Contractors VR Battle Royale Announced! - Contractors Showdown Announcement

The developers of Contractors VR over at Caveman studios have announced that they are working on a Battle Royale mode called Contractors Showdown. This Contractors Battle Royale mode offers a ton of great new possibilities for the game, and also mirrors the development of flatscreen games in the genre. First let’s talk about what will be introduced in Contractors Showdown, the new Contractors VR Battle Royale gamemode, and then get into what this might mean for Caveman Studios and Contractors VR going forward.

Contractors VR Battle Royale - What Is Coming

So, details are a little sparse, but we do know that Contractors Showdown is planned to launch in 2024 on all Major VR platforms. It will be a battle royale in every sense of the word. While the amount of players that will spawn into each map is unknown for now, from the trailer we can see three Contractors characters getting ready in a plane. This suggests that the Contractors Battle Royale game mode will feature teams of three players who will jump into the map from a plane, as with so many other battle royale games like PUBG and Call Of Duty: Warzone.

A screenshot from the Contractors Showdown trailer, which shows three contractors getting ready on a plane

While the teaser trailer released by Caveman Studios doesn’t offer much else in the way of solid information, there is also a new page on the contractors website that gives a few blurbs about the battle royale game mode. It will take place on an abandoned and ruined looking island. Just like in any other battle royale, you will need to loot equipment from the island to fight other players with in Contractors Showdown. Solo play also seems to be a possibility, not just teams.

Contractors Showdown will take place on an abandoned island

Another section also teases the M.I.C.A. which is “the latest version of advanced tactical gear for all contractors.” This M.I.C.A. seems to function as a map at least, and possibly an inventory management system. Most likely it’s a fun name for a piece of fictional ingame technology that will let you do a lot of the things you need to do in a Battle Royale game. Maybe there will be contracts to take on the island for extra equipment or bonuses, but we will have to wait to get more concrete details.

M.I.C.A. will be your new tactical equipment in the Contractors Battle Royale

Contractors VR Battle Royale - What It Means

Developing a classic Battle Royale is an interesting move for Contractors, which has taken some inspiration from the Call Of Duty franchise in its past additions to the game, like the zombie mode it released. So this could be an attempt to release the Virtual Reality equivalent of Call Of Duty’s Warzone game mode.

All in all the Battle Royale genre is only popularly represented in VR by the game POPULATION: ONE, which recently went free to play in an effort to boost player numbers. The battle royale genre is a very large one, and is very underrepresented in the Virtual Reality space. So the development of Contractors Showdown represents a very savvy business move for Caveman Studios.

Contractors has already snagged a large portion of the VR shooter community with its support of modding and consistently good updates. Contractors Showdown means that they can attract an even larger playerbase of anyone who is hungering for a Virtual Reality battle royale that isn’t POPULATION: ONE, which takes more inspiration from Fortnite than Call of Duty.

Still, we will have to see what Virtual Reality twist the Contractors team puts on their new battle royale mode. There are still a lot of opportunities to shake up the battle royale formula with VR technology and interactivity. Contractors Showdown is definitely something to look forward to, and considering the past successes of Caveman Studios, may very well succeed in its aims.

5 Amazing Contractors VR Mods You Have To Try

If there’s one thing that sets Contractors apart from all other VR shooters it is Contractors’ extensive mod support. Seriously, no other VR shooter on the Quest 2 has the insane array of different mods that Contractors VR offers. Here we’re looking at 5 of the most amazing Contractors VR Mods that change all sorts of things about the game. Bullet speed, time to kill, player models, weapons models, and even vehicles! Contractors mods are crazy and just getting even crazier as modders work hard to add new features and entirely new Contractors mods. Here’s 5 of our favorite Contractors VR mods.

Oh, and if you’re wondering how to play these mods, just check out the server browser in Contractors. If a server is running one of these Contractors mods then it will automatically download if you join that server and you can play with whomever is already there.

Team Fortress 2

Yep, you read that right. This Contractors VR mod lets you play Team Fortress 2 in Virtual Reality. The classic game by Valve, directly on your VR headset. All you need is a copy of Contractors and at no extra charge Team Fortress 2 VR is included with this Contractors mod.

It’s seriously crazy to see all of the highly stylized Team Fortress 2 characters standing right in front of you in Virtual Reality. It’s even crazier to look at your own hands and see the hands of one of those characters. The detail in this mod is amazing, and there are even a variety of Team Fortress 2 maps that have been ported into the game, so everything matches the TF2 aesthetic.

This Contractors mod includes everything from the classes of Team Fortress 2 to the primary weapons used by those classes. Each has its own reloading method, and now you reload them with your real hands in the same way as the reloading animations from Team Fortress 2. This Contractors VR mod is basically Team Fortress 2 VR. There are even game modes from TF2 like payload, though you’ll also see regular ground control matches using the Team Fortress 2 mod.

If you’re a huge fan of Team Fortress 2, or even just somewhat familiar with it, then you have to try this Contractors VR mod. It’s insane to be and see the Team Fortress 2 characters in Virtual Reality. Not to mention, it’s a ton of fun to play with all the same interesting class combinations and gameplay of the flat screen game. This Contractors mod is one you should try at least once.

Clone Wars

If you’ve heard of any of the Contractors mods on this list already, it’s probably the Clone Wars mod. This mod was one of the earliest examples of just how great Contractors VR mods can get, and quickly became notorious around the VR community. That’s because the Clone Wars Contractors mod is basically a complete overhaul of the game.

