beeping.

Climb up one of the ladders on to the train car and use your detector to uncover the artifact that is the goal of your mission.

Uncovering the artifact on the train. Turn it in to complete the mission

Now all you have to do is leave. You can go back the way you came, or you can stay on the train.

It will shortly begin moving down the tracks, towards the little green flag on the edge of your map that marks a path back to Vanno.

If you haven’t already taken this path back and unlocked it then I highly recommend you stay on the train. Though if you haven’t already cleared the bridge that it will go across of enemies then they will fire at you as you pass by.

Escaping on the train

Luckily the train makes for an excellent piece of cover, so the fight shouldn’t be so hard, and you can just wait until the enemies are next to the train before lighting them up.

Of course if you prefer you can also just make your way across the bridge normally. If your playstyle is more methodical then being forced to constantly move towards enemies might not be ideal.

Once you’re back in Vanno turn in the artifact and you’ve completed the mission.

Whether you take the train or not, make sure to come back and open up that route back to Vanno, as we’ll be using it in the next, and final mission of Into the Radius, which I’ll cover in our final Into the Radius VR walkthrough article.

Huge Free Green Hell VR Update With The Spirits Of Amazonia Expansion

If you’re anything like me and have been hungering for more Green Hell VR after playing through the game multiple times then I’ve got some very exciting news for you.

There’s finally more Green Hell VR for you to sink your teeth into with the huge and free Green Hell VR update that has added the new Spirits of Amazonia expansion and is available both on the Oculus Quest and PSVR versions of the game.

This expansion, which was added to the flatscreen version of Green Hell a while ago, has finally come to Virtual Reality and most notably includes a whole new story campaign, gameplay mechanics, and map.

Though notably Spirits of Amazonia has not yet been added to the PCVR version of the game at the time of writing. Hopefully it will be coming. Hopefully it will be added soon, but according to the developer since PCVR is different from the Quest or PSVR versions it takes more effort to create.

What’s New In Green Hell VR: Spirits Of Amazonia

Green Hell VR: Spirits of Amazonia is a completely new story campaign for Green Hell VR.

So if you’ve already played the first campaign through, or enough to get the hang of it, and want to explore a new map with new game mechanics this is a great time to get back into Green Hell VR.

It’s refreshing starting in a brand new location without already knowing where to go and where everything you’ll need is, and in a lot of ways playing Spirits of Amazonia feels like playing the game for the first time all over again.

Getting ambushed at the start of Green Hell VR: Spirits of Amazonia

The Spirits of Amazonia expansion takes place on our main character’s first trip to the Amazon rainforest. You ride a boat down the river into the jungle, and are quickly ambushed by the hostile Waraha tribe.

However your life is saved by a friendly elder of the Mu`agi tribe.

This guy’s mask is awesome

Unfortunately the Mu`agi and other friendly tribes in the area have fallen on hard times, and are losing their war against the Waraha tribe.

This is where you come in. In Spirits of Amazonia you’re encouraged to explore for more than new equipment and to progress to the next area like in the base game.

Instead your primary focus is helping each tribe in various ways like healing their wounded warriors, uncovering their legends, and destroying the hostile Waraha.

Uncovering the legends of the local tribespeople generates a lot of trust and encourages you to explore the new map

SSince there are now friendly villages and NPCs, Green Hell VR feels like an inherently less lonely and oppressive experience than in the first game.

The villages are no longer just ruins, but semi living spaces with an elder you can talk to and torches that are lit up at night. There’s even some supplies that you can take from them.

Of course all of the dangers present in the base campaign are still present, and even increased in the case of the Waraha.

So for the additional challenge and story spoilers in this expansion, it’s recommended that you have played at least a little bit of the original Green Hell VR first.

What’s Next For Green Hell VR

You might have also noticed that what is currently available is only Part 1 of Spirits of Amazonia.

While the second part is already out on the flatscreen, it will still take a while to reach the Virtual Reality version of the game on PSVR or the Oculus Quest platforms.

You’ll be fighting a lot of Waraha warriors in Spirits of Amazonia

Another big addition to Green Hell VR that players have been wanting for some time now is the addition of Coop Green Hell VR multiplayer just like the flatscreen game has.

