This year was awesome for VR gaming, but 2019 is looking even brighter with a slew of highly polished titles coming to PSVR, Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.

Here we take a look at 15 tantalizing VR titles confirmed for release in 2019.

Don’t miss the ‘To Be Announced’ section below either, which features eight high-profile games that don’t have release dates yet, but will hopefully come out in 2019 too.

Population: One

  • Platform: Rift, Vive, Windows VR
  • Developer: BigBox VR
  • Release date: Early 2019

Population: One is an upcoming battle royale shooter from the studio behind VR indie hit Smashbox Arena (2016)Population: One is offering a ton of fun mechanics such as the ability to climb anything, build forts, fly, and shoot the ever-living crap out of everyone with a variety of scrounged weapons as you battle for that tasty chicken dinner.

Stormland

Studio description: The Tempest shattered your android body. Now you must journey through an ever-changing cloudscape to augment yourself and save your friends. Explore an expansive world with complete freedom—bound up cliffs, glide across chasms, and fly through the slipstream with velocity. Detonate explosives, harness electricity, and wield makeshift weapons to overcome titanium sentries and monolithic guardians. Play single-player, or explore forgotten ruins together.

Blood &Truth

  • Platform: PSVR
  • Developer: SIE London Studio
  • Release date: previously late 2018, now 2019

Studio description: You are elite Special Forces soldier Ryan Marks, on a desperate mission to save his family from a ruthless criminal overlord. Grab your PS Move motion controllers and blast anyone in your way as you go face to face with enemies, uncover secrets and experience the thrill of the chase in a high-octane action narrative inspired by PlayStation VR Worlds’ ‘The London Heist’ experience.

Check out our hands-on with Blood & Truth to learn more.

Lone Echo II

Studio description: Jack and Liv are back in Lone Echo II. Return to the rings of Saturn in this highly-anticipated sequel, to unravel the mysteries of Lone Echo and journey deeper into space – past the very boundaries of time itself.

Failspace

  • Platform: Rift, Vive, Windows VR
  • DeveloperHipfire Games
  • Release date: Q2 2019

Studio description: Deliver cargo or smuggle alien lifeforms on your rickety ship all across the galaxy! In Failspace the pressure is always on you and your crew. Fix those leaks, pull those levers and crank those handles to maximum in short but increasingly difficult cargo missions.

Defector

Studio description: Overcome impossible odds and survive certain death scenarios in the undercover spy thriller that VR has been waiting for. It’s a zero-sum world where facing danger head-on is a requirement, and success favors those who embrace it. In this exciting Oculus exclusive, the enemy will stop at nothing to gain an advantage. To defeat them, you and your team of elite operatives must use every advanced weapon, cutting-edge technology, and deceptive tactic in your arsenal.

A Fisherman’s Tale

Studio description: Bend and twist reality in A Fisherman’s Tale, the mind-bending VR puzzle adventure game in which being turned upside down and inside out is not merely a play on words.

Check out our hands-on with A Fisherman’s Tale to learn more.

Typhon Hunter VR Multiplayer

  • Platform: Rift, Vive, PSVR
  • Developer: Bethesda
  • Release date: Early 2019

The free multiplayer Typhon Hunter update to Prey: Mooncrash is already out for console and PC, but support for all major VR platforms is coming next year. Like PropHunt in Gary’s Mod, one player is assigned as the hunter (Morgan Yu) while the others try to hide out and evade detection as typhons, the game’s alien race of mimics that can turn into everyday objects like mugs, chairs—practically anything you can think of.

Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown

  • Platform: PSVR
  • Developer: Bandai Namco
  • Release date: January 18th, 2019

ACE COMBAT 7 is unfortunately not entirely playable in VR, as the game’s campaign is focused on PS4 users, although Bandai Namco has created a handful of missions developed specifically for the PSVR that the studio says will provide “several hours of VR gameplay.”

Check out our hands-on with ACE COMBAT 7 to learn more.

Trover Saves the Universe

  • Platform: PSVR
  • Developer: Squanch Games
  • Release date: Early 2019

Studio description: Wonderful. Your dogs have been dognapped by a beaked lunatic who stuffed them into his eye holes and is using their life essence to destroy the universe. Does that make any sense? You’ve partnered with Trover, a little purple eye hole monster to save them. Find power babies and plug them into his eye holes so that he can absorb their power, track down Glorkon, and save your dogs (and the Universe).

Check out out hands-on with Trover Saves the Universe to learn more.

