The HTC Vive and Oculus Rift might be battling it out for the upper end of VR, requiring a pricey new PC to even hit minimum specs with either – but Samsung’s Gear VR still delivers a great mobile VR experience at a fraction of the cost.
Sure, they’re not all exactly on the same level, but the Gear VR requires a much less expensive overall investment, especially if you already have a recent Samsung flagship phone, and it already has dozens and dozens of apps to check out in the Oculus Store.
From games to 360-degree VR videos, there’s plenty to dig into – and we’ve got some favourites, naturally. Here are the 20 Gear VR games and apps you ought to start with.
MINECRAFT: GEAR VR EDITION
Minecraft in VR? If this doesn’t have Gear VRs flying off of store shelves, then we don’t know what will. The Gear VR Edition is effectively the same as the mobile Pocket Edition, offering survival and creative modes and a large chunk of the core PC experience, only now you’re immersed in the blocky worlds.
Playing in first-person is a real trip, but it can also be overwhelming – which is why a tap of the touchpad can switch to you a windowed view, wherein the game is played on a TV inside a pixelated lodge.
In either case, if you love Minecraft, you’ll certainly want to have it all around you in VR. And if you don’t know Minecraft, now’s the time to try it.
Price: $6.99 (R92)
Download Minecraft: Gear VR Edition here from Oculus
SMASH HIT
Smash Hit VR is adapted from a pretty great mobile game, but it’s even better when you’re immersed in this wonderfully destructive experience.
As you’re automatically nudged through rooms filled with minimal geometry, you must toss balls to shatter the glass panes and sculptures peppered along the way.
It’s an arcade experience, really: continued play requires careful aim and smashing every last piece of glass, which gives you extra balls with each toss. In VR, it’s a dazzling experience, full of satisfying thrills and beautiful sights.
Price: $2.99 (R40)
Download Smash Hit here from Oculus
HITMAN GO: VR EDITION
Hitman Go scaled down the stealth assassination series for mobile but, surprisingly, it proves a perfect fit for VR, too.
The core concept hasn’t changed here: each hit takes the form of a puzzle on a game board, challenging you to find the best way through threats and around hazards to complete the stage.
Given the game’s perfect faux-plastic look, in VR it really feels like you’re playing on a physical surface with tiny miniature figurines. Hitman Go was already great, and the move to VR makes subtle, smart tweaks that lightly enhance the experience. If we’re lucky, successor Lara Croft Go will make the VR leap any time now.
Price: $7.99 (R105)
Download Hitman GO: VR Edition here from Oculus
LAND’S END
Land’s End shares some visual commonalities with Monument Valley, the stunning mobile puzzler, but ustwo’s first VR effort is much simpler in approach than that earlier game.
Rather than twisting around the environment to solve brain teasers, you’ll look freely around the sparse, beautiful terrain and use your gaze to progress through breezy puzzles.
While not especially challenging, Land’s End is a delight to take in, as it creates a real sense of atmosphere in the calming, natural terrain – and has just enough mystery to keep you pushing ahead to each new landmark.
Price: $5.99 (R80)
Download Land’s End here from Oculus
NETFLIX
It turns out that watching films on a fake flat screen in a virtual viewing room is kind of great, and here you’ll browse your queue and soak in Netflix’s best amidst a cozy pad with great décor. Popping on a headset is a surprisingly nice way to immerse yourself in whatever you’re watching, and some content really benefits from the in-your-face approach.
Price: Free (Subscription required)
Download Netflix here from Oculus
Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes
VR might shut you off from the outside world, but it doesn’t have to be a completely solitary experience. In fact, Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes might be the most hilarious example yet of how to put that awkward scenario to brilliant use.
With the headset on, you’ll stare at a randomly generated bomb covered with wires and buttons – and your nearby friends (without headsets) are looking at a manual, either printed out or on another screen, and must walk you through the disarming process as you describe a bomb that they cannot see. Who knew one VR headset could power an awesomely social party game?
