Is PCVR Dying? Steam Hardware Survey Shows VR Users Stagnating

The conversation of “VR Is Dead” or “VR Is Dying” pops up on social media, especially X (Twitter), every now and again.

Strong sales of VR headsets in general in the early 2020s proved this continual conversation to be wrong, at least until the recent stagnation of VR headset sales in 2023.

United States headset sales, according to CNBC, went down nearly forty percent in 2023. This is pretty shocking news to someone who is a Virtual Reality fan and wants to see others enjoy VR as much as possible.

This could be attributed to a number of things, like the cessation of COVID restrictions on living and travel, or simply market fatigue and general awareness of Virtual Reality reaching its peak. What the VR headset sales numbers don’t show you, however, is how many games existing users are buying, and most importantly how often existing users are using their headsets.

While we don’t have either of these numbers for what appears to be the most popular way to enjoy VR, standalone headsets like the Meta Quest, we do have some PCVR information from the March 2024 Steam Hardware Survey.

The “VR Headsets” results from the March 2024 Steam Hardware Survey.

This information is much more useful than headset sales. It doesn’t matter how many headsets get sold if new adopters don’t use it, or those already playing VR stop using it. While it would be great to have some numbers for how often standalone headsets get used, we can at least see if PCVR is still popular.

Most PCVR games are played through Steam, and what we see here in the hardware survey isn’t encouraging. You would think with new headsets still being continually sold in the millions that we would have at least a slight uptick in the amount of Steam users with VR headsets.

Yet we have a slight decrease, basically a net neutral change. In fact, what’s even more alarming is the decrease in PCVR usage among Quest users. Could this potentially be pointing to a stagnation in Quest usage or just a stagnation in people streaming PCVR games to their Quest?

Either way with continual sales of VR headsets it’s not encouraging to see that PCVR numbers are not increasing. That being said, the cost of both a headset and a PC capable of playing VR games is limiting and means that far fewer people have access to PCVR in general.

So PCVR is stagnating according to Steam. Is PCVR dead? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

Medieval Dynasty VR Review - A Good VR Crafting and Building Game

Today we're going to get in depth with Medieval Dynasty New Settlement, a VR port by Spectral Games of the flatscreen game Medieval Dynasty by Render Cube.

The flatscreen game has been around for a while, originally released in 2021, and according to Steam reviews is pretty well received and sold well. Medieval Dynasty New Settlement, or rather Medieval Dynasty VR, is a rebuilding of the concept of the original flatscreen game from the ground up for the Meta Quest, and features the same focus on surviving, crafting, and building yourself up from a simple peasant to the well respected owner of your own sprawling medieval estate, except now it's all in Virtual Reality!

Building a wall in Medieval Dynasty New Settlement

Medieval Dynasty VR Is Focused On Creating

So how is it? Well if you're a fan of chiller and less action oriented VR experiences that involve a lot of crafting, building, and generally just doing virtual tasks like chopping trees, mining, and making virtual items over and over as you build your settlement and expand your wealth, then you'll find a lot to love in this game.

That is if you can get past the many bugs and technical issues this game has, as well as some very lazy feeling oversights that make the game feel kind of rushed overall, though hopefully those will be fixed with more patches like the first hotfix that just came out.

While you'll rarely fight for your life and really have to focus on how to "survive" in Medieval Dynasty New Settlement, there's a lot of satisfaction to be had in its many different kinds of crafting systems, and mostly in turning a pristine wilderness into your own vision of a medieval town.

That's because you start the game in both the Adventure and Sandbox modes as a nobody with hardly anything but the clothes on your back. As a new arrival to Green Valley, you've got to do some virtual work to establish yourself

Chopping down a tree in Medieval Dynasty VR

Work Your Way From Peasant To Lord

First, you build a house, do some tasks for the locals to get their respect, and learn more about what you can create through either the quests in Adventure mode or just trying out new things as you please in Sandbox mode. At the start, nobody knows or respects you, and you've got nothing but an empty plot of land and ambition.

