Welcome to UploadVR’s Best of VR Awards for 2024.
2024 has been a busy year for VR and the wider XR industry, delivering new hardware releases and a strong set of new VR games. As 2024 comes to a close, we’re once again using our Best of VR Awards to highlight the most exceptional picks across hardware and software this year. Each category will feature one winner and relevant honorable mentions.
Just like last year, our recognized winners and nominations are mostly games or experiences currently in full release. However, we’ve included awards for specific early access projects, and also established some new categories this year.
On Wednesday, we noted our favorite newly released platform favorites for Quest, PCVR, and Apple Vision Pro. We recognized the outstanding achievements of Batman: Arkham Shadow, Underdogs, and Thrasher in 2024 across these platforms.
On Thursday, we focused on the emerging categories of mixed reality apps and hand tracking. We recognized the breakthrough work of Maestro with hand tracking and Figmin XR with mixed reality, and also highlighted some early work like Airspace Defender and Laser Dance that we’re hoping to see continue to develop in 2025.
Now on Friday, we’ve prepared UploadVR’s picks for Best of VR 2024.
Best Updated VR Game
While 2024 has delivered an unprecedented wave of new releases, plenty of existing games have received noteworthy support. New music packs keep coming to Beat Saber, Synth Riders, Smash Drums and Drums Rock, Hellsweeper VR turned around a rocky launch on PS VR2, while Asgard’s Wrath 2 and Among Us VR regularly added new events. That’s before considering No Man’s Sky, which delivered a consistent slate of updates that continue building this ambitious adventure game.
There’s been a lot but there can only be one winner, and it’s Walkabout Mini Golf. Walkabout established an $8 per season release schedule for a pair of new destinations, with the recent Holiday Hideaway DLC and 8-Bit Lair courses showcasing delightful new gameplay ideas. Walkabout’s paths through VR bring people into headsets for regular trips and the recent iOS version connects players on-the-go as well, as development studio Mighty Coconut moves toward giving you new reasons every week to spend time together in VR.
Ian Hamilton
Best VR Developer
Lucas Martell is the founder of Mighty Coconut and, as of 2024, he is employing a few dozen “coconuts” at the studio making Walkabout Mini Golf, including some recent hires near the end of the year. With headquarters in Austin, Texas, the coconuts include artists building from home as far away as Australia.
To build new courses, which take more than a year to stack up from basic blocks in Gravity Sketch, Martell joins fellow artists at the studio to start the process in VR placing the fundamental blocking of the world. Martell also drops into the code himself to implement some ideas directly, as one “coconut” explained to me, just as he did when he was first working on the game by himself in 2020.
Martell tells UploadVR that Mighty Coconut remains fully self-funded, with no investors nor intentions to sell the company. That means when the studio releases a new course for Walkabout on any platform, we expect a majority of the per course per platform fee to come directly under Martell’s control to support and grow the creative process he’s building with this team.
Walkabout features forward-thinking design across releases on Steam, Quest, Sony, Pico, and iOS – there’s even support for iPad – and while they’re sticking to their six-week release cycle as much as for new courses going forward, the studio is also exploring ways to unlock new content and events in the game on a weekly basis.
According to the studio, “60% of VR sessions” in Walkabout are multiplayer with a majority of users playing the game for 2 hours and many of them until the battery runs dead. Read our story about the twins who equipped themselves with lengthy USB cables to keep themselves connected across each new Walkabout course.
Ian Hamilton
Last year, we selected Zach Tsiakalis-Brown at Zulubo Productions as developer of the year, and be sure to check out Vertigo 2: Into The Aether in 2025.
As VR grows larger in 2025 and you’re looking for something to do, whether you’re getting together with friends, putting with your iPhone, or dropping into VR for a quick nine holes of focus and relaxation, we are learning to expect the unexpected from the reliably inventive development team at Mighty Coconut led by Lucas Martell.
The studio tells us players collectively spent more than 6 million hours in the game in 2024. While we don’t typically write about vanity metrics like these, we think it’s notable to add that Mighty Coconut tells us this number is up 23% from the year prior.
Best Early Access Game
This year’s seen a few promising contenders currently available in early access. Bootstrap Island has started strong for PC VR survival, Frenzies offers an enjoyable multiplayer shooter that supports six player teams, while other highlights include Into The Radius 2, Last Stand, One True Path, and Mecha Force.
This goes to Downtown Club, a simcade racing game by Commuter Games that features full virtual controls. Though we believed the initial release was a bit sparse, we found a promising racer that’s won us over so far, and we can’t wait to see where it goes next.
James Tocchio
Best New VR/AR Hardware
This year included multiple notable hardware releases.