All of the weapons are replaced with blasters, and all of the characters are replaced with clone troopers and battle droids, just like from the Star Wars movies. Each weapon makes a blaster sound when you fire it, and all of the bullets that come out aren’t bullets, they’re blaster bolts. They travel as quickly as blaster bolts do. So if you ever wanted to have a blaster fight against other players in VR, then this Contractors mod delivers that.

The Clone Wars mod has only gotten better over time as the modders keep adding features. More classes to play, like those in Battlefront 2, and even Hero classes with light sabers and force powers. Now you can also be your favorite Jedi or Sith Lord in VR. Most amazingly of all they added speeder bikes.

Of all Contractors mods none have the notoriety of this one, and this mod shows just how much can be done with Contractors modding. If you want a PvP Star Wars VR Shooter, then you’ll be happy to know that all you need to do to get that is play this Contractors VR mod.

Blade and Sorcery

You read that right, this ambitious Contractors VR mod aims to create something like Blade and Sorcery in Contractors. Crazy, right? Contractors is a shooting game, and while there are a lot of melee weapons in it… well you couldn’t possible make a sword fighting game out of it? Well the modder behind the Blade and Sorcery Contractors mod is certainly trying.

It actually kind of works. The sword fighting itself is pretty varied with a lot of weapon choices (more than just swords) and even shields and different levels of armor. Though they often devolve into who can swing fastest. While there are definitely better fighting games on the Quest 2, this Contractors VR mod does a lot with a little and runs with it. The experience is almost surreal, and there are a ton of weapons and player models to choose from.

There are bows and things like that too, and so it’s not all melee combat focused. There are also some custom maps for the Blade and Sorcery mod that are… pretty wild to say the least. Still, it’s a good time, and if you want a Contractors mod that aims to change the base gameplay as much as possible, or just want a kind of crazy experience, then give the Blade and Sorcery mod a try.

FalloutNV

For all you Fallout fans, and especially Fallout: New Vegas fans, this Contractors mod is a must try. FalloutNV ports a bunch of weapons from Fallout: New Vegas to Contractors and lets you fight as the NCR or Caesar’s Legion with them. This mod is crazy, and lets you use a variety of Fallout weapons in Virtual Reality. From Laser Rifles to 9MM SMGs to Chinese Officers’ Swords, this Contractors mod has a lot and more is being added all the time.

Fighting in Ground Control with your favorite Fallout: New Vegas weapons makes this Contractors mod the closest thing to Fallout: New Vegas VR that exists right now, and it’s pretty great. There are even stimpacks and grenades that look exactly like their Fallout counterparts, and the Legion and NCR Trooper models are superb.

Though unlike other mods on this list that’s all that this mod currently brings, Fallout loadouts and player models. Though nobody can really say what a Fallout: New Vegas game mode or map would look like. Defend the Brahmin in Novac? Ground Control in Goodsprings?

This mod is a ton of fun. If you’re ever wanted to play Fallout: New Vegas VR, then this is your best bet right now. Even if you’re not a huge Fallout fan the new weapons are super interesting. Melee combat is also a pretty viable strategy too just like in Fallout: New Vegas, so be sure to give this Contractors VR mod a try.

Call Of Duty Zombies

If you’ve tried Contractors’ lackluster built in zombies survival mode and been disappointed, then you’ll be happy to know that new zombies options are coming to Contractors through a variety of Contractors mods that seek to recreate the classic Call of Duty zombies modes in Virtual Reality. There are a lot of different Contractors VR mods trying to do this to varying levels of success, but right now a few of them are at the point where they are basically complete with everything from the upgrade vending machines to the mystery box.

That’s right, with this Contractors mod you don’t need a PC and a copy of Pavlov to play Call of Duty zombies in Virtual Reality. Now you can play COD zombies in VR with your Quest 2 and Contractors. Your milage might vary depending on which mod is being used in the server that you joined, and which experimental map it is running, but there is definitely a solid Call of Duty zombies experience to be had with Contractors mods.

There are a huge variety of weapons, and the zombies all look, sound, and act just like they do in the original Call of Duty zombies. There are barricades that you can repair too, and also the same money system as in the original game. Get money from shooting zombies and repairing barricades. These mods are becoming more and more solid over time, and one will most likely emerge as the best out of all and become standard.

Still, if you want that Call of Duty zombies experience, and Contractors’ already existing zombies mode isn’t scratching that itch, then look for a COD zombies server in Contractors VR. While definitely the least complete of the Contractors mods on this list, the experience of Call of Duty zombies in Virtual Reality is fantastic and a must try for any fan of the original COD zombies mode.

There you have it, 5 of the craziest and most interesting Contractors VR mods. There are also even more mods to find just by looking around the server browser, but they don’t get much better or much wackier than these Contractors mods.

11 Best VR Shooting Games for the Oculus Quest 2 | VR Shooter Games for the Quest 2

If you’re a fan of shooters or shooting games and have an Oculus/Meta Quest, you’re probably thinking that shooting games would be pretty awesome in Virtual Reality. Well they are! VR shooting games are one of the most consistently fun genres that takes full advantage of what VR has to offer.

Actually handling a gun and its parts directly to reload and aim makes VR shooting games instantly more tactile and immersive. The feeling of crouching physically while listening for an enemy coming around the corner with your gun trembling in your hands isn’t quite the same outside of Virtual Reality Shooters.