Angry Birds VR: Isle of Pigs

Image courtesy Rovio, Resolution Games

We don’t know much about gameplay mechanics yet, but it’s possible the Magic Leap One release of Angry Birds: FPS – First Person Slingshot may hold some answers. Resolution Games was also involved in its makinga title that does away with the standard side-scrolling gameplay for a more immersive first-person experience of physically shooting a slingshot at the 3D piggy fort.

Respawn’s VR Shooter

Respawn Entertainment, the studio behind Titanfall and Call of Duty, has partnered with Oculus to develop what they call “a major VR release.” There’s not much on the books about the game yet, including the title or specific release date, but it promises battlefield realism that will give you a chance to “experience life closer to what a soldier would experience in real combat.”

Vacation Simulator

  • Platform: Rift, Vive, PSVR
  • Developer: Owlchemy Labs
  • Release date: Early 2019

Studio description: First you JOBBED, now you VACATION. Visit Vacation Island and experience RECREATION, optimal RELAXATION, and classic human past times like SUNBURN. Vacation Island offers all this and more so that you can discover the lost art of TIME OFF.

Check out out hands-on with Vacation Simulator to learn more.

Space Junkies

  • Platform: Rift, Vive & “upcoming high-end headsets + controllers”
  • DeveloperUbisoft Montpelier
  • Release date: 2019

Studio description: A visceral, jetpack-fueled VR Arcade Shooter where you fly through deadly Orbital Arenas in hostile space, facing off in extreme battles. You are now part of the elite Tribes of gun-slinging Spacers who battle it out in treacherous 2v2 and 1v1 battles.

Check out our latest preview of Space Junkies to learn more.

ZED

Studio description: ZED is the story of an aging artist, lost in regret, and the haze of dementia. Inside the dreamscape of this creative mind come undone, players reassemble the artist’s fragmented memories into a final, lasting legacy: a loving final gift to his unborn granddaughter.

Eagre Games is a new studio led by original Myst (1993) artist Chuck Carter. Zed will be the first game published by Cyan Ventures, Cyan’s newly formed publishing arm.

To Be Announced

3 Games from Valve

Image courtesy Valve
  • Platform: Rift, Vive (unannounced)
  • Developer: Valve

Valve is still famously mum on its three games originally confirmed back in February 2017, and yes, we’re still waiting on all of them. [Insert tired Half-Life 3 joke here].

Valve has produced The Lab (2016) and plenty of content for the SteamVR Home that all really demonstrate just how uniquely qualified they are to produce full-length VR games. Fingers crosses we hear something definitive this year.

Golem

Originally teased at PSX 2015 with a slated release for an October 2016, High Wire Games’ has slipped into what looks to be a 2019 release. In Golem, you play as an adventurous kid who has been seriously injured. You are stuck at home in your bed, dreaming of exploring the outside world. The minds behind the game are ex-Bungie staffers, including Halo composer Marty O’Donnell.

Star Child

Playful Corp, the minds behind Rift launch title Lucky’s Tale (2016), had a bit of a scare recently when pre-orders for their upcoming side-scrolling platformer Star Child were mysteriously cancelled. Never fear, Star Child is still in production, although the release date is unknown at this time.

Firmament

  • Platform: Rift, Vive
  • DeveloperCyan Inc

From the makers of Myst (1993) and Obduction (2016) comes another VR puzzler, this time promising more steampunk goodness. It’s still heavily under wraps, but Cyan calls it a “resplendent, magical, journey — a monumental voyage through four diverse and curious realms, working in concert with an ever-present, clockwork companion, and the support and instruction of a long-dead, ethereal mentor.”

Borderlands 2 VR (PC release)

Borderlands 2 VR is already available on PSVR, but it’s more than likely that the loot-em and shoot-em action game is headed to PC VR headsets too. According to a new promo video, Sony is confirming that Borderlands 2 VR is a timed exclusive, giving it at very least a five month minimum on the PSVR platform; a hypothetical PC VR launch date could come as early as May 14th, 2019.

Bebylon Battle Royale

The minds behind early successes Senza Peso (2014) and Insurgent (2015) have been busy developing their first full-fledged VR game. Called Bebylon Battle Royale, the VR melee party brawler puts ridiculously dressed infants into kart-based Smash Bros-style combat.

The studio previously targeted an early 2018 release, although now it seems it’s heading towards 2019.

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Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 3,500 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • shaggytherodgers

    It makes me sort of sad to see the direction that rift is going in is to get as many things exclusive on there system.