Unfortunately that is still not available, despite this massive update. We can assume that Part 2 of Spirits of Amazonia is in the works for Green Hell VR, and we do know that Green Hell VR Multiplayer is also planned to come as well..

The official Green Hell VR twitter account did tweet on April 13, 2023 that they’re planning on releasing multiplayer for Green Hell VR.

Then a Coop trailer was recently released on the Meta Youtube account that states a release date for Green Hell VR Coop some time in 2024.

Hopefully Green Hell VR Coop Multiplayer will be a reality soon, but in the meantime Spirits of Amazonia is a great way to revisit this fantastic VR Survival Game in the meantime.

Of course I’ll let you know here on Reality Remake when that happens, until then enjoy the Spirits of Amazonia update to Green Hell VR and have fun out there in the Virtual Reality jungle.

The Best VR MMORPGs That You Can Play Today On The Oculus Quest 2 and 3

You might be wondering what VR MMORPGs and VR MMOs are out there to try, and what they’re like as a new player.

Well whether you’re playing standalone on an Oculus Quest 2 or Oculus Quest 3 headset, or playing on PCVR, there are several VR MMORPGs out there to try.

There are still other VR MMORPGs in development, or rumored to be, the amount of VR MMOs that you can actually play today is still not very large. Regardless if you want to get that MMORPG feeling in Virtual Reality, one of these may very well suit you.

While they definitely vary in quality, gameplay mechanics, and style, VR is definitely taking off as a unique way to experience the MMORPG genre.

So in this article we’ll be taking a look at each of the available VR MMOs from a new player’s perspective, examining what the early game experience looks like, and determining the strengths and weaknesses of every VR MMORPG currently avaialble.

You might want to wait until new titles appear, though if you really want to get the MMO experience in VR then one of these games will surely give you that.

Ilysia - VR MMOs and VR MMORPGs

The Ilysia Logo

Ilysia is the latest entry into the VR MMORPG arena, and has definitely seen the least amount of development effort and time than other titles.

You can definitely tell that Ilysia hasn’t had a lot of development time, and is for all intents and purposes in an Alpha stage at the moment. There are quite a few bugs, but we won’t be focusing on those here.

Instead let’s talk about the gameplay, starting from the beginning.

Character Creation in Ilysia

After making an account and logging in Ilysia immediately drops you into a tutorial area with a few quests to destroy dummies and talk to the skill trainer.

All around are little blue globes that, when you activate them with trigger, give you a tutorial prompt with some ghostly dialog narrating it.

This is a decent tutorial area, but what becomes immediately obvious when playing Ilysia is how dull and undercooked it is not only technically, but in its design as well.

To be fair to the developers it’s no secret that this game still has a lot of development ahead of it, but what already exists doesn’t paint a very pretty picture for the future of this game.

After all, any future additions will have to be built on top of this foundation of… whatever this is.

Fighting in Ilysia is incredibly boring and unresponsive

Even ignoring all the choppiness when running this game on a new Oculus Quest 3, everything is a little off and a little janky.

You run incredibly fast, but if you look down you can see your character’s legs running at an unnatural angle, like their feet start extended forty five degrees out from their body.

Your legs look extremely weird when running or walking, then again so does almost everything else

The NPCs share a lot of models, and despite playing this game shortly after the addition of a new patch to update the graphics for the Quest 3, the environments still look weird.

Like a lake that I found where the water was constantly rushing around, despite being an inland lake that should have pretty still waters.

This is common problem in VR MMORPGs, but Ilysia gives an even worse impression of a living world than others.

The UI is not fantastic for anything. This is a Quest from an NPC

There’s an interesting looking skill system, but you only start with a single point, which I spent on a magic missile type damage dealing ability.

Magic is interesting, but gets boring quickly, draw a rune in the air to cast a spell once you’ve unlocked the ability, and then fire it at your enemy.

I tried each method of combat, melee, bows, and magic, and found them all to be similarly lackluster. Mostly due to the fact that all of the enemies you fight operate like World Of Warcraft NPCs, except without any meaningful skills differentiating them.

