Our second round of UploadVR’s Best of 2025 awards is now live.
We kicked things off earlier today with our favorite games this year across individual platforms: Quest, PC VR, PlayStation VR2, and Apple Vision Pro. This also discussed our top immersive entertainment titles outside of gaming, looking to more film-adjacent experiences.
Now, we’re focusing on mixed reality apps and games as developers continue to embrace this approach. We’re also diving into the best uses of hand tracking across the year, alongside dedicated early access categories for both mixed reality and VR games. While most of our categories are only applicable for full releases, Best Hand Tracking also factors in early access launches.
So then, onto round two. Here are our favorite hand tracking, mixed reality, and early access experiences in 2025.
Best Hand Tracking Game
Demeo x D&D is a great game but fundamentally similar to the same experience we’ve already had in Demeo, and Dimensional Double Shift unlocks the fun of Job Simulator in multiplayer after it left open beta. Hidden Memories of the Gardens Between, Banners & Bastions, Little Critters, and Pocket Lands all caught our eye this year.
There’s one game, though, that stands out in 2025 – Jigsaw Night. You can grab the pieces whether they are close or far away and easily hand them to friends. At any time you can also pick up a controller and use it for more precise grabbing of faraway objects. This robust support, alongside other features like LIV integration, colocation, and puzzling with your own photos, means that solo developer Steve Lukas’ project is an absolute delight to spend time in and a strong reason to bring just your headset with you.
Best Early Access Mixed Reality Game
We’ve seen some intriguing first looks at mixed reality games in early access this year. Pocket Lands has been a recent favorite where you create Minecraft-esque worlds, while Loop One: Done is an MR automation game where you record loops with drones and robots. We’d also note Super RC, Jigsaw Night, Galactic Traffic Control, and Healer.
This time around, Laser Dance takes our award for the Best Early Access Mixed Reality Game of 2025. Thomas Van Bouwel delivered what we called “the first essential mixed reality game” and a go-to party game in our review. Offering an instantly relatable premise that feels ripped out of a spy film, it’s one of the first experiences anyone should try when putting on a headset.
Ian Hamilton
Best Early Access VR Game
Whether it’s to gather community feedback or bring in crucial funding, more developers continue choosing early access launches across Quest and Steam, and 2025 has plenty of picks.
This year brought us a sequel to one of VR’s earliest roomscale hits with Unseen Diplomacy 2, Another Axiom followed up on Gorilla Tag with Orion Drift, and Final Fury continues showing promise. Rounding this out is Boxing Underdog, The Pirate: Republic of Nassau, How to God, ZIX, and Out of Sight VR.
For 2025, Forefront is UploadVR’s Best Early Access VR Game of the Year. Triangle Factory’s latest game following Breachers provides a 32-player shooter comparable to EA’s Battlefield series. “Combat is exciting and tense, its VR gunplay is tactile and satisfying, and its environments are dynamic and engaging,” we said at the time, and we’ll continue watching its next moves.
James Tocchio
Best Mixed Reality Game
As mixed reality continues to find its footing, we’re continuing to see intriguing projects emerge from across the board. What we’re seeing today feels like an early look at what we can expect in the years ahead. We’re focused on games where mixed reality is the clear focus, and not an optional extra in otherwise fully immersive games.
On Quest 3, Star Wars: Beyond Victory took us back to a galaxy far, far away once again. We explored new worlds in Mythic Realms, raised a fluffy companion in Stay: Forever Home, while both Banners & Bastions and Table Troopers delivered strong tabletop style thrills. Other titles include Project AEROES, BEATABLE, Crystal Commanders, and Detective VR.
This year, our winner for Best Mixed Reality Game is Little Critters by Purple Yonder. Following the studio’s work on Little Cities, we found an innovative take on the tower defense genre that puts you front and center in the fight. Its compelling gameplay has real impact, there’s great strategic depth, and Little Critters keeps us coming back for more.
Josh Petersel
Best Mixed Reality App – Figmin XR
Apps like Pencil continue to show promise building out from innovative ideas – you can learn to draw Walkabout Mini Golf characters with a good old-fashioned pencil in hand and a headset on your head, and that’s pretty cool.
Our award for best mixed reality app of 2025, though, goes to the gradually improving spatial playground Figmin XR. The app won last year too, and this year solo developer Javier Davalos essentially brought Tilt Brush to iPhone with the launch of Figmin XR there. Last year, we were able to get a pretty impressive colocation experience going in Figmin XR from Quest to Vision Pro.
This year, I single-handedly logged in with iPhone to the same virtual room as my headset. I could hold a digital object with my finger pressed to the iPhone and carry it around without even looking at it. Capturing mixed reality videos of Figmin playgrounds from iPhone could be a big use of this integration, or to let a friend or family member see into a spatial creation when they aren’t in a headset.
Ian Hamilton
