At $199 for everything you need to get into VR, Oculus Go stands as one of best chances at pulling in the masses yet. As an all-in-one device, Go doesn’t need a PC, console or mobile phone to power it; you simply slip it over your head, grab your motion controller and you’re good to go. Never has VR been so simple.
But, as important as price and tech is, it’s content that will really sell Oculus Go. And to do that, the headset has to appeal to a broad range of people. The Rift is doing a great job of keeping gamers satisfied, but the Go can appeal to so many other people with its breadth of experiences. With this in mind, here are seven apps we think Go needs to truly shine when it launches a little later this year.
For The First Timers And Veterans: Land’s End
A chance for this amazing early VR title to live again is one of the most enticing prospects for the Go. Land’s End was a beautiful exploration title that arrived long before the Rift and Vive and yet holds up with many of today’s VR adventures. It’s bold and beautiful, and the chance to experience it through Go’s improved optics is hugely promising.
For The Family: Oculus Rooms/AltspaceVR/Rec Room/Big Screen/Facebook Spaces
We’ve been told for years that VR can connect us to friends and family around the world, but the simply truth of the matter is that current headsets are too complicated and expensive to get less tech-savvy people into them. What’s exciting about the idea of social VR on the Go is that it presents the first time we might genuinely be able to convince our parents, siblings and others to pick up a headset and pull it on to catch up.
For The Hardcore Gamer: Augmented Empire
There are few games on Gear that can truly appeal to hardcore gamers, but Augmented Empire is certainly one of them. This mix of X-Com’s turn-based strategic combat and Mass Effect’s focus on characters remains one of the best games on the headset and deserves to find a bigger audience. We’re still holding out for a Rift port, of course, but we’d still welcome another playthrough on Go in the meantime. We’d also swap this spot out for Turtle Rock Games’ The Well, too.
For The Travellers: Netflix/Hulu
The idea of sitting on a long flight, slipping on a VR headset and spending a few hours in your own personal viewing theatre is enticing, but screen door effect and keeping a phone’s battery charged up keep us from doing it. With Go, though, you can have a dedicated device just for that, and images on a virtual screen will be clearer than they’ve ever been thanks to Go’s improved display. Expect video viewing to be huge on Go.
For The Horror Junkies: Face Your Fears
There’s no faster way to make your video of your Dad playing VR go viral than to make him scream. Face Your Fears is all about doing just that and it’s become one of Gear VR’s most popular titles as a result. On Go, this is probably the best opportunity for horror junkies to get their adrenaline up and running. Or at least we guess, we’re still too scared to spend more than a minute inside it.
For The Young Players: Minecraft
Minecraft’s arrival on the Rift and Gear might not have converted the tens of millions of fans the game has to VR, but Go will give Oculus another shot to do so. We’re not suggesting scores of people will rush to buy the headset but, with a fully-realized version of Minecraft VR on a $199 device, we’re betting Oculus will make a big push with the two year old release at Go launch. That said, they’ll probably have to reconfigure the gamepad support into motion controls, which could be tricky.
For The Parties: Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes
Keep Talking remains one of VR’s most accessible and enjoyable games and a great way to introduce scores of people to the platform. The hectic cooperative party gameplay is a perfect fit for headsets, with one players trying to defuse a bomb by working with others in the real world that read from a manual. Go’s simple form factor could make this the easiest way to play the game yet.