Many of the varieties of VR shooters which can be found in flat screen games are making their way over to VR, and this list includes many different genres of shooting games. There’s multiplayer as well as singleplayer VR shooting games for the Quest in here. These are the best VR shooting games on the Oculus Quest 2.

Oh, and honorable mention to The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners Chapters 1 and 2. While absolutely fantastic survival games, they didn’t have enough of an emphasis on VR shooting to be considered as VR shooter games, but they are fantastic games.

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Onward - VR Shooting Games and VR Shooter Games

The Onward Logo

Chances are you’ve probably heard about Onward. It’s a well known VR shooter because it has been around for a very long time, and was originally released for PCVR years ago. Since then it has seen many improvements and additions, while also being ported to the Quest 2.

In case you aren’t familiar, Onward is a Multiplayer focused VR shooter (though it does have some Singleplayer features) that takes place during a fictional worldwide conflict in the modern day. Whichever team you are on determines what weapons you can choose for your loadouts, and teams are limited to five players each, similar to the Counter Strike franchise. Movement speeds are low and so is the time to kill. One or two shots can easily down a player. Even being wounded means you need to use a medical syringe on yourself.

An intense shootout in Onward

If you want a slow and tactical multiplayer VR shooting experience, then Onward is a game you should definitely try. For more about Onward check out our article comparing it to Contractors.

Lies Beneath - VR Shooting Games and VR Shooter Games

The Lies Beneath Logo

Now for a game you probably haven’t heard about. Lies Beneath is not a Multiplayer game, instead it is a linear, story based horror VR shooter. You are one woman with nothing but a magical lighter and a few old guns and blades against hordes of horrifying, otherworldly monsters.

Lies Beneath has a story that is genuinely thrilling and a number of disquieting and beautiful settings to match it. It remains consistently creepy where it isn’t outright scary, and varies the gameplay constantly so that you never know what you’ll find or shoot at next. Whether you’re defending a cabin against a horde of zombies with a shotgun or blasting your way through a village of possessed fishermen with a revolver, Lies Beneath is a VR shooting game that never gets dull.

Ghosts of Tabor - VR Shooting Games and VR Shooter Games

The Ghosts Of Tabor Logo

Every wanted to play VR Tarkov? Want to have the tension of an extraction/raid VR shooter in VR? Well Ghosts of Tabor finally delivers on that. Set in a future where Russia has collapsed to Extreme Nationalists, you are a Special Forces soldier on Tabor, which has been hit by a nuclear missile.

Gather your gear in your bunker Safe House and venture out into the many locations of Tabor to acquire loot and bring it home, while also completing missions given by the many traders. Watch out though, the NPC FENIX rebels (basically Scavs from Tarkov) will shoot you on sight. Other players also might, but they might also end up being your friends. Still… you can never really trust anyone in Tabor.

Ghosts of Tabor is shaping up to be the premier multiplayer VR shooter game on the Quest 2 and PCVR. For more on Ghosts of Tabor and how it compares to Escape From Tarkov check out our article on it here.

Into The Radius - VR Shooting Games and VR Shooter Games

The Into The Radius Logo

Into the Radius is hands down the best survival VR shooter available on any platform, not just the Quest 2. It is often compared to the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series of games, but takes much more inspiration from the book that inspired S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Roadside Picnic.

An anomaly in Into The Radius

In Into the Radius you explore the Pechorsk Radius, fighting strange creatures made of dark matter and avoiding deadly anomalies while completing missions and gathering artifacts to sell. There are a huge number of weapons and pieces of equipment to buy to keep you alive in the Zone, which has dangers that only become greater the further in you go. Though the further in you go, the closer you get to revealing the mysteries of what exactly happened to Pechorsk.

Firing a PPSH in Into The Radius. This is one of the greatest VR shooting games

If you want a tense singleplayer VR survival shooter, then Into the Radius is a must play. As far as Virtual Reality Shooting Games in general, it is one of the best out there and should be at the top of your list if you want a great singleplayer VR shooter on the Quest 2.

Warhammer 40,000: Battle Sister - VR Shooting Games and VR Shooter Games

The Warhammer 40,000: Battle Sister Logo

Finally, a Warhammer 40K VR shooting game in Virtual Reality. If you don’t know what Warhammer 40K is, basically it’s a far future galaxy in which the Imperium, which has incorporated most of humanity, is fighting basically everyone who isn’t them. In Warhammer 40,000: Battle Sister you are a Sister of Battle, an elite woman supersoldier armed and armored to the teeth.

You fight (mostly) the forces of chaos, who represent the entropic forces of the galaxy that want to destroy the Imperium. From cultists to huge Chaos Space Marines to demons of several kinds, there is great enemy variety in Warhammer 40,000: Battle Sister, as well as weapon variety. Though the combat can feel a little repetitive after a while, many encounters play out in very similar fashion, which can make you lose interest over time in this VR shooting game.

Warhammer 40000: Battle Sister is mostly a linear Singleplayer experience, though there is some Multiplayer available in it’s endless horde survival mode. The one downside is that sometimes this VR shooter forces you into long and boring talking sequences that you can’t skip, and the dialog isn’t the most well written. Occasionally it is somewhat cringy, with a little overcommitment to character.

If you want to have some shootouts with large industrial weapons in an interesting grimdark sci-fi setting, or are already a Warhammer 40K fan, give Warhammer 40,000: Battle Sister a look.