You have to gather resources with your VR hands, and then with those same hands use those resources to build more buildings on your land and craft various items to use or sell. Over time you can even hire people to work on your estate for you, and romance and marry to have children and continue your dynasty. Medieval Dynasty VR aims to be a medieval life simulator like the first game, and largely succeeds at this, while also incorporating all of the magic of physically performing the work you need to do these things with VR tracked hand controls.

Sandbox mode releases you into the game world capable of building anything that you want, while Adventure mode has a series of story quests for you to do centered around the two existing towns in Green Valley. These quests function like extended tutorials with a lot of reading text boxes and fetching items for people in between.

The story itself wasn't hugely interesting, and really got boring at some points, but it would shortly pick itself back up with an exciting journey into the unknown or a new type of building or type of crafting to try.

There are many Quests to do in this VR game, but many of them end up feeling the same

In adventure mode you unlock new buildings by doing story quests, and while that was a little frustrating at times, for instance not being able to do any sort of farming until VERY far into the game, the quests do function as a great way for the game to naturally teach you its many gathering and crafting systems.

If you want to be taught how to do all of the things you can do in Medieval Dynasty VR and have a little story to go along with it, then I'd recommend Adventure mode, but if you just want to go wild and do whatever you please then Sandbox might be more your speed. Though Sandbox feels a little less fleshed out without the quest system to give the world of Green Valley more context and character.

Medieval Dynasty New Settlement Looks Great

Speaking of character, this game looks really fantastic on the Meta Quest 3. With the usual limitations given by the hardware of a standalone headset, the team over at Spectral Games has done a great job of depicting the wilderness of Green Valley in the warmer seasons, and especially in Winter.

Look at that snow!

The landscape is dense with crafting resources to gather and animals to hunt. Not to mention the many secrets and treasures to dig up spread across the map. This VR game looks fantastic and is one of the best depictions of a natural environment seen so far on the Quest.

The sound is also great, with the chirping of birds, clanging of hammers, and animal calls all sounding crisp and greatly adding to the immersion to the wilderness around you as well as the physical actions you're doing.

The sound design does falter in a couple of places though. Especially at night. No matter what you're doing the usual relaxed ambient music is replaced by the same creepy, scary musical track. Nighttime isn't that dangerous, and so this choice to make it always sound like it is was certainly a weird one.

Even a satisfyingly productive late night at the forge is ruined when you've got this ominous music constantly playing in your ears. I'd often go to sleep just to not have to listen to it anymore.

The sounds for people also aren't very good. A lot of the villagers sound weirdly depressed when you're saying goodbye despite that voice line not matching their character in the quest text. Also, some lone bandits will yell a victory cry while sounding like three bandits at once before running away. This is probably a bug though.

This Is A Very Buggy Game At Release

Medieval Dynasty New Settlement was released with a lot of bugs and inconsistencies. Like how its entries in the in game encyclopedia are sometimes wrong, like this one stating that copper can't be mined with a stone pickaxe... though it actually can, or a child butt sliding across the floor instead of walking.

I couldn’t get around this bug, so I never finished Adventure mode in Medieval Dynasty VR

One hotfix is already in place, and hopefully, more fixes and support will be given to this game going forward, but the release version has a rushed and unfinished feeling. Like the entrance to a mine clearly just being a door in front of a wall of rock. I could give a lot of examples of this, but if you're playing this game soon after the publication of this article expect some jankiness and issues.

The biggest problem I ran into actually cut my Adventure mode playthrough short when I was getting close to the end. Darkness consumed my world despite the lit torch in my hand. Trying different torches didn't help, nor did reloading a save. I couldn’t see… forever.

I definitely didn't want to redo all of those hours of fetch quests to reach the end. Luckily this at least freed me from the burden of carrying around all those quest items that were no longer relevant but were taking up inventory slots because the game refused to let me drop them. Hopefully, these issues will be fixed in time, and if you're seeing this article far in the future they hopefully already have.