Price: $9.99 (R131)
Download Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes here from Oculus
EVE Gunjack
If you’re looking for EVE Valkyrie, the stunning space shooter on Oculus Rift and other higher-end headsets, we’re sorry to disappoint: it’s not on Gear VR. Gunjack suffers slightly from the comparison, but spend a few minutes blasting enemy spaceships and you’ll surely find it pretty entertaining.
It’s a pretty straightforward arcade shooter: you’ll look around to aim the cursor and blast the waves of zippy foes that zoom into view. Gunjack‘s levels get progressively tougher, though, tossing in a bit more strategy and challenge along the way, and it looks great for mobile VR. Although straightforward, it’s fun.
Price: $9.99 (R131)
Download EVE Gunjack here from Oculus
Within
In these early days of VR filmmaking, Within (formerly VRSE) is setting the standard, delivering experimental short films, music videos, and captivating mini-documentaries that both benefit from and drive the 360-degree format. Grab the Within app and you’ll find plenty of free, intriguing video content to savour.
A particular highlight is Evolution of Verse, a fabulously weird CG short with a train that chugs across water and explodes into a swarm of bugs (and then gets weirder still). Muse and U2 both contribute music videos, meanwhile, and there are several bits of video journalism courtesy of The New York Times.
Price: Free
Download Within here from Oculus
Proton Pulse Demo
Proton Pulse is a game so impressively simple that it’s even great on low-level Google Cardboard – but it’s a smoother ride on Gear VR with a 2K screen. Essentially, it’s a throwback to arcade classic Breakout, where you’ll break bricks by keeping a ball in play – only here, it’s in 3D.
Not only that, you’re also situated right behind the paddle, which you’ll move solely by looking around the stage. You don’t have to press buttons or do anything remotely complex, yet this is still a prime example of pure, refined VR gameplay: it’s immersive, fun, and dazzling to look at, and it works like a charm.
New requirements from Oculus mean the game is being updated for Gear VR – but, in the meantime, you can sate yourself with the free demo.
Price: Free
Download Proton Pulse here from Oculus
Dreadhalls
The isolation of a VR headset can make games more immersive, but it also makes them more terrifying – and Dreadhalls certainly benefits from that.
This first-person dungeon crawler sends you wandering into unknown terrain, with each new opened door or turned corner potentially scaring the life out of you.
It’s the uncertainty of what’s ahead that really amps up the excitement: the tension and apprehension that comes before you tiptoe into the shadows. For some, Dreadhalls might be a form of torture, but anyone who likes sudden scares should love it.
Price: $4.99 (R66)
Download Dreadhalls here from Oculus
Samsung VR
Samsung’s own 360-degree video portal has some neat highlights, including trippy animated clips and other short films, not to mention a super slick hub for everything. But the real highlight is Gone, an original series from the creators of The Walking Dead TV series.
Gone tells the story of a young girl who suddenly vanishes from a public playground, and you’ll have to piece together what happened across several episodes, zooming into highlighted areas to examine clues. It’s a bit creepy and totally unsettling, but it’s a nice glimpse at the very new and exciting form of immersive and lightly interactive storytelling.
Price: Free
Download Samsung VR here from Google Play
The Night Cafe
We’ve got plenty of games on this list, as well as lightly interactive movies—but The Night Cafe is just somewhere cool to be for a few minutes. Or half an hour. Based on the classic Vincent van Gogh painting of the same name, The Night Cafe translates his brushstrokes into a vivid environment.
You can wander freely between the rooms, look around, and take in the music, and while that’s pretty much the whole experience, the sight of seeing this brilliant artwork turned into a living virtual thing is totally mesmerising. Keep this one handy to wow your friends and family, too.
Price: Free
Download The Night Cafe here from Oculus
Soundscape
Composing music in virtual reality seems challenging, to say the least, but Soundscape makes it wonderfully impossible to screw up: you’ll be dropping trippy, electronic tracks in no time. And it’s all done by tapping squares on a big board.
