MyOpinion

Play For Dream MR's hardware and software design is definitely heavily inspired by Apple Vision Pro, and a representative admitted as much to me. But unlike the cheap Chinese knockoff we saw at last year's CES, Play For Dream MR actually has high-end specs, including the Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 chipset and 4K micro-OLED displays. And after trying it, I found Play For Dream MR to be the most impressive XR hardware of any kind at CES 2025.

Play For Dream MR is a kind of crossover between a Vision Pro and Quest Pro, with an Apple-inspired plastic outer shell sporting a glossy black exterior and a Quest Pro style rear battery for a balanced weight distribution.

Putting on the headset for the first time, I was presented with a comfortable and well-balanced piece of wearable tech that I suspect could be used for several hours without much discomfort. The built-in eye tracking scanned and set my IPD automatically, and afterwards I immediately saw a clear and sharp image from edge to edge. While streaming up my favorite game to test VR headsets with from a gaming PC, Half Life: Alyx, I strained as I looked for any sort of distortion or edge-blurring in the periphery, but I just couldn't see any, if it was there at all. Textures popped and appeared crisp with colors that were vibrant, giving me a visual experience that was better than any headset I currently own.

Team 21 Studio announced that the Public Test Realm for the "largest update ever" will go live on Wednesday, 15 January 2025 at 11am PT / 2pm ET / 7pm GMT.

The content of the update will be revealed on the game's Discord server one hour prior to the update. At this time, the team will discuss what they have been working on and explain to the testers what areas need feedback. During the event, you will be able to preload the latest PTR version of the game. The conversation will be made available on YouTube later.

Ilysia was born from a Kickstarter campaign in 2020, in which the team raised over $150,000. It was released in Early Access in October 2023. Since then, a number of updates have been released.

MIXED has not tested Ilysia and cannot judge the state of the game. In terms of style and gameplay, it seems to be inspired by titles like World of Warcraft. There is a long list of features on the official website. However, in parts this seems to describe the aspirations rather than what has actually been implemented.

Developed by one-person team Spoonfed Interactive with support from Combat Waffle Studios (Ghosts of Tabor, Silent North), GRIM promises a focus on realism with a sci-fi twist. Set in a post-apocalyptic world featuring PvP and PvE elements, you try to survive following failed Martian colonization efforts.

Pirates VR Jolly Roger is a game alluding to old stories of the all-time most famous Pirates. The journey into the pirate world begins on a deserted island. Despite its extraordinary charm, the land hides a number of secrets and mysteries to be solved as well as obstacles and traps.

As we step into the new year, it's that familiar time when we all start thinking about what we'd like to see happen in the months ahead. Today, I want to share my hopes and wishes for the virtual reality industry in 2025. But this isn't just about my wishlist – I'd love to hear what's on your mind too.

More asynchronous multiplayer games

During the holidays, I discovered something interesting while showing friends my Quest 3S. While VR players had fun, everyone else just sat around watching. That changed when I found Acron: Attack of the Squirrels, a game that gets everyone involved.

Better value for Playstation VR 2 subscribers in PS Plus

Meta's Quest+ subscription has evolved nicely since its launch. What started as a simple two-games-per-month service now includes 27 major titles like Asgard's Wrath 2, Walkabout Mini Golf, Demeo, Red Matter and Tetris Effect: Connected. New Quest 3 owners even get three months free, giving them instant access to plenty of content.

Buy once, play anywhere

I was already a big fan of cross-buy back in my PS3 and PS Vita days. You buy a game for a Sony platform and can then automatically use it on the manufacturer's handheld device. What a great idea!

Cross-buy options have improved within individual platforms — buy a game for Meta Quest, get it free for Rift, for example. However, this is far from enough for me to advance VR gaming as a whole and grow the user base. I envision something bigger: true cross-platform ownership.

CES 2025 is history! Here are all of this years XR highlights in one video AND we crown the BEST XR Product Of CES 2025 as well as our Biggest Surprise Product Of CES 2025!

We haven’t heard much about Sony’s SRH-S1 standalone MR headset over the past year, which the company revealed at CES 2024. Now, the enterprise-focused device has an official launch date and price.

Released in collaboration with Siemens, the soberly-named Sony SRH-S1 is set to launch sometime in February 2025, priced at $4,750, which the companies are squarely aiming at enterprise. Orders begin on January 23rd, 2025, purchasable directly through Siemens.

While previously pitched last year to appeal to creatives, Sony and Siemens are clearly targeting industrial use cases; the companies say SRH-S1 will “enable the industrial metaverse” and enhance product design and manufacturing through Siemens’ set of high-fidelity mixed reality tools.

Wait, Apple Vision Pro doesn’t come in black, does it? Nope, but Play For Dream MR does. And with what some are calling the ‘Android Vision Pro’, owing to its Android-based OS, Play For Dream seems to have turned some heads at CES 2025 this past week.

Initially launched in Asia last year, China-based headset creator Play For Dream had its sights on bringing the heavily Vision Pro-inspired mixed reality headset to the West. Launching a Kickstarter campaign in September, Play For Dream MR went on to garner $2,271,650.00 Hong Kong dollars (~$292,000 USD).