Medieval Dynasty VR Is Great At Gathering, Building, Crafting, and Not Much Else

Let's talk more about how this game actually plays. Most of what you do in Medieval Dynasty VR is gather resources and make things out of those resources. There's even money you can sell goods for, but you can't buy too many things, and mostly money is for paying your workers and paying your taxes.

Buying pigs at the local market

It would be nice to have been able to buy fertilizer for a farm without having to make your own pigpen just to get some, while seeds are purchasable because you can't make them yourself.

So the economy is barebones, and so are the NPCs. Without a quest they just bark one of the same few lines of dialog at you and wander around, or are either hireable workers or romanceable women with little personality.

Where Medieval Dynasty New Settlement really shines is its many different kinds of crafting. Each crafting station has its own systems for making things physically with your VR hands. If you want to make some stew to keep you fed for the day you select your recipe, chop up your ingredients, throw them in the pot, light the fire under it, and stir to completion before dipping a bowl in and eating up.

Soup will easily feed you forever in this VR “survival” game

Though it is odd that stew left in the pot disappears after you sleep, while stew in bowls does not. There are a lot of weird little quirks to this game just like that.

The crafting is generally great though, and is the strongest part of this game. Making pots involves molding clay on a potter's wheel with your hands, and making tools in the smithy involves its own system of heating up ingots, beating them into shape, and adding a handle.

Gathering resources involves a lot of physically chopping down trees and physically swinging your pick at rocks in dark caves. You can also physically pick up resources off of the ground, and you will need to do that a lot.

Magically vacuuming up reeds is something you’ll have to do a lot

The world of Medieval Dynasty VR is held together with Reeds. So many things need Reeds. The world would collapse without them. The same goes for various sizes of sticks. Luckily you can easily pick up these items quickly whenever you see them by pointing at them and pressing the trigger, which transfers them to your inventory.

Does this lack immersion? Sure, but you can still physically grab them and put them away in your backpack if you like.

Mining in a Dark Cave in Medieval Dynasty New Settlement… see how this stone pick can mine copper?

Building crafting stations and then crafting things with those stations is a very relaxing experience, and also the most fun part of this game. The satisfaction of making something from nothing with your hands is where Medieval Dynasty New Settlement really shines. You can even hire workers to gather materials for you so that you can focus on more crafting and more journeying.

Though it's in the more adventurous elements that this VR survival game doesn't shine nearly as much. While being billed as a survival title, the survival elements are entirely optional.

Keeping yourself watered and fed isn't much of a problem. A pot full of mushroom stew will last you at least two days, and you can make those very early on in the game. You'll need some water every day too... but wells and streams are everywhere. Keeping your bars full isn't ever as much of a challenge as it is in other games like Green Hell VR.

So does the combat add a fun survival challenge? Not really. It's very easy. I quickly discovered that just poking enemies with your spear while backing away works against basically anything. If you're hurt because your finger slipped off the thumbstick just eat a bunch of your plentiful food and you'll quickly feel better. The combat is laughably simple and clearly an afterthought. To be interesting it would need to be redone from the ground up.

Bandits aren’t much of a threat in this VR game, really no enemies are

Hunting intersects with this and is also where the gathering part of the game is at its weakest. Arrows simply would not register as hits half of the time, even when they clearly were. The animals are frightfully stupid and not a challenge to simply chase down with a spear, so why bother attacking them from a distance? Either way just skinning more aggressive varieties of critters like wolves, bears, and boars left me with plenty of leather and food.

There are some neat mysteries to explore and discover in the Green Valley, though some centered around finding hidden treasure chests spread across the map, and to be honest I don't find scouring every inch of such a large map for mounds of dirt to be very compelling. Maybe it would be to you, but I've walked these roads quite a lot and I think I've walked them enough.

