It's hard to stay excited about the PlayStation VR2 if even Astro Bot won't wear one
Sony's headset desperately needs a rescue mission.
I should have learned to not get my hopes up by now but, as a huge fan of Sony's PSVR2, it's hard not to get excited when a State of Play featuring new PSVR2 games is announced. Now, I'm not naive enough to believe that Half Life: Alyx is ever going to come to the headset (even though I desperately want it to) but, when one of my favourite VR games ever is the PSVR1 exclusive, Astro Bot Rescue Mission, I think it's fair to hold out hope for an Astro Bot Rescue Mission 2 for the PSVR2. (I mean, I'd even take backwards compatibility for the original Astro Bot Rescue Mission at this point!)
That's why yesterday's announcement of Astro Bot was so bittersweet for me. Like everyone, I'm pumped for a new Astro Bot game, they're such joyful, heart-warming and uplifting games - and on top of that this new one looks a bit like a StarFox x Mario Mash-up. "How can that not be a Game of the Year contender?!" I thought, as I watched the reveal. But then, as the trailer passed the one minute mark without showing footage of anything that looked like VR gameplay, my heart started to sink. That sunken heart then broke completely in two when, at the very end of the trailer, big bold words saying "COMING TO PS5" appeared. So no PSVR2 support at all?! For a character that technically only became big thanks to Astro Bot Rescue Mission on PSVR1? What gives?
To add extra salt to the wound, as I was scouring the trailer for potential PSVR2 clues (just in case, you never know, etc...), I noticed that there is a bit in the trailer during the casino world section, where Astro Bot is wearing a VR headset. The only trouble is... IT'S A PSVR1! Sorry for shouting there - but, come on. How can Sony and PlayStation expect its fan base to stay excited about the future of the PSVR2 if its main mascot won't even wear one?
I'm not one of those people who thinks that the PSVR2 has no games by the way. It has loads of them - and plenty of those are really, really great games, too - but, off the top of my head, I can only count two first party PSVR2 releases from Sony since the headset came out last year. Horizon: Call of the Mountain and Gran Turismo 7, while the Sony-published Firewall Ultra, a game which launched in a less than ideal state, caused its developers, First Contact Entertainment to completely shut down soon after citing a lack of VR support. Hell, Sony even closed its London Studios earlier this month, so that's any hope for Blood and Truth 2 down the apples and pears.
I don't like to moan, honestly I don't, so I feel like I need to reiterate here that I am a big fan of the PSVR2. I just feel like there's so much wasted potential here, and that grates on me. I'm never going to know what goes on in Sony's board rooms, or what its decision-making processes look like when it comes to promoting its headset or developing first party games for it. Maybe there's a valid reason why it feels the need to put the PSVR2 on the back burner compared to its other products. I'm guessing it's just a money thing though.
Whatever the reason, it's hard to stay excited about the PSVR2, or even recommend it to new VR adopters when things like this happen and, as a VR enthusiast, that genuinely hurts to admit. Look, if anyone at Sony is reading this and you want my advice, I don't think it's too late to save the PSVR2 yet. Sure some big first party games would be great but, with the rise of flat-screen to VR mods keeping PC VR gaming alive and kicking right now, I urge you to watch my video below and give my little idea some consideration (and I won't even charge commission for all of the new units that it would definitely shift for you...).
To spoil the surprise for you though, that idea's pretty simple: Sony has a wealth of back catalogue flat-screen games that, as the PC VR modders have already proved elsehwere, would make for some wonderful adaptations to VR. If Sony doesn't want to develop new PSVR2 games, the least it could do is breathe new life into its older flat-screen ones that are ready for the taking. Plus, it's already done the hard work with developing a great bit of hardware anyway - the PSVR2 is great, it just needs its own creator to support it.