You hit them, they run at you and hit you, and just kind of stand in place while you trade blows. Unlike World Of Warcraft you have basically no abilities to give you any additional decisions during this combat.

You just stand there, swing or shoot your weapon, and rinse and repeat until the enemy is done. Unlike in other VR MMORPGs these enemies are basically all the same and despite having different models and amounts of health aren’t mechanically different.

They don’t have special abilities or magic. They just run up to you and try to bite you.

Fighting a wolf with magic

In all honesty I didn’t play too much of Ilysia, because there was nothing exciting to look forward to.

It’s also worth nothing that the entire time I played it and progressed through multiple zones, I didn’t run into a single other player, which isn’t a very good sign.

After completing the Tutorial island I found myself shipwrecked.

The quests by the shipwreck were the same as on the Tutorial island. They’re all a combination of the classic kill or gather sorts of quests, and all of the interaction with quest objects is done by pointing your hand at an object and pressing a button to collect the thing. Very little use is made of VR controls.

Ilysia feels like a port of an ancient free to play abandonware MMORPG ported to VR. There was really nothing exciting happening, compounded by the long run from the shipwreck to the nearest town.

For some reason this game loves to make you walk long distances, which would be a great way to show off nice environments if this game looked good at all.

You’ve got to run around a lot in Ilysia and that might be the most pleasant part of the experience

Ilysia needs to completely replace and rethink large parts of its systems and gameplay to be more interesting at the start.

Despite being driven to find out as much as I could to tell you all about this game I didn’t have any gas left in me to continue after reaching the first major Town that had a lot of quests in it.

The only part of this game that constituted gameplay was the combat, and the combat was terrible. Everything else was just walking around, pointing and clicking, with very little story or world to back it up.

I had the vaguest of notions of who I was or what was going on, and so an interesting world didn’t propell Ilysia into being anything more than mediocre.

Maybe in time it will get better, maybe in a lot of time, but a lot of things need to be rebuilt from the ground up for that to happen. There are much better VR MMO alternatives where you should spend your time and money.

OrbusVR: Reborn - VR MMOs and VR MMORPGs

The OrbusVR: Reborn Logo

While Ilysia is the newest VR MMORPG to come out, OrbusVR: Reborn is by far the oldest, having recently celebrated its 5th anniversary at the time of writing.

I first tried OrbusVR when I first got into Virtual Reality gaming, and at the time it was the only VR MMO around, and just like Ilysia it shares a somewhat generic and blocky fantasy aesthetic. It’s not the best looking VR game out there by a long shot.

My memories of OrbusVR were mostly of being confused as to what I was supposed to do and how everything worked, and then a lot of repetitive waving my arm around trying to attack little wooden people.

I gained a few levels, progressed to harder enemies, and got some more abilities, before realizing any further progression would really be a grind I wasn’t ready for, and decided to head off to different, non MMORPG VR games.

This memory would prove to be both right and wrong. The first thing I noticed when trying OrbusVR: Reborn again is the new tutorial.

The New Tutorial is Fantastic

Instead of wandering around aimlessly and not really knowing what to do, where anything was, or where to go, this time OrbusVR had a very long, but very informative tutorial.

It was an extremely pleasant surprise, and despite my experience with the game, I was already learning new things almost immediately.

A good tutorial is absolutely vital to the experience of a new player to a VR MMORPG, and it was fantastic to see that OrbusVR: Reborn had finally included one.

I quickly knew how to do missions for experience and rewards, how to use the various menus, how to play my class and progress, how to try other classes, and how to craft potions with alchemy (among other things).

Each class gets its own combat tutorial for their different combat mechanics

One of the best parts of OrbusVR: Reborn is its variety of classes that you can choose from, and the fact that you can switch between any class that you like on the same character. So there’s really no need to create more than one to try different classes.

There are some that are more digestable to beginners like the Paladin or Warrior, and involve a lot of swinging and throwing weapons, and those that encourage finesse a little more like the Musketeer and Runemage.

