Have you ever wanted to be a brilliant detective like Hercule Poirot, Columbo, or Jessica Fletcher? There’s nothing better than getting into the minds of our favorite gumshoes, and with the use of virtual reality, the experience has gotten even better. VR provides a truly immersive experience that rivals any book, movie, or television show.The games on this list use the capabilities of virtual reality to transport you into new worlds where crimes need solving. You will solve crimes taking place from 1908 to 2132 using a variety of tools while interacting with a colorful cast of characters.
10 The Rig: A Starmap To Murder
In The Rig, you play Willard Pike, tasked by your sister-in-law with searching the far reaches of the galaxy for your deadbeat brother. Noir-style detective stories from the 1940s highly influenced the game’s developers.
The result is a noir detective game set in a futuristic world. Use basic investigation skills while solving puzzles using futuristic technology. The Rig’s most interesting features are the fully voice-acted characters, and the branching dialog options. The game is relatively short, only coming in at an average playtime of two hours.
9 The Invisible Hours
Nikola Tesla invites a group of strangers to a mysterious mansion offering them a chance to redeem themselves for something they did. After one guest turns up dead, another guest, a disgraced detective, swears to everyone else that he will solve the case.
The invisible Hours labels its gameplay as an immersive theater experience. The developers did a great job in making this a VR version of Clue. You are invisible and can only observe characters from the game. You can also freely roam to find clues spread throughout the mansion.
8 Revenants: Spirit & Mind
Set in 2030, you play as an occult investigator trying to solve a cold case from 1997. A schoolgirl named Emily went missing with the case eventually growing cold. Recent technological advances in occult technology have allowed you to solve the case once and for all.
You explore the Spirit & Mind academy where Emily disappeared all those years ago. You can manifest and trap demons inside a special camera called the pentacam. The game is episodic with new cases expected to be released as DLC in the near future.
7 Flavortown
You are a rookie cop from Flavortown whose residents are pieces of food. The police chief partners you two meatballs named Biff and Buddy, with instructions to clean up the town’s corruption.
Meet the flavorful residents of Flavortown as you go undercover to fight crime. You will have several silly but fun tools at your disposal to assist you along the way: the Super Action Communicator, replicating holsters, and an exploding fish name F’Oscar. Flavortown is an irreverent comedy that warrants a player discretion is advised.
6 Mr. Hack Jack Robot Detective
You take on the role of a detective robot who solves the murders of other robots using your deduction skills and various tools. This game makes you feel like a detective as you interview other robots, find clues, determine the motive, find the murder weapon, and bring the murderer to justice.
A unique feature of the game is being able to hack into the brains of murdered robots to relive their last moments. The scenes, sounds, and colors are straight out of a noir movie, making this an enjoyable experience.
5 Paranormal Detective: Escape from the 90’s
You work for a detective agency that is hired to find Delia, who disappeared in an abandoned arcade where her sister worked. This game is equal parts a detective game and an escape room style game, which really makes you think.
As a bonus, the retro arcade games located inside the abandoned arcade are playable, leading to a trip of ‘90s nostalgia. If you are stuck on a particular puzzle, you can take a break to play games like basketball, pinball, skee ball, claw games, air hockey, and much more.
4 The Secret Of Retropolis
The Secret of Retropolis is a '90s inspired point-and-click adventure set in a retro-futuristic world. Hired by a famous actor, you uncover a conspiracy that takes you deep into the heart of a robot city.
The game features hand-drawn environments, a cast of voice actors, and explorable cinematic cut scenes. You won’t experience motion sickness due to how the developers designed the game. Retropolis is a good game for those new to virtual reality as they created it to be played as a seated-only experience using very intuitive controls.
3 Sam & Max: This Time It’s Virtual!
Sam & Max have invited you into their world using the magic of VR technology to help them solve a crime set in Cap’n Aquabear’s theme park. This game is a real treat for those of you that played the Telltale and LucasArts games as the creator, original voice actors, and several key developers returned for this entry.
This Time It’s Virtual uses simple point-and-click mechanics, but that doesn’t take away the fun you’ll have when interacting with the series characters in a fully virtual environment.
2 L.A. Noire: The VR Case Files
L.A. Noire: The VR Case Files takes place in 1947 Los Angeles, just like the original Rockstar game. You play as Detective Cole Phelps while solving seven cases inspired by real-life crimes that took place in Los Angeles.
The seven cases are from the original game, but that doesn’t matter because the use of virtual reality brings them to life. Virtual reality shines here because you can interact with characters and objects, drive cars, get in shoot-outs, and add case notes into your notebook by freehand using the tracked motion controllers.
1 The Room VR: A Dark Matter
A famous Egyptologist from the British Institute of Archeology goes missing after a mysterious discovery, and it is your job to uncover the truth about the disappearance. The puzzles are relatively simple, so this is a good entry into the Room series whose other entries can be difficult.
The Room VR: A Dark Matter uses the capabilities of VR better than other games on this list. The use of high-quality graphics, great puzzle design, and an immersive story sets the gold standard for all other VR puzzle games.