Contractors - VR Shooting Games and VR Shooter Games

The Contractors Logo

Contractors is another Multiplayer online VR shooter for the Quest 2 that is often called the “Call of Duty of VR.” This is because the gameplay of Contractors, despite being in VR, shares many similarities with the Call of Duty franchise. Movement is fast and so is the gunplay.

If you want fast paced action, then Contractors is probably going to be your go to game. While there are a variety of game modes, most of them play out similarly. Spawn, run for a few seconds, see an enemy, fight, see another enemy, fight, die, rinse and repeat. It’s a great game to get some fast VR shooting action in.

There is constant action and very little waiting. You will die and be in another gunfight in less than thirty seconds. The action never stops. As for the gunplay, it plays out quickly, but gives you a chance to react. Jumping while shooting and sliding towards your enemy while shooting are totally viable tactics here.

Contractors is the most moddable of all multiplayer VR shooting games

Though the pace of gameplay can vary when playing any of Contractor’s many mods. That is the greatest strength of this game, how moddable it is. As far as multiplayer VR shooters on the Quest 2, there are none with anywhere near the amount of moddability and available mods as Contractors. There’s a Halo mod, Star Wars mod, and even some attempts at recreating Call of Duty’s zombies mode, and DayZ.

For more on Contractors check out our article comparing it to Onward.

Oh, and if you want an excellent VR Battle Royale, one of the best out there, based on the gameplay of Contractors, then check out Contractors: Showdown.

Sniper Elite VR - VR Shooting Games and VR Shooter Games

The Sniper Elite VR Logo

Sniper Elite VR is currently the best World War 2 VR shooter available on the Quest 2. You might think that Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond would hold that title, but a badly paced single player campaign combined with poorly thought out Multiplayer means that Sniper Elite VR gets the title.

Sniper Elite VR takes place in Italy during World War 2. You are a partisan fighting the Nazi occupiers, and Nazi shooting never gets old, especially in this game. There are many different and varied combat encounters to fight through, though as the name implies sniping is the core focus of the game. The Virtual Reality shooting is very fun, and all weapons have impressive kickback, with slow motion x-ray vision sometimes turning on and showing you just how devastating your bullet is as it goes through an enemy soldier’s body.

Firing an STG in a graveyard

If you want the World War 2 VR shooter experience in VR then Sniper Elite VR is the place to look. There are a ton of weapons and missions to enjoy. The downside is that Sniper Elite VR is an entirely Singleplayer experience, though it’s recent cousin on the flat screen has shown that it would make an excellent Multiplayer game.

For more on Sniper Elite: VR check out our review.

Resident Evil 4 VR - VR Shooting Games and VR Shooter Games

Leon Kennedy from Resident Evil 4 VR - A fantastic single player VR shooter

Here’s another Singleplayer game, but it is a legendary one. The original Resident Evil 4 was a huge hit that created a whole new genre of shooters, and now it’s a VR shooter. Resident Evil 4 VR is a very faithful and very well made adaptation of the original to the Virtual Reality format, and it is just as much of a hit.

Shooting in Resident Evil 4 VR

Fill the shoes of Leon Kennedy as you fight the Ganados Cult in rural Spain to save the President’s daughter. There’ll be plenty of homicidal villagers and mutants on the way, as Resident Evil 4 VR brings the immersive manual reloading and aiming that can only be done in Virtual Reality to the story and gameplay of Resident Evil 4. This is a phenomenal combination that will leave you starved for more and happy to strap on your headset one more time to play this VR shooting game.

A quick time event in Resident Evil 4 VR

If you have ever played and enjoyed a Resident Evil game, or games from similar franchises like Uncharted or the newer Tomb Raider games… Actually if you’ve ever enjoyed a singleplayer VR shooter in your life, then get Resident Evil 4 VR. Oh, and if you ever get stuck check out our article with tips and tricks (or the video).

Breachers - VR Shooting Games and VR Shooter Games

The Breachers Logo

Often called the Rainbow Six: Siege of VR, Breachers definitely contains a lot of elements from Rainbow Six: Siege, but also pulls inspiration from other well known shooter titles like Counter Strike: Global Offensive.

In the VR shooter Breachers you are either on the attacking or defending team, with access to all of the same weapons, but different items and tools depending which side you are on. The defending team has traps and defensive items, while the attacking team gets flashbangs, cloaks, drones, and breaching equipment. The attacking team needs to plant an EMP to disable bombs on one of two adjacent bomb sites, and the defending team needs to prevent this.

Oh, and if all team members on one of the teams dies, then the other team wins. The stakes always feel high in this VR shooter.

Leaning to cover a hallway in Breachers - A great tactical VR shooter game

Breachers combines quick gameplay with short rounds lasting three minutes so you will rarely be idle for a long time. It’s a ton of fun, and is quickly becoming one of, if not the, best multiplayer competitive VR shooter on the Oculus Quest 2. Maybe even the best competitive VR shooter in all of Virtual Reality.

The gunplay is satisfying and the time to kill with all weapons is very finely tuned for an enjoyable experience. The attackers vs defenders gameplay loop means that how the game plays varies greatly depending on what team you’re playing on. This keeps the gameplay fresh and entertaining. The wide variety of gadgets, guns, and tools also means that you have a ton of options to change your playstyle and strategize depending on what the enemy team is doing.

