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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• The 3 Best WW2 Games on the Oculus Quest 2

• The 3 Greatest VR Real Time Strategy (RTS) Games on the Oculus Quest 2

• 4 Awesome VR Space Games on the Oculus Quest 2

• 9 Best Fighting Games On the Oculus Quest 2

• The 7 Best VR Survival Games on the Oculus Quest 2

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.

You Might Also Enjoy:

• The 3 Best WW2 Games on the Oculus Quest 2

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• The 7 Best VR Survival Games on the Oculus Quest 2

The 3 Best WW2 Games on the Oculus Quest 2

Who doesn’t like a good WW2 game? From the FPS to RTS genres World War 2 has been a backdrop for some of gaming’s biggest hits. Though strangely enough the most global conflict in human history has not been very prevalent in Virtual Reality… yet, here’s the 3 best WW2 games for the Quest 2.

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Sniper Elite VR

As covered in our review of the game, Sniper Elite VR heavily skews its gameplay in a way not conducive to how everyone plays shooters. As the name implies the game is heavily focused on sniping, though there are some opportunities to get up close and personal with shotguns and SMGs.

That being said, the premise is very cool. You are an Italian partisan, desperately holding out and doing your best to thwart the Nazi regime to prepare for the Allied Invasion to come. There are a couple of cool character moments in the game, though the story is not what you should play this for.

The gameplay, which is part combat with a variety of WW2 weaponry and part sneaking and assassinating Nazi patrols, is overall very solid. Missions are varied in location and theme. You get a lot of choice on how you want to approach situations and what weapons you bring with you. While sniping is often mandatory, there are also plenty of areas where going in guns blazing while throwing grenades and firing your SMG is just as viable.

Sniper Elite VR combines the more novel gameplay concepts of the Sniper Elite franchise (such as firing your rifle when a plane flies over to cover the sound of the shot) with an interesting setting during World War 2. These create a Virtual Reality game that, while not the most well rounded of VR shooters, is still interesting for VR aficionados, snipers, and World War 2 fans.

Warplanes: Battles over Pacific

Rather than a Virtual Reality shooter, Warplanes: Battles over Pacific is a VR flight simulator that is heavily geared towards flying combat in the Pacific Theater of World War 2. You can use both American and Japanese planes of the era to fly through combat missions and win by destroying enemy air and ground targets. These targets consist of a variety of things from fighter aircraft, to barrage balloons, to convoy trucks, to AA flak guns, to storage buildings.

The controls are a huge draw for this game. While you can do what you need with just your controller buttons, you can also do a lot of actions, like throttling and changing the direction of the plane, by using your virtual hands to grip the controls through physical representations in your cockpit. Want to throttle up? Then grab the throttle and push it forward.

This is much more immersive that just hitting some buttons, you can actually use the real plane controls like you are in the cockpit yourself. Warplanes: Battles over Pacific makes full use of being a Virtual Reality game in this way.

Though once you get the hang of it the gameplay can be a little repetitive. The missions follow the same formula. Destroy some primary target, usually they are one type of enemy on the map, like all enemy fighters, all ships, or all barrage balloons, while destroying or avoiding other enemies on the map. You get bonus points for destroying all enemies before eliminating your primary target.

This is cool but the missions ultimately all end up having the same rhythm to them, though the maps are varied and so are the combinations of enemies. Still, you would be hard pressed to find a better combat flight simulator on the Quest 2. The developers clearly took a lot of lessons from their first, World War 1 themed game Warplanes: WW1 Fighters to make a very polished WW2 flying game.

The Multiplayer is also fantastic. You can do Co-op missions with others as well as dogfight against them in Deathmatch. This gives you a chance to use your WW2 flying skills competitively, and is really where the replayability of this game is. Like the Singleplayer there is little variety in the game modes here, but the variety comes from the other players in the game. That being said it can be a little difficult to find a full lobby, depending on the time of day.

Overall if you want to fly combat missions in VR on your Quest 2, Warplanes: Battles over Pacific cannot be beaten.

Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond

Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond was widely speculated to be the premier WW2 game for Virtual Reality. The unfortunate truth is that while Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond has some solid moments in its Single Player, and seems to hit all of the bases of a World War 2 Shooter. It’s lackluster Multiplayer and overly frenetic pacing means it fell so short of everyone’s expectations that it remains relevant only because of the absence of better choices for VR WW2 shooting.