My Sandbox playthrough of Medieval Dynasty New Settlement ended when I realized that I'd built all of the production buildings I could want, hired some workers, and now had a pretty self-sufficient setup going.

Then I wondered... what now? I'd done the virtual work, fun as it was, and created a little estate for myself out of nothing. Now I would use those resources to... make it bigger? Why? Maybe I quit too early before any more intriguing challenges came up, but I didn't see Medieval Dynasty VR giving a satisfying endgame now that I was a successful farmer and local craftsman.

There was possibly the aforementioned exploration to try and some secrets to still uncover, sure, but the lack of compelling survival mechanics or combat to complicate exploration made that feel like a chore.

Wolves aren’t much of a threat either, but give you lots of leather and meat

There were repeatable quests scattered around to get more reputation and money, but I had enough of those things already. Outside of technical and polish issues that's where Medieval Dynasty New Settlement is most disappointing. Once your dynasty is set and you've built yourself up, there's nowhere to go from there.

Maybe the quests in Adventure mode might have given a more satisfying resolution, but there's no way I’m going to rebuild from scratch a third time and do all those fetch quests again to find out. Maybe if Medieval Dynasty VR had multiplayer that would extend the fun as well, and Spectral Games has announced plans to introduce a Coop mode on their roadmap, which also includes bug fixes.

Getting to this point involved many pleasurable hours in this game, and I got a lot more entertainment out of Medieval Dynasty VR than I get out of most VR games. So if you want to build a medieval settlement of your own, and gather and craft your way to the pinnacle of success, I'd recommend Medieval Dynasty New Settlement, despite the higher than usual asking price of thirty dollars on the Meta Quest store.

If you want a survival or combat focused experience, look elsewhere, but if you love VR gathering and crafting this is the game for you. As long as you don't mind a bit of jank that is.

If you’ve tried Medieval Dynasty VR, let me know in the comments, do you agree that the crafting is good and the survival and combat is bad? What do you think about the endgame of Medieval Dynasty New Settlement?

Planing wood to make planks, one of the many great kinds of crafting in this game.

As always enjoy yourself out there in Virtual Reality, this has been Reality Remake.

Keep Your VR Headset Lenses Clean And Away From The Sun - A Public Service Announcement

If there’s one thing that can ruin a Virtual Reality headset it is dirty lenses. So in this Public Service Announcement, I’m going to tell you why you should keep your lenses clean and some tips for how to do it.

This advice goes for any pair of VR goggles out there. The Meta Quest 1, 2, 3, and Pro. Both PSVR headsets. The Pico 4. The Valve Index, and any of the other wide range of PCVR only HMDs.

Virtual Reality Is Worse With Dirty Lenses

Do you really want your VR headset lenses to be dirty? Isn’t it obvious that playing VR games, or doing anything in VR would be worse if your VR headset lenses are dirty?

Dirty lenses will make things harder to see in VR because you’ll be looking through a film of grease and dust before you see what your headset is trying to show you and immerse you in. It’s sort of like if someone forced you to wear glasses that were dirty in real life.

Greasy Virtual Reality headset lenses will reduce your immersion, make you squint to see things, and overall make your time in VR less enjoyable.

So let’s talk about some ways to fix this.

Please Clean Your VR Lenses Regularly

Seriously, it just takes a second, and it’s easy! About to put your headset on? Then just pick up a microfiber cloth and give your lenses a quick swabbing.

You don’t have to scrub them or put any elbow grease into it. Actually, you shouldn’t. Be gentle and wipe once or twice for each lens. Fast, easy, clean, and now you will be able to see.

Don’t have a microfiber cloth? Well, I didn’t either when I got my first VR HMD. They’re really cheap on Amazon, a good set meant for cleaning lenses costs about ten dollars before tax and shipping.