Scoring a headshot in Breachers

Breachers combines smooth design with great gunplay into a complete VR PvP shooter experience that takes inspiration from the flat screen, but is a fantastic game all on its own. If you love competitive team vs team shooters that require communication and strategy in a tight package, then Breachers is definitely for you.

POPULATION: ONE - VR Shooting Games and VR Shooter Games

The Population: One Logo

Do you like Battle Royales? Want to see what a VR Battle Royale might look like? Well then you’ll like Population: One, as it’s the only VR Battle Royale available on the Quest 2. It’s a pretty great one though, and also is a good VR shooter in general. While each match doesn’t support as many people as a flat screen Battle Royale, there are still a lot of players for a VR game. More than enough to make the game tense, and Population: One keeps the repositioning and equipment gathering between firefights fast paced.

Movement is quick and fun, with the ability to glide by stretching your arms out or climb up buildings with your bare hands. You have health as well as shields, meaning combat can be a protracted and very fun affair. There’s also building, but it’s not as widespread or as quick to do as in other games like Fortnite.

Population: One does have a bot mode for Singleplayer, but the heart of the game is playing with a squad of other people and trying to be the last ones to survive. If you love Battle Royales and want to see what one would be like in Virtual Reality then get your hands on Population: One. Oh, and now it’s free!

Bonelab - VR Shooting Games and VR Shooter Games

The Bonelab Logo

Bonelab is another VR shooter you’ve probably heard about, and for very good reason. Where Contractors is the king of Multiplayer modding in Virtual Reality, Bonelab is the king of Singleplayer modding in Virtual Reality (except maybe for Blade and Sorcery, but we’re talking about VR shooters here).

Bonelab is a Singleplayer only game that has a satisfyingly long campaign that has you fight all sorts of strange enemies with a multitude of guns and even melee weapons (though the guns are clearly the best part). If you like puzzles then Bonelab offers just about as many physics puzzles as it does VR shooting.

The real gem of Bonelab is what is outside of the campaign, and that is the multitude of mods for weapons, enemies, maps, and so much more. Bonelab also has a unique feature that now allows you to download different skins for your character and switch between them, and each skin has a variety of stats. So you can be a strong and slow guy, or a tiny gremlin that can fit into tight spaces, or anything in between. There’s modded skins for popular characters like Batman, Deadpool, and so much more.

If you want a more sandbox like experience, or want to get into making your own mods for a VR shooter, then Bonelab is a great game to play. Oh, and if you want to install mods for Bonelab without a computer, check out this article on how to install Bonelab mods without a PC.

VAIL VR - VR Shooting Games and VR Shooter Games - BONUS

The VAIL VR Logo.

VAIL VR is another Multiplayer Shooter now available on the Meta Quest platform. It has recently, since it’s release on PCVR, gotten huge updates adding new maps, game modes, and a progression system that has you unlocking weapons and skins as you level up in the game and complete other various challenges like getting headshots.

VAIL VR is fast paced and has small teams going head to head to complete classic objectives like wiping out the enemy team, or planing a bomb objective. You know, like Counter Strike.

VAIL VR also has an extremely polished feel to it, and generally looks and feel fantastic. While it might not have the most sophisticated game modes or team play, this VR Shooter is absolutely fantastic for the responsiveness of its shooting and smoothness to its controls and movements. There’s even a system in the game that dynamically estimates where your legs should be, making it a much better idea to take cover.

While VAIL isn’t the most tactical of shooters, there is a fair bit of running and gunning involved. It’s low time to kill makes it very reaction based and fast paced. It’s a fantastic new player in the VR Shooting Game scene that has been the favorite of many.

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Onward VS Contractors - Multiplayer Shooters on the Oculus Quest 2

There are a few multiplayer shooters on the Oculus Quest 2, but none as popular as Onward and Contractors, the two giants of Multiplayer Shooting in standalone Virtual Reality. So anyone with a new Quest 2, or that wants to get into VR Shooters might be asking, which one is better? Well that might depend on your own taste. Here you’ll see, category by category, how the two games compare. So here’s a breakdown of Onward Versus Contractors on the Oculus Quest 2.

Gameplay

Gameplay can mean a lot of things, so let’s get a little more specific. How does the game feel to play? What is the moment to moment action like? Fun can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, so what kind of fun are you looking for?

Well if you want fast paced action, then Contractors is probably going to be your go to game. Often called the “Call of Duty of Virtual Reality”, Contractors emphasizes movement, quick reflexes, and constant gunplay. While there are a variety of game modes (more on that later) most of them play out similarly. Spawn, run for a few seconds, see an enemy, fight, see another enemy, fight, die, rinse and repeat.

There is constant action and very little waiting. You will die and be in another gunfight in less than thirty seconds. The action never stops. As for the gunplay, it plays out quickly, but gives you a chance to react. It takes quite a few bullets to take someone down, depending on the weapon, though generally at least five or six, and headshots are instant kills. All weapons are very accurate and most have low recoil. It is easy to fire fully automatic and hit your target almost every time. Health regenerates automatically, which means that tactics like jumping out of cover or sliding past your enemies are completely viable without risking instant death.

So if you want a fast paced rush where you can jump and power slide across the ground while spraying with an AK, Contractors delivers on that. Otherwise if you just don’t like waiting around and don’t have a whole lot of time to get into a game before you have to take your Quest off, Contractors offers some quick action.