Unlike Sniper Elite: VR this game does not depend on Sniping so heavily, though there are some sniper sections in it. Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond does the exact opposite of depending on any particular mode of play, instead it throws an absolute ton of them at you. You’ll be shooting from a farmhouse in one mission and then dropping bombs in a plane in the next. Meanwhile a bevy of cutscenes interrupt each experience.

In the earlier missions there is far more time spent in cutscenes than in combat. If you manage to make it through the by-the-numbers World War 2 story that is neither believable nor interesting with characters that are one dimensional and that get very annoying over time, then you will be blessed with a few minutes of actual gameplay. This does even out in the later chapters of the game, and there are, later on, some cool moments shooting bazookas at tanks and assaulting a railway gun solo.

Though as you finally get more shooter gameplay than gimmicks, the appeal of the game starts to shine through. You finally get a chance to immerse yourself into the combat and have fun going from classic World War 2 setpiece to classic World War 2 setpiece as you do your part in breaking down the Nazi regime. Overall the campaign varies between boring you with too many cutscenes and being genuinely entertaining when it gives you time to really get into the World War 2 combat.

The shooting is decent for VR, though it brings no real innovations. When you get more combat to chew on, then the occasional gimmick, like a metal detector you use to tip toe through a field of land mines, is more welcome as it serves as a break from the combat, rather than an infuriating obstacle.

Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond also has multiplayer. The modes consist of “Spawn, wander around, and shoot the first opponent you see.” The shooting itself is not well implemented either, a few weapons are clearly far better than all others, making the diversity of weapons non existent. After you get the hang of it you will just use two or three weapons, or get slaughtered by those who know better. There is nothing special that will hold your attention.

Overall Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond is not worth its high price for the small amount of decent gameplay there is to be found inside. I only recommend it if you are completely out of better VR shooters to play, or have such a love for the WW2 setting that you absolutely must get more of it in Virtual Reality. This game would have been a huge hit in the 2000s, but now feels outdated and boring.

Well there you have it, the 3 Best WW2 games on the Oculus Quest 2.

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7 Best VR Games for Sniping on the Meta Quest 2

Sniping has long been a sacred art among those who enjoy first person shooters. Sniping well takes skill, speed, patience, and great map knowledge to do well. Being a sniper also requires precision in singleplayer and multiplayer games. For an enthusiast of Virtual Reality gaming or the Meta Quest 2, you may be wondering, what games give you a great sniping experience? Well here they are, broken down from not so good, to the best on the platform for an aspiring sharpshooter. Staring with number 7.

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7. Resident Evil 4 VR

You may not think of Resident Evil 4 VR as a sniping game, and you’d largely be right. It is full of tight corridors, twisting hallways, and a bunch of Ganados very intent on getting in close and eating your face. On the other hand a bolt action, and later semi automatic, sniper rifle is available in this game. They are very powerful, and very satisfying to get headshots with. As a Ganados’s head will explode when it takes such massive damage.

There are a few sections in Resident Evil 4 VR where the combat arena is large and the enemies are far enough away that you can use the sniper rifle effectively. These areas come often enough to give Resident Evil VR a slot on this list, since the Meta Quest 2 has a limited selection of games involving sniper rifles (for now). Mostly, however, the sniper rifles work great here as improvised one shot kill shotguns instead of long range weapons.

6. The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners

Ah, The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners is such a great VR game that shows what Virtual Reality games can be. It has a large number of guns, but only one that seems like it could be considered a sniper rifle. That would be the Bolt Action Rifle, which can be unlocked a few levels into the game, or found in the ruins of New Orleans if you know where to look. Like in most games this rifle is hard hitting and difficult to load. Especially difficult in this case, as the bolt is extremely janky and not very well implemented, which is a thing not often said about The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners.

Overall there are not many sections that seem much like sniping sections, with the exception of one level in the Aftershocks free DLC that gives the player a view of a battlefield through a window, and a free rifle just sitting there. Hunting season for sure, and very satisfying for sniping. Otherwise there isn’t even a scope for the bolt action rifle, or for any other firearms in the game.

