With the excellent Half-Life: Alyx not only revitalizing Valve's seminal FPS franchise, but VR gaming as a whole, plenty of gamers are wondering what could be next for the medium. With many AAA franchises yet to enter the virtual reality space, many are wondering what could be headed to the Oculus Quest, HTC Vive, and Valve Index in the near future.
Some of these franchises haven't seen new installments in over a decade. However, most considered Half-Life to be a thing of the past before the announcement of Alyx, so, unlikely as they may seem, here are 10 gaming series that need to have their own VR spinoffs.
10 Call of Duty Zombies
While most modern Call of Duty campaigns are a bit too fast and frenetic to be translated to VR, we believe that the series' beloved zombies mode could excel on the platform. Slow, deliberate, and easily adapted to room-scale, a CoD title featuring a VR zombies offering would be a system seller.
What's more, thanks to the innovations introduced with Valve's Index controllers, things like manual weapon reloading, grenade throwing, and melee usage could all be made to feel shockingly realistic. While it still likely wouldn't be suited to those lacking their VR sealegs, it could be an awesome expansion of a game like Arizona Sunshine.
9 Portal
It's been nine years since Valve has released a fully-featured Portal title, and, given the success of Half-Life: Alyx, we believe it's high time to see a modern iteration of Chell's Aperture Science escapades. The confined, simplistic design of these games feel well-suited to virtual reality gameplay, and, assuming environments don't get too crazy, nausea likely wouldn't be too much of a factor.
Plus, it would be awesome to see the mind-warping properties of the Portal games up close and personal. How cool would it be to shoot two portals in front of and behind you and check out the back of your own head in VR? Trippy!
8 Resident Evil
We know what you're thinking, and, yes, Resident Evil did indeed receive a VR title in the form of Resident Evil 7. However, that was exclusive to the PlayStation 4, and, rather than being a deliberately-designed virtual reality entry, it was more of a shoehorned-in afterthought.
Still, it served as an excellent proof of concept, and we believe a full VR Resident Evil entry could do wonders for a series that's already garnered a ton of buzz in recent years. While we wouldn't necessarily want it to be numbered entry, it could perhaps be something like Revelations 3 or the rumored RE 4 remake.
7 Titanfall
Given the immense reliance on advanced movement options seen int he first two games, the Titanfall series doesn't seem to be that great of a fit for VR. However, when actually piloting the eponymous mechs, VR may prove to be an excellent improvement for the series, and Respawn Entertainment could definitely do something similar to Machine Games and Arkane Studios' Wolfenstein: Cyberpilot.
Sure, piloting mechs is always a little clunky, but, given the addictive nature of the combat seen in Titanfall's first two entries, as well as the continuing interest in the free-to-play spinoff title Apex Legends, a project of this nature may very well come to fruition at some point in the future.
6 Condemned
Does anyone remember the Condemned games? The original was a 2005 Xbox 360 launch title, and it's 2008 successor, subtitled Bloodshot, was an underrated gem. They were excellent survival horror games that heavily incentivized melee combat, and it's the sort of thing that seems tailor-made for VR.
If you've ever played The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners, then you likely have a good idea of how a theoretical Condemned VR game would operate. It would likely be both frightening and inventive, and, though we haven't heard anything about the series in over 12 years, given Half-Life's sudden resurgence, we'll never say never!
5 Fallout
Yes, yes, we know! Fallout already received a fully-featured virtual reality release in the form of Fallout 4 VR, as did The Elder Scrolls with its Skyrim VR release. That said, Fallout 4 VR suffered from some many technical issues that it was—and, for many, still is—an unplayable mess, and the franchise deserves better.
While Bethesda has been mistreating the property lately, we're still hoping to see an adequate VR installment of the franchise at some point. Fallout is famous for its engrossing, fleshed-out environments, and translating something like that to a competent VR release would be downright fantastic—"competent" being the keyword here.
4 BioShock
There's never been any shortage of praise for the BioShock trilogy, and, while the second and third installments can be nit-picked a bit, most FPS fans agree that the 2007 original action/horror epic was a near-masterpiece—and we think it would be even better in VR.
Much of what made BioShock so great was the oppressive, downright disturbing world of Rapture. it sucked gamers in as much as it repulsed them, and the characters and combat scenarios found within would be made all the more jaw-dropping in VR. Rumors of a new BioShock title have been floating around for a while now, and we think a VR spinoff could be feasible, albeit unlikely.
3 Far Cry
When it first debuted in 2004, the original Far Cry was a visual marvel, and, though subsequent editions have devolved the gameplay somewhat, the Far Cry series has continued to awe players with every new installment.
The next hurdle for the series to tackle, in our minds, would be VR. Far Cry is no stranger to spinoffs; one has been released following every new entry since Far Cry 3, and, should Far Cry 6 drop anytime soon, we'd love to see its spinoff take place in VR. Truly open-world virtual reality games are few and far between, and this would make for a refreshing change.
2 Metro
As atmospheric as it is unsettling, the Metro trilogy of games was inspired by the Russian novel series of the same name. A more action-focused take on survival horror, the Metro games are gripping both for their pulse-pounding combat and bitting, thought-provoking storylines.
VR wouldn't be a perfect fit for the series, but, in a potential fourth installment, we'd like to see the hardware-pushing tech used in 2019's Metro Exodus used to wow virtual reality players. The gameplay would have to be slowed down a bit, but the tense, slow crawls through the derelict Moscow subway tunnels were always the series' highlights, anyway.
1 The Darkness
Published by 2K in 2007, The Darkness was an adaptation of a comic series of the same name. Placing players in the shoes of a mobster possessed by a tentacled horror, the game tasked players with hunting down the man's enemies while working his grotesque new limbs into combat.
Flailing these things around and picking up and hurling enemies with them would be an absolute joy in VR, and the whole thing seems like a match made in heaven. Unfortunately, the series has been dormant since 2012's The Darkness 2, and 2K doesn't seem likely to revive it—here's hoping, though!