So what about Onward? Well if Contractors sounds too arcadey and fast paced for you, then chances are you will love this alternative. Most Onward games play out like Search and Destroy matches, a team of five against a team of five, one life only per round, no respawns. There is a respawn option, but you will see that less often in public lobbies, and respawns take about ten to fifteen seconds just to get back into the game with them enabled.

All of this means is that your life is more precious in Onward, because once you die you’ll be waiting for a new round to play again, which usually means another couple of minutes before more action at the very least. Couple this with the VERY low Time to Kill (a single bullet can kill easily, no way you can live through three) makes for a very slow paced and cautious game. You might call it “realistic”.

Whatever you call it, Onward offers less action but more tension. Running into the open where an enemy can see you means almost certain death, and while reflexes will definitely matter in some situations, especially in close quarters combat, careful thinking and outsmarting your opponents will give you victory. The fun in Onward isn’t in run jumping into a room spraying bullets, but crouch walking behind a wall, peeking into windows and waiting for an enemy head to appear.

Onward is for those that like mil-sims or just more slowly paced shooters, where quick reflexes and movement aren’t everything. Still, for both games that isn’t all there is, there’s more features to consider.

Game Modes

There’s no use beating around the bush here. Contractors blows Onward out of the water when it comes to Game Modes, and more are being added all of the time. Contractors has been a consistently improved and expanded game through constant updates, while Onward has remained largely the same for the past year or so.

That being said, not all of Contractor’s game modes are very good, but you will probably find something that you enjoy. Base Game Modes include your typical capture the flag style gameplay with sixteen players in a single match (Ground War), Team Deathmatch, escort the VIP, the usual hits and more. With a good variety of maps included in the game, there are also World War 2 and Ninja game modes, where the weapons are all replaced with WW2 variants, or everyone gets a bow, Katana, and smoke bombs. They’re all great fun, though preferences and opinions may vary.

There are quite a few single player missions. While the AI is pretty incompetent, fighting a lot of them can be very fun. There’s some escorting missions, enemy leader assassination missions (the leaders are just super buffed AI enemies), and more. While the Singleplayer is not enough alone to justify buying the game, it’s not a bad way to warm up from time to time, and can be experienced in Co-Op Multiplayer.

What’s more interesting is the Co-Op survival mode, where a team of four players faces off against waves of enemies. The later waves get very intense, and there is decent variety in the enemies that you face, from guys with SMGs to explosive laden attack dogs. It’s a challenge and it’s good fun. There is also a lackluster zombie survival mode, that feels like it needs more effort put into it, though hopefully that will be fixed one day with updates.

The thing that really makes Contractors stand out is its support of custom game modes and maps. Want to experience classics from the old Call of Duty games in VR? Maps from every classic installment of the series, such as the Modern Warfares and Black Opses, can be found in Contractors to fight over again in Virtual Reality. These maps are the most popular and the most fun. Arenas from other games are present as well, like Halo 3.

Custom game modes like Gun Game are also present in Contractors, so when you get tired of Capturing flags there’s a lot more to do. Really there’s far too many choices to list here, and more are added all of the time.

Custom Loadouts are a more recent addition to the Contractors modding scene, and they really round out custom experiences. Want Halo guns for your Halo map? Now that is possible, and you’ll even be wearing Master Chief’s armor while you use them. Want Star Wars droids fighting clone troopers on Call of Duty’s terminal map? That’s possible now too. These mods are now even capable of affecting the pace of gameplay, with guns that are less accurate, and more shots required for a kill.

Unfortunately Onward does not have modding support outside of some custom maps. Still, the game modes are pretty good. There are two main game modes in Multiplayer, Send the Uplink (type some numbers in front of a dish the other team is defending), and Escort the VIP (make sure one player with only a pistol makes it to one of two points on the map, if that player dies you lose). There’s also Gun Game, which is pretty fun, though it fits better in a faster paced game like Contractors, and a bizarre game mode called Spec Ops.

Spec Ops is kind of a misgnomer, something like “zombie” or “infection” would be a better name. In this mode one team moves really quickly and is armed with knives, while the other team moves normally and has pistols with a single magazine of ammunition. Whichever team is wiped out first loses. Oh, and the map looks foggy so it’s hard to see far. Spec Ops is… well it’s a bit weird and doesn’t really fit into the rest of Onward’s lineup, but is a decent distraction for a few rounds.

While these are good game modes that take familiar archetypes and do interesting things with them, there isn’t nearly as much variety here. On the other hand the built in maps that Onward comes with are fantastic, and come with a variety of spawn points and objective locations to keep them fresh. While the custom maps might show some promise over time, so far what the community has created so far has not surpassed Onward’s original maps.

Onward does have a better Singleplayer experience than Contractors does, with two game modes. Hunt, where you must defeat all AI enemies on the map, or Evac, where you must fight off or evade waves of enemies and escape in a Helicopter. All in all Onward has a better single player, mostly through the virtue of slightly better AI opponents, who aren’t terribly lifelike, but at least take cover sometimes and shoot straight. Still, the Singleplayer is not enough on its own, except as a nice warm up and a decent couple of hours of AI stomping.

Weapons and Loadouts

What is a shooter without a ton of weapons to shoot and customize? Well in this category Onward outshines Contractors.

There are more possibilities for customization in Onward, where in Contractors you get some choices like what weapon to take and whether or not to use a foregrip or silencer. Contractors also has a few optics to choose from depending on the weapon, though the options to choose from are very limited.