As you add in notes, the song starts to take shape—and it’s on the pentatonic scale, so even haphazard note placement tends to sound pretty solid. You also have access a control board with various modifiers, which are similarly easy to use, and while Soundscape isn’t terribly expansive in scope it is very entertaining to fiddle with.
Price: $2.99 (R40)
Download Soundscape here from Oculus
Oculus Arcade
Oculus Arcade offers up more than 20 classics, including Sonic the Hedgehog, Pac-Man, and Galaga, and you can play 20 minutes of each for free – or buy any game outright for a couple of bucks. They play well with a gamepad, and the futuristic arcade setting is kind of cool, albeit unnervingly empty.
Price: Free
Download Oculus Arcade here from Oculus
Colosse
Most VR apps are short and sweet, but the best of them stick with you long after the credits roll. That’s the case with Colosse, a mesmerising visual experience that’s like a jaw-dropping cartoon come to life. You don’t do much but look around, but the sights make it well worth your time.
It’s a simple story of a spear fisherman startled by a lumbering giant, which quickly leads to a series of events, and there’s a really amazing sense of depth to the world: it’s just a few minutes’ worth of looking around, but that’s well worth savouring.
Colosse is an ideal VR showcase for friends, too, since it is so eye-poppingly beautiful.
Price: Free
Download Colosse here from Oculus
Dark Days
A VR thriller that pairs puzzle-solving with mystery, Dark Days will have you feeling uneasy from the moment you fire up the game.
Set in a distinctly creepy motel, you’ll search for the answers behind some rather unfortunate events and, while the gameplay itself isn’t challenging to master, it’s the story that will give you the jeepers.
Atmosphere is expertly crafted, with a cold-sweat blend of in-story events, narration and background music making Dark Days one that you’ll want to play with the lights on.
Price: $7.99 (R105)
Download Dark Days here from Oculus
Drop Dead
If you haven’t played a zombie shooter in VR, have you even played VR at all? Thankfully, Drop Dead makes it addictively easy to get shooting, with its look-to-aim immersion and action-packed gameplay.
The green undead coming at your face might be thoroughly cartoonish, but that doesn’t stop Drop Dead serving up its fair share of scares, not to mention a combat system that makes accuracy fun. Who doesn’t love lopping off zombie body parts?
Price: $9.99 (R131)
Download Drop Dead here from Oculus
Skylight
Turn-based games might not seem like a prime candidate for the VR treatment, but give Skylight a shot and you’ll soon find it hard to return to the 2D equivalents.
Set on the deck of a spaceship, battles play out in neon 3D, with ships and squadrons hovering, moving and blasting before your eyes.
Gameplay itself is engaging enough, with 30 campaign missions to play through – though the full game costs $4.99 to unlock – but it’s the hologram-like interface that’s really worth enjoying.
Price: Free
Download Skylight here from Oculus
Affected: The Manor
While developers continue to explore the possibilities of VR, the basic jump scare remains an obvious example of its make-believe-made-real tech – which is something Affected: The Manor knows well.
For anyone who’s played the likes of Resident Evil, Affected doesn’t do much new as you creep around the archetypal haunted mansion setting.
All the same, its blend of terrifying torchlight exploration and randomised ‘boo’ moments make it a nerve-wracking way to play with your Gear VR.
Price: $2.99 (R40)
Download Affected: The Manor here from Oculus
Ocean Rift
R131 might seem a little steep for a game that literally involves looking at fish, but Ocean Rift is seriously immersive stuff.
With 12 habitats to swim through, there’s no better demo for the striking power of VR than its sea-floor environments. Shoals will swim around your head, turtles will paddle beside you and, if you’re lucky, dolphins might even turn up for a frolic.
It’s fairly straightforward stuff, but with a whole variety of underwater creatures to meet and little touches to discover, this one’s well worth a look.
Price: $9.99 (R131)