Of course like a lot of VR MMORPGs (and MMOs in general) most of what you’ll be doing in OrbusVR is combat, and right off of the bat the ability to choose from and play around with multiple different classes without needing to create a whole new character for each one is a great strength of this game.

That being said, the combat in this game repeats a lot. It has the same problem as any other VR MMO due to the nature of the genre.

The combat becomes repetitive, and you get kind of tired of waving your arms around in the same way to defeat tens to hundreds of enemies you need to grind for a mission.

Of course though, if you’re looking for a VR MMO that’s what you should expect.

Fighting enemies with a friend

In OrbusVR: Reborn you engage an enemy, and they either run up to you to attack, or cast some spell at you from a distance.

What makes this VR MMO slightly more interesting than others is that the enemies won’t just stand in place while they attack you. Instead they’ll jump from spot to spot around you, so you’re forced to turn and attack them from a different direction.

This gives them a little more variety during combat even when they’re just simple enemies who attack you in melee over and over, and most enemies are not so simple.

Very quickly enemies evolve from punching bags to punching bags with explosives strapped on them. When this enemy gets to low health you need to back away from them, or get blown up.

Fighting a lot of enemies with a lot of people in a Public Event

Then, suddenly, they’ve also got ranged magic.

In a very short time after starting the game you’ll encounter various enemy types that make you fight them in different ways

Each class has its own mechanics, the Runemage draws symbols to cast spells

Combat in any VR MMORPG gets grindy over time, after all a centerpiece of the MMO genre is needing to farm enemies over and over again for rewards.

I have to say that OrbusVR does a very good job at making fighting those enemies engaging from very early on in the game, and you do advance up to new enemy types quickly. That’s not even the best part.

What really makes OrbusVR: Reborn stand up head and shoulders above other games in the VR MMORPG space is how friendly the people are. Interactions with others in the game is what makes an MMORPG different from just a normal RPG, the people.

Very early on I ran into a ton of others who were willing to group up with me to fight monsters and do other various things.

You’ll come across other players all of the time in OrbusVR

Though the combat is arguably not the best of any VR MMORPG, what made it a lot of fun was experiencing that combat while hanging out with other players.

Very soon I found myself in the middle of one of the many public events, fighting waves of enemies while cracking jokes and generally having a good time.

Of course if you’re a little older keep in mind that a decent portion of the playerbase is obviously fairly young from their voices and short avatars, but in my time in OrbusVR I didn’t run into a single screeching, screaming kid. Everyone was nice, enthusiastic, and very helpful.

As you might see in the screenshots the class I chose to focus on was Runemage, and Runemages draw runes in the air to cast spells to deal damage. You’re encouraged to explore to find new runes for more powerful spells… or someone else can tell them to you, just like a very friendly player I ran into early on.

This museum showcases the various enemies you’ll fight in this VR MMORPG

I learned more about OrbusVR from other players than I did from any in game tutorial, and at the end of the day that’s what a good MMORPG is all about, fostering a community that is encouraged to play with and help each other to get more powerful and overcome the challenges of the game.

The gameplay is good and emulates what you traditionally do in MMORPGs well in Virtual Reality with great use of various types of hand controls and interactions in the different classes.

Though what really makes OrbusVR shine is the experiences you have in it playing with others.

Zenith: The Last City - VR MMOs and VR MMORPGs

The Zenith: The Last City Logo

Zenith: The Last City might not have been around as long as Orbus and may not be as new as Ilysia, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t show anything new or lack for content.

In fact since its release Zenith has seen a ton of major updates, including the addition of a new class, and big additions to skills, quests, progression, and even a large new area for players just starting out.

So when you begin your journey through Zenith it’s not in the same way as someone who started the game on release experienced it. I played this game for a while at release, and more recently as well when the newest class was unlocked, and so the new player experience was already well known to me.

Shooting a polygonal enemy in Zenith

Zenith has improved a lot over time for players starting out, and those a little further along, though the basis of its exploration and gameplay hasn’t changed too much.

As a new player you start in a tutorial area, where a few basic quests and some animated voiceovers presented by NPCs in cyber fantasy Facetime will tell you what to do and kind of what’s going on.