Contractors does also offer a choice between light, medium and heavy armors. The thinking being that more armor means slower movement, and less armor means faster movement. Not to mention the grenades and melee weapons there are to choose from. Meanwhile Onward offers more viable variations of loadouts depending on the situation, or player preference.

In Onward there is a greater variety of options to play around with. You can choose between AP and FMJ ammunition, whether to take extra body armor, or extra healing items. Night vision is an option for night maps, and so are lasers and flashlights on your weapon. Bipods are an option in addition to foregrips. There are riot shields and RPGs available, or even an underbarrel grenade launcher on a couple of weapons. You can take a flying drone for scouting, and put C4 on it for the classic exploding drone technique.

The options you have to customize your loadouts in Onward are far beyond what Contractors offers, and the slower pace of gameplay makes optimizing your loadout and playing with all of the options very rewarding. There are four roles to be taken in Onward, Rifleman, Specialist, Support, and Sniper. Some weapons and gear are shared between them, and some are role exclusive. Each role gets two loadout slots for a total of eight loadouts.

Contractors only gives you five loadouts (though there are another 5 for the World War 2 Game Mode) and each can use any weapon. As for those weapons, while there seems to be a wide variety, you will quickly find that some are just not as good as others.

What the current meta is becomes apparent quickly when you see what weapons you get killed by in public lobbies. Some weapons are just much better at killing opponents faster than others, so the worse weapons just never get used once you realize they are terrible. In Contractors you will find that only one or two weapons in each category are actually useful, which means there is less variety than there seems to be.

Not only that, but the sound and feeling of firearms is different between the two games, and once more Onward outshines Contractors. The weapons in Contractors really need better sounds, suppressed or unsuppressed they sound like Airsoft guns.

In Onward each weapon has a respectable report that sounds much closer to an actual gunshot, and bullets will snap as they pass near your head, while in Contractors you only notice you’re being shot when your screen goes red.

While the weapons in Contractors have a variety of spray patterns and recoil, you will generally be firing them at close range and fully automatic to try and spray down your opponent as quickly as possible. Onward has many maps with wide open spaces (such as Downfall) that require careful aiming and encourage sniping. Sniper rifles are rarely very good in Contractors. The recoil of weapons in Onward makes firing full auto at anything other than close ranges more difficult, and overall feels more like firing an actual gun than an airsoft gun.

Conclusion

So there you have it, the breakdown of Onward VS Contractors on the Oculus Quest 2. Each outshines the other in some areas, so whichever sounds better is totally up to you, though you definitely might enjoy both of them.

One final thing to note is that Contractors more consistently receives large updates that adds more modification options, gameplay improvements, and gameplay modes than Onward does. While these updates are not all super stellar and vary in quality and scope, they have been consistently making Contractors a better game and a greater contender.

Onward has not been receiving the same frequency of updates, and for the past year or so has been pretty stagnant in terms of new features and content. Maybe Downpour Interactive is just working on something big using Onward assets, but if they don’t start updating their game soon they threaten being left in the dust by Contractors. Only time will tell.

Whichever you pick, have fun in VR, and enjoy yourself.

You can get Onward on the Oculus Quest store for 24.99$. Contractors can be found there for 19.99$.

Contractors VR Zombies is Hot Garbage and Here’s Why

I’ve got to say that I’m not easily turned away from something new in VR. There are so many unexplored types of games in Virtual Reality that even a half decent version of something new to VR is generally an awesome experience. Even if I have some complaints about whatever it is, like in my Cities VR article. I’ll still usually end up playing it a ton and enjoying myself immensely. There’s just not a whole lot of options in VR, and I’m a huge fanboy.

Now there’s already zombie survival in Pavlov VR, but that’s just a direct port of Nazi Zombies from the Call of Duty franchise. Vanilla Pavlov Zombies is so underdone and incomplete that it doesn’t count. Oh, and After The Fall too, though that game has some issues of its own. Here was another chance to do things right. Contractors VR zombies was going to be something grand and new, from a game that had previously had some really stellar updates, and this zombies mode was going to be built in VR, for VR.

Shame it turned out to be terrible.

The Zombies Are Drunk

Let’s start with the obvious thing. The zombies look terrible. The animations are janky and weird, and they’re constantly doing this over-animated dancing with their arms that makes them look silly. They don’t shamble and they don’t run. They kind of… flail their arms as they power walk towards you. They look like they’re sliding over the ground more than walking. I mean look at them for Christ’s sake.

Not to mention that there is very little variance in the character models of those zombies. The same few variations will come at you over and over again with a different colored shirt. Hair guy, messed up face guy, big bald dude, occasional fat dude, over and over again.

Worst of all is that the zombies make hardly any noise. The occasional moan is about all you get. There’s long periods of dead silence while they eerily shamble towards you, only occasionally punctuated by a single sound other than gunshots. It’s weird.

Look at a clip from Contractors VR zombies, and then compare that to a clip from the Call of Duty Nazi Zombies. The Nazi Zombies have so much flavor, they move in such an interesting zombie-like fashion, with some damn character and some noise. They don’t all look the same when they move. They seem… well not alive, but animated.

Ugh. When the Contractors zombies get close to attack you they don’t even really make a chomping noise or a roar or a screech or anything alarming. Then you have to immediately run away and reposition. Oh and let’s talk about repositioning while we’re on the topic

The Gameplay. Also Drunk.