Microfiber cloths are a great way to clean your Virtual Reality lenses

Make sure your cleaning cloth isn’t dirty by the way, if there are bits of dirt in the cloth then you’re just going to rub them into the lenses of your VR goggles and scratch them up. The only thing worse than dirty lenses is scratched lenses. You can’t just wipe scratches off.

Maybe you’re concerned that this easy method won’t be good enough, or you just haven’t been able to get the grease off of your lenses. Well then give a lens pen a try. These are meant to clean cameras and other delicate lenses for professional work.

While I don’t use a lens pen some people swear by them and say that if a microfiber cloth won’t get grease or grit off of lenses then a lens pen will.

If microfiber just isn’t cutting it a lens pen could be the answer

What NOT To Do With Your Headset

Here are a lot of common issues I’ve seen on various social media platforms, and I’m just going to address all of them here. Hopefully, this saves a few people’s headsets.

Seriously, they’re at least several hundred dollars apiece and I’d hate to lose mine just because I didn’t know how to take care of it. I’m not trying to be a know-it-all or a jerk here, just trying to help everyone have fun with functioning VR headsets instead of broken ones.

So here are a few quick things never to do.

1. Never leave your headset in natural sunlight. If the sun hits the lenses it will burn holes into them that will cause permanent spots and basically ruin the entire VR experience if you try and use it. Seriously, sun damaged lenses look really bad. You can take your VR headset outside, but don’t take it off. Really it’s better to never expose your goggles to sunlight at all and keep them indoors. You can also put lens caps on your headset while storing them so they can’t get hit by sunlight or scratched when you’re not using them.

2. Don’t use liquid cleaning products on your lenses. It’s not going to clean them better and you can easily damage your headset this way. Seriously, it’s not worth even trying.

3. Don’t leave your headset somewhere that it can be chewed by pets or mishandled by kids. VR headsets are actually kind of fragile, and once your controller doesn’t turn on you’ve got to either get a new pair or send them back to the manufacturer, which will take a long time, a long time that you won’t be able to enjoy VR. A broken headset is even worse, so be gentle with it and don’t let it get chewed or thrown around.

Well, that about covers it for this PSA. Hopefully, this helped you out and your VR headset will remain functional until you want to upgrade it to a better one.

Escape Simulator Adds Free VR Mode In Latest Update

Flatscreen game Escape Simulator has now added a new Virtual Reality mode in its latest update on April 3, 2024. Escape Simulator VR is free as long as you own Escape Simulator, so you can play this escape room game in Virtual Reality via PCVRor on the flatscreen as long as you have it.

Escape Simulator is a puzzle game that puts you, and some friends too with the game’s multiplayer, into a number of escape rooms with different themes and puzzles. You’ll have to solve these puzzles and use your intelligence and wit to escape from these rooms. There are even new rooms to escape from added as well for long time fans.

While Escape Simulator VR has not come to standalone platforms like the Quest yet, it’s a great addition to the puzzling genre on the PCVR platform. The following is a quote from the press release given by developer Pine Studio:

“The popular first-person escape puzzler Escape Simulator and all its additional content is now available in VR! Following the great success of the original Escape Simulator with more than 2 million players worldwide, developer Pine Studio rebuilt the game from scratch for the VR version. You can now experience it in VR with any set that supports Steam VR either by yourself or with up to 8 players (optimally 2-3). Don’t know anyone with a compatible VR headset? You can also team up players who aren’t using VR!

Even more so than the original version, Escape Simulator VR is a highly immersive and interactive gaming experience. Pick up and examine every item you can find as if you were in the room yourself and toss (literally!) everything you deem irrelevant. Supported locomotion types are controller-based movement, smooth move and teleporting, as is the full room-scale setting and snap-turning. It is also possible to play the game while seated.

Escape Simulator VR is included in the base game, meaning that everybody who already owns the game can now access the VR version for free! For those who have yet to purchase the game, this update will be their last chance to gain access to the vast amount of content it offers at a lower price. After April 14th, the price will increase in accordance with the impressive increase in content.