While the story they attempt to convey is generic and ultimately meaningless to what you do, the tutorial is extremely effective at teaching you how to play Zenith is a pretty entertaining way.

You’ll notice pretty quickly that Zenith: The Last City is unlike these over VR MMOs in that it has a more futuristic technology themed fantasy aesthetic and setting.

Zenith has a very sci fi fantasy look to it

You’ll also notice when creating a character that the class choices seem kind of limited. A close combat Blade Master, a ranged combat Essence Mage, and the combination melee and ranged Cyber Ninja.

This is kind of an illusion, since the Blade Master and Essence Mage have specializations for each traditional MMORPG role, DPS (deal damage), Tank (absorb damage), and Healer (heal damage), while the Cyber Ninja is meant for DPS.

So your class choice comes down to how you want to fight, up close, at range, or both.

Regardless of your choice, combat seems more refined from the outset in Zenith, and quickly offers a wide range of mechanics and skills to make combat more than just swinging your arms or pressing trigger over and over again.

Combat in Zenith is pretty good, if occasionally buggy and floaty

Though before you notice that when starting the game you’ll probably notice the story first, or rather what starts out as sort of a story in the tutorial area, and then quickly tapers off into fairly generic feeling quests once you really start the game.

Zenith: The Last City is not a VR MMORPG that impresses with its world building. The world is more fun to look at and explore than other VR MMOs, we’ll talk more about that in a moment here, but after the tutorial there’s not much of a story to speak of despite there being a main quest line.

There’s sort of a world around you too, the last city is under attack and the world is corrupted, but it’s really more utilitarian in that it just gives you a reason for there to be enemies to fight literally everywhere you go that isn’t the city or a major outpost.

You can craft new gear too

While we’re talking about negative things you’ll also likely notice when playing Zenith that it can be poorly optimized at points. You’ll be seeing a lot of pop in for other characters, and sometimes even your own limbs, and that it’s got a lot of bugs.

This is probably because of the quick pace of development for this game, and can be gotten used to, but it’s still disappointing whenever you see one. If you’re not tolerant of bugs or a bit of jankiness then Zenith might not be the VR MMORPG for you.

Though you might change your mind when hearing about the combat. While there isn’t as wide of a breadth of combat choices in Zenith as there is in Orbus, Zenith does have a very well developed combat system.

Combat differs for each class, but there are some general similarities like weak points you can hit, or combos that encourage you to hit a different part of an opponent’s body in sequence.

As already mentioned there are also a lot of different abilities to choose from and different character builds to explore no matter what class or specialization you’ve levelled.

The skill tree for a Blademaster in Zenith

There are also some unique enemies that are basically bosses, which you’ll notice early on in the game. Enemies generally have varying types of attacks, and while there are maybe a few too many generic melee attacking enemies you will have to change things up from time to time.

Though I’ve saved the best for last with Zenith, and that’s the exploration. This is what Zenith: The Last City does that no other VR MMORPG has done well.

In the other examples here you get around purely with slide movement or teleportation, and this isn’t the most interesting way to travel around. While Zenith also has these options it expands on them a lot by letting you fly,

Gliding is the best way to get around in this VR MMO

That’s right, you can fly around in Zenith by jumping, using your hookshot to latch on to the environment and launch yourself, and by gliding while you’re in the air.

It’s a ton of fun, and exploring Zenith’s beautiful worlds is made very interesting by the fact that you can climb and fly around basically anywhere to find new areas, collectible items for upgrades, and so much more.

What Zenith definitely does best is its take on VR MMO exploration. While the rest of the game comes down to a lot of grinding enemies, grinding public events, and grinding resource nodes just like any other VR MMORPG, what makes Zenith truly stand out is how free you are to move around and explore.

Though unfortunately August 2024 will see the release of the last patch deployed for Zenith: The Last City, and though the servers will remain up the game will not be receiving further updates.

That’s all for our exploration of every VR MMORPG currently available. When more come out then they’ll be added to this article. Feel free to leave a comment with whichever of these is your favorite, and no matter what you play have fun out there in Virtual Reality.