You will have to do a ton of repositioning in Contractors VR Zombies. Not for the right reasons either. I hope you really love constantly reloading while on the run, because you never get a chance to just stand your damn ground and run the zombies through a choke point. Outside of the early rounds there will be enough zombie spawns for some to inevitably spawn behind you.

Are there maybe some secret spots I haven’t found? The options are either stand in a corner with nowhere to run if you get overwhelmed, or zombies will spawn behind you. One of them will usually start attacking you from behind and you will need to run and reposition.

What makes this so crappy and unengaging is that this means there is really no reason to think tactically about the map and the obstacles on it. As long as you have a place to run away to then you will be fine as long as you don’t get bitten one too many times before you run. There’s no funneling zombies into choke points or traps.

Even just run and gun shooting can be interesting, but unless you are constantly looking over your shoulder every couple of seconds, which makes aiming in VR impossible, then you have no forewarning of a zombie coming behind you. Since they can just pop into existence anywhere and don’t make any noise to alert you to their presence, a zombie could be basically anywhere you aren’t looking at basically any time.

After playing enough you will inevitably spot zombies popping in out of nowhere. They’re probably designed to spawn in behind you or right around a corner in front of you so you don’t see them pop into existence. What this creates is a situation where you have no idea where zombies might come from and so no way to plan for how to deal with them. This is just a shooting gallery where you shoot, run, shoot, run, with no thinking. Over and over again in circular patterns.

The Perks Are Drunk Too

Speaking of patterns let’s talk about the progression systems here. Just like in previous Contractors VR survival there’s a system of Perks and Equipment. You get two perk points a round, and you get money dependent on how many times you shot or killed a zombie. Now I’ll put a little disclaimer here by saying that these problems are largely inherited from the previous Contractors VR survival mode, which has the same mechanics, but they’ve been rebalanced and reworked for the zombies mode. That means there was a chance to do something about these problems before release.

For instance, you would be crazy to not go through the yellow tree. It has extremely good benefits that literally every player would benefit from. From a straight up 30% money boost from each kill, to a 1% damage increase every 500 dollars gained, up to 70%. So basically a long term investment towards a whopping 70% damage increase.

Nobody, no matter what other perks they chose or what weapons they chose, would not benefit from this immensely. So the yellow tree fails to be a choice, and just kind of ends up being something you inevitably need to invest in sooner rather than later. Not to is just irresponsible.

As for the other two trees there’s really not much choice either. You will have to take abilities in the red tree. Without the damage boosts they provide even the 70% increase from the yellow tree will not be enough. You will end up firing insane amounts of rounds into zombies while doing practically no damage. I’ve had to refill my entire storage of magazines twice during some later rounds. At the very least you need to invest in the flat damage bonus and the headshot bonus. So, again, investing in the Red tree is not a choice, but a requirement in order to get anywhere.

The Green tree is kind of optional. It generally makes you harder to kill. The green tree is the only real choice you make. Invest in the green tree so that you can take a little more damage without dying, or spend those points on the things you will have to get to have them a little sooner. You’re better off just running constantly and not spending those points in green at all.

There are some hybrid abilities between trees too, they generally suck and are pointless.

Guns are Approaching Sobriety

The one redeeming part of this game are the guns you get to buy. There’s a great variety, and each path in the tree has a theme to it. The path on the top leans on guns that fire fewer bullets that do a lot of damage. The path below that leans on guns that spray a ton of bullets. It’s fun to choose which gun to go for next.

It would be nice if you could have two big SMG or Rifle level guns, instead of just one big gun and a pistol. There are way more choices for larger firearms than there are for pistols. Some of the paths you can go through the gun trees don’t even have a pistol on them.

Having the choice of which gun to get is nice, but not even that is well implemented. That’s because some of the guns are traps, and they take so long to save up for that you will be stuck with that trap gun forever. For instance, check out the Deagle. You can get it super early on and it does good damage for a long time. Assuming you take the right perks of course.

Now take the M1A, which you can get right after the Deagle. It is a Marksman’s Rifle that fires a really big cartridge, bigger than the Deagle does. Check it out in this zombies mode, it does practically no damage at all, despite being semi-automatic. You can tell some balancing was done for this mode, I mean they changed the whole gun and perk tree around from regular survival. Did this get released in a hurry? Was there still work to be done on this?

The M1A is absolutely horrible. You will end up just using the Deagle instead, and that is the better scenario where you have a good pistol to fall back on. If you get a crappy gun and are using the starting pistol, well you might as well start over.

In Conclusion

So you inevitably learn which guns are best, just like you learn which perks are best, which means there’s not really any choices here, just traps to fall into so you have to play over again to not fall into those traps. Other than that the gameplay doesn’t change much. Rinse and repeat the same rounds over and over. The types of zombies, or the number of them, doesn’t change. Even the placement of the armory and perk locations, doesn’t change.

There is only one map that is the same every time, and you will inevitably realize that you should do the same thing every time, or your chances of surviving to later rounds goes way down. Mostly because if you take the wrong perks or buy the wrong gun you won’t do enough damage to cut through the zombies. So you end up doing the same thing over and over again, which is boring.

Maybe if the process of shooting the zombies was fun, then Contractors VR zombies could remain interesting, but shooting the zombies isn’t even fun. It’s just a repetitive repositioning fest that has no tension once you get good at it in a few rounds. It’s just running in circles, popping off a few rounds, and running again. There are no real build choices to make, and no real tactical choices to make. No chances to take, just boredom.