All 29 rooms from the base game are escapable in Escape Simulator VR, consisting of the tutorial room, the four original theme packs, the 2 Versus rooms, the 6 extra one-off rooms such as Leonardo’s Workshop. What’s more, all the original DLCs — the Steampunk, Wild West and Magic DLCs — are receiving similar updates. Everyone who already owns these can now also play them in VR at no additional cost! The same goes for the free Portal Escape Chamber and Among Us DLCs.

The VR update comes with good news for Escape Simulator’s passionate community and all its room-makers: besides the Pine Studio’s content, most of the 4.000 community-made rooms are now also available to enjoy in VR! With all these additional rooms at your disposal, there is more than enough content to keep you and your friends busy for a long time to come.”

— PINE STUDIO

For fans of the puzzle and escape room genres that experience Virtual Reality via PCVR, check out Escape Simulator VR for more puzzles and a lot of rooms to escape from alone or with your friends.

Cards And Tankards Review - The Best VR Card Game On Meta Quest and PCVR

At first, I thought that the idea of a VR digital trading Card Game was unnecessary and kind of stupid. Why add VR controls to a digital card game when you can represent the same mechanics with a flat screen and a mouse, or even a phone?

After experiencing this game I realised I was dead wrong.

Cards and Tankards is the BEST VR Card Game around, and in this review, I'm going to tell you why. I first came across this game when researching the possibility of writing an article over at realityremake.com about the Best VR Card Games.

A game of Cards and Tankards

While I did find some other good examples of VR card games, none kept my interest quite as much as Cards and Tankards, and none fits the mold of what I'd consider a Virtual Reality card game nearly as well. Cards and Tankards VR is exactly what you would expect of a VR Card Game. You draw cards and use your available mana to play creatures and cast spells to defeat your opponent by draining their life points to 0. It’s the classic competitive card game formula but in VR.

Cards and Tankards can be played against the AI or competitively against other players and features quite a few different cards that you can put in your deck to use during your matches. They even recently released a whole new set of them.

You can get new cards from packs earned with the currency you receive by playing games, win or lose, and you can customize the starter decks you receive in the game and even build your own from scratch. There are all sorts of combinations that you can pull off with the right cards. You might call Cards and Tankards “VR Hearthstone” and I’m sure somebody out there has, but there are many notable differences between this game and Blizzard’s.

In Cards and Tankards you end the turn by flipping over an hourglass

A Game That Makes You Feel Like You’re Actually Playing Cards With Someone Else

Before I talk about the mechanics of Cards and Tankards I'll start with what makes this a truly unique in the trading card game scene, and that's that it can be played entirely in a VR headset. It can also be played without a VR headset for those without one, but for this Cards and Tankards VR review I'll be talking about how the game feels and plays when tried as originally intended, in Virtual Reality.

What's best about playing Cards and Tankards is how much more immersive the entire experience feels when compared to playing a digital card game on a flat screen. Since the release of Hearthstone, there have been a lot of digital card games, but none has captured the feeling of playing a game with another person at a table like this VR game has. The addition of VR makes Cards and Tankards feel like you're actually at the table with someone else.

The open mic and casual communication with your hands that you can do in Virtual Reality gives the whole experience a sense of presence. It feels like you're placing cards down across the board from another person. It's also very easy to find a game, easier than in real life, because you can play with people far away, and I never had to wait more than thirty seconds or so in the queue to find a match. I often found a game instantly.

Playing a creature in Cards and Tankards VR

Everyone I played with was really friendly too, and a casual conversation about the game we were playing naturally ensued during each match. Instead of relying on emotes to convey each player's experience of the game, you can just talk and gesture casually like you are really there.

The hand controls that VR provides also translate nicely to the actions that you take when playing the game. Your cards float above your left hand and can be plucked out and placed on the board with your right hand. Actually performing this action instead of clicking and dragging on a flat screen felt really right to me, and then seeing that action play out with 3D animations and models looked great as well.