Still, we’ll count The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners as a sniping game, mostly because the AI, human or zombie, needs to get really close to actually notice you. This gives plenty of chances for hiding, shooting, and scooting even from close range. A scope isn’t really needed, and the gameplay can still scratch a sniper’s itch.

5. Population: One

Population: One is the Fortnite of VR, though it is smaller in scope and, luckily, nobody is capable of building an entire apartment complex in the span of 5 seconds. Just like Fortnite there are plenty of sniper rifles in Population: One.

Just like in Fortnite they are far from the best weapons in the game, and in fact aren’t used very often due to their lack of power when compared to other weapons. An assault rifle can hit a target from medium range and do damage much more quickly than a sniper rifle, because the sniper needs to have its bolt cycled after every shot. So assault rifles and SMGs tend to get a lot more love than sniper rifles do in Population: One.

That all being said sniper rifles are the only long range option, and their bullets can be accurate pretty far away. Still, unless an enemy player is already at dangerously low health, it’s not a one shot kill. Also, they are notoriously difficult to aim when compared to sniper rifles in other games. Looking down the scope of a sniper rifle in Population: One is particularly hard, and until you get a lot of practice it can feel like you are aiming at something properly and missing it for no reason.

4. Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond

Now we are getting into the territory of proper sniping games. Though in Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond only expect to find sniper rifles in the singleplayer. It would be a mystery why you would still be playing the multiplayer of this game at all, but if you do don’t expect to get any sniper kills. The singleplayer of Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond features a couple of different sniper rifles, and due to its World War 2 setting, all are bolt action.

Cycling the bolts on those weapons is pretty smooth, and so is looking down their scopes. The impact of the rifle doesn’t feel, with most enemies later on in the game just shrugging those rounds off and continuing to run around. Though sometimes you can still get a very satisfying looking headshot. Also, the sim-like faces of the enemies aren’t super fun to stare at through an optic.

Most combat in Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond is done up close or at medium range. Though there are a few segments where sniping is practically the only option, or is heavily encouraged. These segments are great if you love sniping, like one memorable part where you defend a French village from atop a bombed out church. Still, if sniping is all you’re after then Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond will leave you wanting more.

The same can be said for just about every other category you could put on a World War 2 shooter. In all aspects Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond only delivers a little of what you desire.

3. Contractors

Contractors is a multiplayer shooter that is fast paced and encourages quick fights with fast respawn times and objectives. It is the Call of Duty of Virtual Reality. Just like in Call of Duty the sniping is pretty good, but not the best. The game is pretty fast paced, and so you’ll get enemy players sneaking up behind you a lot, so you need to move constantly just like they will. So you can’t really hold down one spot for long. That could be a good or bad thing depending on who you ask.

As for the weaponry there is a huge variety of guns you can attach long range scopes to. Even Assault rifles have optics that reach two or four times magnification. Weapons intended for sniping, like the M1A, pack a lot of punch and are very accurate. The scopes themselves are intuitive to use and don’t have that annoying quality of constantly floating in and out of your vision like those in Population: One.

That all being said the maps of Contractors do not have many areas that encourage sniping, because they tend to be closed in and favor short or medium range combat. There are a few spots on some maps that are great for sniping on, but those are not common.

2. Onward

If you’re looking for a multiplayer Virtual Reality game to become an expert sniper in, Onward is it. Where Contractors is the Call of Duty of Virtual Reality, Onward is the more thoughtful and slower cousin. It’s sort of like Ready or Not or Squad, or even Counter Strike: Global Offensive. Each team is small and each player is taken down very easily with only a few hits. With a sniper rifle even a single hit is easily fatal, and wow are the sniper rifles good.

They’re modern, and have a wide variety of addons and scopes to choose from. If you want to have a 4x optic for sniping, but a small collimator on the side for up close conflict, that’s possible. As with all weapons in Onward the sniper rifles have great detail, and feel responsive and intuitive to use. There’s even a bipod for some rifles.

Landing a shot gives immediate results. Sniper rifles are powerful, and landing a hit is very satisfying. Due to the slow pace of the game there are many opportunities to set up in a position, or change positions after firing off a few rounds. Communication with your teammates via your shoulder radio can also give you good opportunities to find out where your opponents are hiding.