    • bud01

      their system, not there system.

      • Varmintbaby

        really? That’s what you have to contribute? You don’t have very many friends do you? Go away….

        • bud01

          Don’t perceive others posts with the same mind set as you have… :-)

          • Puden

            I feel you bud… 01.
            Grinds my gears too.

        • I don’t get it. He gave him some future reference knowledge there.

    • Varmintbaby

      Looks to me Sony is doing a similar thing. The companies don’t care about advancing VR as a whole. They are greedy and if they could be the only game in town, they would like to be. A lot of those guys “may” have started out as gamers/arcade rats, but once they become execs they could give two shits about gamers as a whole. For most of these companies, the only thing that keeps them from pumping out crap games constantly is that the gamers wouldn’t buy them. They want your money at all cossts….

      • Jistuce

        In fairness, Sony pays for a “timed exclusive”, AKA an early release. Six months after it hits, they can port it to anything they want.

        Facebook pays for ACTUAL exclusives. Never anywhere else.

        • impurekind

          Facebook/Oculus pays directly for at least part of the development of most of those games, so it has every right to secure them on its platform. I don’t see it doing this with many/any titles that aren’t basically first or second party though.

          • Jistuce

            Sony pays for part of the development cost too. And I know Epic isn’t owned by Oculus, and Robo Recall is the first Rift exclusive I think of.

          • Rosko

            Playstation has plenty of full exclusives.

      • sfmike

        Once they become execs it becomes make a big profit or back to the unemployment line. That’s the way capitalism works.

    • Jorge Gustavo

      It makes me sad too. And I own a rift, but I don’t like to buy games on the rift store. Steam has cheaper prices on my country, so, all non exclusive games I buy on steam.

    • Jacob Mueller

      Nothing is exclusive on rift. Rift is compatible with OpenVR, so games will function on other HMD’s. The exclusivity is for the touch controls… which at the current stage are unparalleled in VR control, so the games are not easily ported to other controllers. Not to mention, they’re all published by Oculus Studios, so are naturally sold on the oculus home store. Once the steam knuckles controllers are released, and touch has a real competitor as far as VR control, then you’ll start to see other OpenVR HMD’s running oculus games successfully. In the meantime, buy a rift.

    • Ace of Spades

      Makes me happy.

  • NooYawker

    Hey Valve! Throw us a fucking bone!!! Do a port or two!

  • gothicvillas

    No sight of RE7 VR for pc :( I played it thru on psvr but would Insta double dip of it ever comes to pc vr

    • FireAndTheVoid

      If they bring it to PC, however, I really hope they add hand-presence instead of forcing us to use a gamepad

  • impurekind

    Some cool and interesting games there, but still nothing that screams epic or system seller.

    • HYZENBORG Hyzenborg

      Ace Combat bro

      • impurekind

        I didn’t see it really selling many systems, and as a 3 mission VR demo basically I guess that’s not surprising. A full VR Ace Combat game would be very cool though.

  • mirak

    The only true game will be the Cyan game, as usual.

    • Jorge Gustavo

      Please, can someone explain to me what a fuck is a real game?? Lone Echo 2, Population One, Blood Truth, Stormland… all of this looks like real games to me. And you know what? The gamers of this generation are actually a bunch of whiners. One thing is to say that none of this games capt your personal interest. Other thing is to say that there are no real games on this list.

  • A VR Enthusiast

    .
    I can’t wait to play VR games, that cannot be waited, on next generation HMDs that cannot be waited also. :)

    Happy new years to all.
    .

  • Puden

    Valves not making anything! Its all just empty promises to keep people using Steam. They havent produced anything substantial in many many years. I doubt they even have any actual game designers left working for them. I’d have quit long ago if I knew I would never get to see any of my work published.

    • Whistlewoods

      snicker…

    • MowTin

      I agree. Nobody secretly develops games that are anywhere near release. You try to create hype before release.

  • HomeAudio

    Stormland
    Lone Echo 2
    Space Engine

    …that are titles that I am waiting for.

    • Kevin Fitzpatrick

      defector?

  • Really can’t wait to play these amazing virtual reality games

  • HYZENBORG Hyzenborg

    bebylon battle royale? seriously?

  • a

    boxing vr ? wouldnt that be fun

  • Alexander Kold Hansen

    As always.
    Great graphics and innovative gameplay for PSVR and RIFT.
    And a load of indie shit for Vive and Index.