The sense of spectacle and that you really are doing magical things with the cards you are playing come across much better in VR. To attack you have to actually grab one of the 3D models of your creatures on the board and place it in the attack position, and gesturing and pointing to designate targets for spells feels great as well. Some creatures even come with activation abilities that you use by tapping them on the head. You end your turn by grabbing and flipping over an hourglass instead of just clicking a button.

These all sound like little things, and at first, I thought they were inconsequential fluff, but the more I played the game the more I realized that all of these little touches serve to make you feel like you really are at the table just like the ability to freely talk and gesture to your opponent does.

You can even walk all the way around the table if you want to and see the game from multiple angles. It's really great.

Look at that game board

Looking at the game is also a pleasure. The developers over at Divergent Realities didn't miss the opportunity to use your immersive VR view of the game board to add some spectacle.

Your creatures on the board are actual 3D models, and have death and attack animations that play out with the action. It's a lot more satisfying than seeing a number go down and an icon on a screen explode. Spells create wisps of magic and fire through the air as they hit their targets. I always enjoyed looking at the effects of my cards on the board.

The Gameplay Mechanics Of Cards And Tankards

Now that I've fawned over how much I love the execution of a VR card game and the immersiveness of it all, let's talk about how Cards and Tankards actually plays.

To summarise. You get an additional maximum mana each turn, and each player starts with thirty health. The first player to have zero health loses. You play spells and creatures with mana each turn, and each creature has a damage and health value. If a creature’s health goes to zero it perishes.

Each turn after you play your cards until you don’t have the mana to play more you can attack with all unexhausted creatures and then end your turn. Creatures are exhausted right after you play them and after you attack or activate them. If a creature is blocked it and the blocking creature fight and even if the attacker survives it doesn’t do damage to your opponent.

Your opponent blocks with their creatures and then their turn starts when they’re done blocking. They do the same thing you just did, play cards, and then attack if they want to. Over and over until someone’s health hits zero.

Hitting an enemy with a spell

Hopefully that gives you some idea of how Cards and Tankards is played. There are clearly some elements borrowed from other card games, but the end result is a unique set of gameplay mechanics that is still very accessible and straightforward to understand.

The tutorial also explains things very well, though there were a few gaps in what it teaches you, like the maximum amount of creatures on the board (10) or what the maximum mana cap is (also 10). Cards and Tankards feels even more unique when you get into deck building and the difference between factions.

I'm very proud to report that the starter decks are actually really viable. I racked up quite a few wins without even modifying them.

I also found myself opening quite a few card packs. While progression does inevitably slow down, I was getting a lot of in game gold from the Quest system, all the games I was playing, and the free battle pass for the current season. I was opening quite a few packs without spending a single penny. Not enough to create entire decks from scratch, but enough to introduce some new cards and keep things interesting.

Deck building is also fun in this VR card game

If you want more specific cards you can also see what's for sale in the public tavern at the bar. Also while you're there you can hang out with and play games against others, or just watch players that are much better discuss the current meta and play against each other.

The social aspect of Cards and Tankards comes alive even more if you play in the public tavern, and I think this VR game benefits so much from having a public space where you can just hang out, share decklists, and play some casual games.

So Cards and Tankards, at least for now, doesn't have the problem that a lot of trading card games have. That is, to be able to have a chance against more experienced players you have to buy a lot of cards, copy somebody else's deck list, and then figure out how to play the deck. Sure you can do all of that, or make your own, but you don't have to. You'll start out with four mostly viable decks.

I played quite a few ranked games before making this review and won more than I lost, even against opponents with custom made decks. Personally, I had the most success with the first one you get, the Plundering Guild.

The Plundering Guild can enhance cards with coins, like you saw earlier, and has a lot of cards that buff cards in your hand before you play them.