Play For Dream MR has packed in a laundry list of modern XR features, including a Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 chipset running Android 15, dual 3,840 × 3,552 micro-OLED displays (90Hz), eye-tracking, auto IPD adjustment, wired and wireless PC streaming, and also a Quest Pro-inspired rear-mounted battery and Touch-style controllers.

In short, the headset appears to have it all—even Vision Pro’s user interface.

Design inspirations aside, former Quest engineer Amanda Watson got a chance go hands-on with Play For Dream’s MR headset, noting in an X post it was “absolutely the best all around HMD demo I saw on the floor today.”

“It is quite literally an ‘Android Apple Vision Pro’. but the execution was excellent. Great performance, optics, UI and media capture/playback features,” Watson continues, who departed Meta in 2022.

Arken Age will be released on January 16th for Playstation VR 2 and on Steam for PC VR headsets.

The studio responsible for the game provided me with access to the game in advance to get a first impression. And it's a positive one.

It's easier to make a VR game that looks fantastic than it is to make one that takes full advantage of virtual reality and is fun to play. Arken Age does both.

I played and explored the first four areas for about two hours. Since Arken Age offers a total of 25 areas and a campaign of more than 15 hours, the following impressions are limited to the beginning of the game.

The landscapes are beautiful to behold with their mix of pristine nature, crystal blue waters, magnificent Nara temples and technoid elements and facilities. The native flora and fauna, weapons and enemies are all designed and animated with great attention to detail.

I played Arken Age on Playstation VR 2, and that version has two graphics modes, both of which use Dynamic Foveated Rendering:

a performance mode with 90 native frames per second and a resolution of approximately 2,800 x 2,000 pixels, and a quality mode with 60/120 reprojected frames per second and a resolution of 3,300 x 2,400 pixels.

I prefer performance mode as the game runs smoother and is free of ghosting. The world is not quite as sharp, but it is a feast for the eyes even without the quality mode. The PSVR 2 version also benefits from HDR, an immersive use of adaptive triggers on weapons and the headset's rumble haptics. On the Playstation 5 Pro, the resolution is 15 percent higher in performance mode and 25 percent higher in quality mode.

If you play Arken Age on a powerful PC, you can enjoy even better visuals thanks to numerous graphics settings.

The biggest question I have is whether Arken Age can maintain the positive impression of the first two hours for the rest of the game, or whether monotony will creep in. In any case, I'm excited to delve deeper into this world.

Arken Age is coming to the Playstation Store and on Steam on January 16th and can be wishlisted on both platforms. The price is $40.

Stress Level Zero’s physics-based sandbox follow-up BONELAB (2022) has done spectacularly well on Quest, although the studio still hasn’t brought its award-winning physics action puzzler BONEWORKS (2019) to Meta’s latest standalone hardware generation. That’s about to change.

If you haven’t played on PC VR headset, Boneworks is a narrative VR action-adventure using advanced experimental physics mechanics. It’s pretty intense, as you’re tasked with dynamically navigating through environments, engaging in physics-heavy combat, and creatively approaching puzzles with physics.

Studio co-founder Brandon Laatsch outlined a number of goals for 2025 in a recent X post, stating that not only is the studio working on patches for its Marrow Engine physics framework, which was developed by the studio for the Unity engine, but also the release of Boneworks for Quest 3 and Quest 3S.

The cultural impact of Robert Louis Stevenson's landmark 19th century novel cannot be overstated. Historical tales like The Pirate Queen show there's room for more serious stories, yet Treasure Island's depiction of swashbuckling pirates searching for treasure remains more prevalent with VR games like Sail, Furious Seas, and Battlewake. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Pirates VR: Jolly Roger takes the latter approach.

The Facts

What is it?: A VR action-adventure game where you play as a pirate exploring a cursed island. Platforms: PC VR (reviewed on PC VR via Quest 3 and Virtual Desktop) Release Date: Jan 14, 2025 (PC VR), Q2 2025 (PS VR2) Developer: Split Light Studio Price: $19.99

Pirates VR: Jolly Roger delivers a colorful VR adventure, yet Split Light's latest game feels like a missed opportunity. Noticeable jank, design issues and shallow combat have left me wanting more, though it's balanced out by rewarding exploration and great visuals. If you don't mind a brief visit to the Caribbean, this lighthearted four-hour campaign has its charms.

Today at CES I have been able to go hands-on with two Pimax products: the Pimax Crystal Super and the 60G Airlink for wireless connection. Unluckily there was no Dream Air to try, but I had fun anyway with the two other products.

Before describing my experience, take in mind that CES has been very frenetic so my hands on these two devices lasted only a few minutes, not enough for an exhaustive review. To make things worse, the demo conditions were also terrible because of the poor network and the many interferences at the event venue. So take what I’m writing as just some “first impressions” that could change after an attentive product analysis.

Pimax showed me products that were still work-in-progress. But while the 60G Airlink left me with the impression that there is still a lot of work to do, the Pimax Crystal Super gave me hope. I think that this headset, with its wide FOV and resolution, can provide great immersion, more than what is currently available on the market. But to do that, it has to solve its problems with the weight and especially with the distortion profile of the lenses. I hope that by mid-year, they will be able to sort it out.

(Warning: Pimax is the king of half baked VR.)