2025 is nearly over, and this year’s seen us explore many new locations across VR and mixed reality. Today, we’re highlighting some of our favorites.
Like last year, we’re splitting the UploadVR editorial team’s top picks for 2025’s best titles across three articles. This first one looks toward the best games across four platforms: Apple Vision Pro, PC VR, PlayStation VR2, and Meta Quest. We’re also discussing our top immersive entertainment experiences beyond gaming, too.
The next article will focus on mixed reality apps and games, alongside a focus on this year’s best uses of hand tracking. Because only fully released games normally count, tomorrow will also include our early access categories.
Finally, our last article features our biggest awards for 2025. In line with last year, this includes the Best VR Game Of The Year across any platform, Best VR Hardware, Best Developer, Best Multiplayer, Best Virtual Place, and Most Anticipated VR Game for 2026.
So, let’s begin with the first round for our best of 2025 awards.
Best Exploratory Experience
2025’s been another eye-opener in how filmmakers use immersive tech to deliver compelling narratives. On Apple Vision Pro in particular, Apple Immersive Video saw projects like the Metallica concert experience, Bono: Stories of Surrender, MotoGP Tour De Force, and D-Day: The Camera Soldier.
Some experiences touch upon heavier themes: The Reality of Hope used VRChat to cover a life-saving friendship, Reflections of Little Red Dot examined Singapore’s history, while Soul Paint encourages introspection. Other notable projects include Touching The Sky, Alien Perspective, and Black Cats & Chequered Flags.
This year’s award goes to The Clouds Are Two Thousand Meters Up, a free-roaming VR experience based on a Taiwanese short story. While you can’t influence what happens, most scenes are fully explorable as you witness the narrative unfold. It feels like walking into a movie, going that extra immersive mile while backing that up with a compelling narrative.
The Clouds Are Two Thousand Meters Up Feels Like Walking Into A Movie
The Clouds Are Two Thousand Meters Up adapts the Taiwanese short story into a free-roaming VR experience.
Favorite New Apple Vision Pro Game
Apple developers only started supporting tracked controllers near the end of 2025 as games like Pickle Pro started supporting the input method. Big name title Glassbreakers made its way to Apple Vision Pro in 2025, alongside the winner of Apple’s own selection for best of the year, puzzler Porta Nubi.
Gears & Goo from Resolution Games is our winner for Best New Apple Vision Pro Game. Resolution’s developers adapted tower defense to Apple’s gaze and pinch interface with a challenging multi-hour campaign, and we’d love to see more Gears & Goo in the future.
Gears & Goo Reimagines Tower Defense For Hand & Eye Tracking On Apple Vision Pro
Gears & Goo is out now on Apple Arcade for Vision Pro, and it’s a must-play for subscribers and strategy fans.
Favorite New Quest Game
Even without a new Quest headset launch, this year certainly hasn’t lacked for games across Meta’s standalone ecosystem.
Many of 2025’s best Quest games left it late. Alongside big names like Marvel’s Deadpool VR and Thief VR, these last few months also saw Glassbreakers, Arken Age, Hotel Infinity, Reach, Of Lies and Rain, Demeo x D&D, Titan Isles, and Memoreum arrive. Still, Alien: Rogue Incursion, Pixel Dungeon, and GORN 2 ensured the rest of the year had its fill too.
There can only be one winner, and Ghost Town is 2025’s Quest Game of the Year. Fireproof Games delivered what we considered to be an “utterly engrossing supernatural VR adventure” with strong gameplay design and some of the best visuals we’ve seen yet on Quest 3.
It’s a highly worthy follow-up to Fireproof’s previous hit, The Room VR: A Dark Matter, and we’d dearly love to see more of this world in the future.
Ghost Town Review: An Utterly Engrossing Supernatural VR Adventure
Ghost Town is a brilliant supernatural puzzle adventure from The Room VR studio that you won’t want to miss.
Favorite New PC VR Game
All eyes might be on Valve with next year’s Steam Frame launch, but 2025’s still seen some great PC VR releases. Leading a handful of exclusives were Vertigo 2: Into The Aether, BattleGroupVR2, and Lushfoil Photography Sim.
They were joined by multiplatform hits like Of Lies and Rain, Lumines Arise, Demeo x D&D, Arken Age, Reach, Thief VR, Ghost Town, and The Midnight Walk. That’s before mentioning slightly older games coming to PC VR like Vendetta Forever, Zero Caliber 2, and Dungeons of Eternity.
For 2025, Roboquest VR is our PC VR Game of the Year. Flat2VR Studios’ exhilarating conversion of RyseUp Studios’ 2023 FPS roguelite feels like it was natively designed for the platform, and we called it “an instant classic” in our review.
Roboquest VR Review: An Instant Classic
Roboquest VR takes an already exhilarating FPS roguelite and delivers a near-flawless VR adaptation.
Favorite New PlayStation VR2 Game
It’s another year when PlayStation VR2 relied on third party publishers – Climate Station aside – and the hits continued coming. 2025 provided a strong library like Hitman, Maestro, Of Lies and Rain, Demeo x D&D, Reach, Lumines Arise, UNDERDOGS, and Roboquest VR. We’re also not forgetting Wanderer: The Fragments of Fate, which has gradually improved with updates.
For 2025, Arken Age is our PlayStation VR2 Game of the Year. VitruviusVR delivered a strong sci-fi action-adventure with tactile VR-first gameplay design. While it’s also a solid PC VR and Quest 3 game, Arken Age benefits from Sony’s headset with strong haptic feedback and PS5 Pro enhancements. Our appreciation’s grown since launch and if you love action titles, it’s an essential buy.
Arken Age Review: Satisfying Sci-Fi Adventure With Great VR Design
Arken Age delivers a satisfying sci-fi adventure with clever VR-oriented design, and it’s out now on PlayStation VR2 and Steam.