Quest 3S lowered the price of entry to mixed reality and higher-quality standalone VR to just $300, and brought the ability to use hand tracking in the dark to a Meta headset for the first time. Meanwhile, Pico 4 Ultra offered the first true Quest 3 competitor, Logitech’s MX Ink delivered a new kind of input for spatial art, and Sony turned PlayStation VR2 into a PC VR headset with a $60 adapter.
But one hardware release stands out as the most significant by far: Apple Vision Pro. Not only does it mark the entry of the world’s biggest tech company into XR, it also introduced a number of significant firsts, most of which will be standard in all headsets eventually.
David Heaney
Apple Vision Pro is the first headset with ultra high resolution micro-OLED displays, making it the first truly suited to turn physical screens into software, including watching movies and conjuring whatever productivity setup you want, no matter where you are.
Its operating system is just as significant. visionOS goes far beyond any Android fork and even any major PC VR runtime, introducing a new concept of a Shared Space where as many windows as you want can run alongside multiple volumetric apps, and others can join you as realistic Spatial Personas to interact within a shared coordinate space.
Further, visionOS leverages Vision Pro’s eye tracking for a gaze-and-pinch interaction system that the rest of the industry is set to follow, including Google & Samsung, Meta, Immersed, and more.
Yes, Apple Vision Pro is a $3500+ product for wealthy tech enthusiasts and early adopters, not a mass market device, and thus it isn’t having a direct impact for most consumers. But its clear influence on the industry, including Meta’s Horizon OS and Google’s Android XR, and the future that it proves out, earn it our hardware award for 2024, and will almost certainly ensure its place in the 2024 section of every history of technology book ever written.
Best New Multiplayer Game
We’ve seen a few strong contenders for VR multiplayer across 2024. Spatial Ops delivered a promising mixed reality shooter, Exploding Kittens VR and Just Dance VR delivered enjoyable adaptations for their respective series. Other highlights include Contractors Showdown, Into Black, Ghosts of Tabor, Human Fall Flat VR and Iron Rebellion.
Ultimately, we’re choosing Mannequin. Fast Travel Games delivered a creative take on Prop Hunt that’s considerably entertaining while making great use of VR, as two agents try to hunt down three shape-shifting aliens that can freeze into position. That’s only continued improving since full release thanks to regular updates like mod support, new modes and more maps.
Favorite PS VR2 Game Of The Year 2024
As PlayStation VR2 enters its second year, it’s been a year mostly held up by multi-platform launches. My First Gran Turismo is the only first-party title we’ve seen with PS VR2 support, while third-party publishers brought numerous big hitters like Arizona Sunshine Remake, Skydance’s Behemoth, Max Mustard, Trombone Champ: Unflattened, Vertigo 2, and Alien: Rogue Incursion.
For 2024, we’re naming Metro Awakening as our PlayStation VR2 Game of the Year. Vertigo Games’ prequel to the long-running flatscreen series delivered strong atmospheric storytelling for a “mesmerizing tale of survival” in the Moscow underground.
Don Hopper
VR Game Of The Year 2024
And so, we reach our biggest award for this year. Much like 2023, this was a tough call with fierce competition across the board. Arizona Sunshine Remake, Skydance’s Behemoth, Max Mustard, Trombone Champ: Unflattened, UNDERDOGS, Metro Awakening, and Iron Rebellion.
Just like on Quest, our ultimate winner for VR Game of the Year 2024 is Batman: Arkham Shadow. While the initial launch had some performance issues that have since received numerous fixes, Camouflaj’s action-adventure hit delivered one of the strongest experiences we’ve seen yet that feels at home in the Arkham universe.
Ian Hamilton
It’s a brilliant second go for Batman in virtual reality and much like Camouflaj, we’d love to see the studio make a sequel in the coming years. Playing as the caped crusader has never felt this good, the gripping narrative mixed with solid action mechanics keep you invested.
For that reason, Batman: Arkham Shadow is our much deserved VR Game of the Year for 2024.
Henry Stockdale
Most Anticipated VR Game of 2025
While 2024’s brought a strong line-up of upcoming VR and MR games, 2025 and beyond already looks good. Aces of Thunder, The Midnight Walk, POOLS, Orion Drift, Silent North, Glassbreakers, Ghost Town, Roboquest VR, and Arken Age are all showing considerable potential. Though we don’t count DLC, let’s not forget Vertigo 2: Into The Aether, either.
Our winner is a time travel adventure game, Wanderer: The Fragments Of Fate by Mighty Eyes. What we’ve seen so far looks like a promising remake of Wanderer, and it’s currently targeting a Q1 2025 launch across Quest, Steam, PS VR2, and Pico.