The Dungeon Master faction gets a “Master” to represent you on the board

The Dungeon Master faction focuses a lot on combos and direct damage cards to burn away your opponent's health or slowly gain control of the board. I especially love that you actually get a Dungeon Master creature on the board that shares a health pool with you, giving you as the player a direct representation as a creature on the board. Also, some of them have some really great abilities.

The Augur Order faction has a special mechanic where they can use contract spells which have a constant effect on the whole game as long as you meet the requirements for it. Like their best spell of all those I tried, which makes all of your creatures deal damage equal to their health, as long as you have three creatures with more health than attack on the board. With a lot of high health, low damage creatures, this card is really powerful and can tip the balance of the whole game. Additionally, they can place a card in their hand at the bottom of their deck in order to draw a new one from the top of their deck once a turn. This gives the Augur Order a lot of flexibility.

The last faction is the Wild Horde. I played this one the least since I had no idea what their signature mechanic was and it was never tutorialized. Turns out the Wild Horde can “Reserve” a card each turn for an additional mana on that turn. This card is then placed in that player’s reserve of cards. The Wild Horde has many card synergies that complement reserving, like giving cards in your reserve bool power bonuses or playing them outright. In addition, they do also have some pretty unique cards and seem to focus a lot on buffing creatures to deal a lot of damage, and drawing and playing a lot of creatures to overwhelm your opponent.

The only reason I realized how the Wild Horde’s and Augur Order’s unique mechanics function is due to comments from readers and watchers of Reality Remake. Thanks to them, though this does, unfortunately, highlight that Cards & Tankards should really have better ingame tutorials to explain these factions.

Playing the Augur Order’s best card

There is so much more to talk about in this game. Entire books have been created to cover the ins and outs of card games and as in depth as I like to make my reviews, I can only scratch the surface of the intricacies of a VR trading card game as enjoyable as Cards and Tankards in a single article.

No VR Game Is Perfect

I do have a few minor gripes with Cards and Tankards VR. Some of the models and animations, as much as I like them, do miss opportunities to be more impressive.

I wonder what sort of spectacle this game could be if the developers really went all in on the effects and made the animations for creatures a little more expressive. Mostly they just whack each other. If I have a wizard creature on the board I'd rather they throw a fireball or something instead of just swinging their staff to do damage. The presentation of the board is still leaps and bounds beyond what a non VR card game looks like, but it could be even better.

The same goes for the sound. It's a little basic and could use some more love. Though overall the presentation is on par with other quality VR games on the Quest. You also can't see how many cards are left in your deck exactly, though you can estimate based on looking at it. It would be nice to know the exact number when a game really drags on.

It would also be nice to have an easier way to share decklists between players instead of having to manually copy another player's decklist from their collection menu. Lastly, the VR controls aren't always the best. Often your hands will clip into the table temporarily or something on the board will be frustrating to grab for a few seconds. This never killed the pace of the game for me, but was a minor annoyance.

The VR hands that you get in this game sometimes feel awkward. This is all really minor stuff that could easily be changed in the future.

You can hang out in the public tavern any time in Cards and Tankards

My biggest takeaway from this game is an even greater appreciation of the immersion that Virtual Reality can bring to all sorts of experiences.

Playing a card game in VR is a much more personal and enjoyable experience than playing with a faceless, wordless stranger on a flat screen. I've had a lot of fun against so many different opponents and felt like I was really there playing this card game with them. Cards and Tankards is free, so if any of this sounds remotely interesting, and it probably does if you've made it this far in the article, give the game a try.

I haven't spent a penny on it and I've had a ton of fun with it. You can find Cards and Tankards on the Meta Quest Store and Steam for the low price of zero dollars. There's a great tutorial to explain all of the nuts and bolts, and finding a game was always really easy. It's clear a lot of people enjoy Cards and Tankards from the fast queue time alone.

Enjoy yourself out there in VR, and hopefully, you'll also enjoy the best VR card game out there.