On top of that most Onward maps feature multiple open areas, where a single sniper can easily take out enemy team members as they try to pass through. Unlike other games Onward gives a sniper many opportunities to take long shots and make full use of their chosen rifle.

With great weapon variety and choices, great weapon feel, and a great selection of maps to choose from, Onward is the best multiplayer experience for sniping.

1. Sniper Elite VR

Unlike all of these other games, Sniper Elite VR, like the name says, is focused on sniping. That is really what makes it a sniper’s paradise in Virtual Reality. The vast majority of weapons are sniper rifles, and the vast majority of areas are geared toward sniping. Enemies are far away and there are ample spots to shoot from. Areas are very often wide open and encourage the use of a scoped weapon.

Sure there are SMGs and Pistols to use as well in Sniper Elite VR, but here they are the weapons that are only used occasionally, as the sniper rifle is in all of these other games. Very often sniping will be the main objective of a map, and sniping is always the way to get the most points and to dispatch enemies the quickest. A soldier that might take an entire burst from an SMG to kill can easily be taken down with a single sniper bullet.

For more on the game in general, check out our review. Though if you like sniping you certainly won’t be disappointed in Sniper Elite VR. The only drawback is that sometimes the rifles feel a little floaty, and move too easily with a slight twitch of your hand. Otherwise they handle beautifully, and the scopes feel realistic and straightforward to look through and aim with.

For a singleplayer sniper experience, Sniper Elite VR cannot be beaten. For an experience focused on snipers, sniping, and sniper rifles in VR, there is nothing else like it.

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Sniper Elite VR Review

Preamble

World War 2 Shooters are one of the most prolific in the genre. For good reason too. Democracy stood against Autocracy. Freedom against Facism. A conflict that now is completely black and white. Nazis are bad, and so whenever you shoot a Nazi the joy of a shot well completed and a kill well scored is twice as sweet.

That is why it has been such a mystery that it has taken so long for a World War 2 Shooter like Sniper Elite: VR to appear on the Oculus Quest store. We’ve got a few modern shooters such as Contractors, which features an okay WW2 multiplayer mode, and Onward. Until now there has been no game completely set in and dedicated to this most classic of first person shooter subgenres. Of course now there is, and boy does VR, as always, put the “First” in First Person.

Sure, there’s the Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond too, but unless you’ve got a really good 5GHz router setup or want to chain your headset to an expensive computer, Sniper Elite:VR is what you’ve got now.

The Setup

You’re an old Italian man, an ex-Partisan. The frame for the story of the game is sitting at your father’s house, now yours, reminiscing on how hard you fought in the 1940s for the peace you now have in the 1980s. The player character’s voice is sweet and mellow with a charming accent. Get used to it, you’re going to hear it a lot.

In typical in medias res style, you are thrust into the first mission. You’re told how to pick up a rifle, how to load and chamber it. Shoot some targets though you’re supposedly in the middle of an active Partisan v. occupying Fascist force battle, and then go to the castle walls to get comfortable sniping the Wehrmacht. The controls are not the best, and sometimes you have to move your controllers uncomfortably close together to load or unload some weapons, like the first pistol you unlock, but time will get you used to them.

Between the missions you are brought back to the 1980s, watch your kids and grandkids play on a nice day, and go through your book of memories to access other missions. There’s more narration here as well. You’ll hear some every time to go back to the 1980s. Get used to it.

It’s a decent setup. There’s little emphasis on the actual strategy and goings-on of the war, though enough to provide some background. Mostly it’s just a series of scenarios with you, your weapons, and a lot of staring down scopes and popping the skulls off of the Wehrmacht. As mentioned, the narrator is talking almost constantly through all of this. Not even Morgan Freeman could pull off so much narration without getting a little annoying over time, but it’s not so bad.

The Controls

Controls are a huge sticking point in any VR title. Too floaty and it takes you out of the experience, too tight and you feel as though your arms are covered in molasses. Sniper Elite: VR definitely trends on the floaty side. Objects you hold, mostly weapons, don’t feel as if they have any weight when you move your hands. The slightest tremor can completely ruin your perfectly sighted shot. For a game as focused on precision shooting and sniping as Sniper Elite: VR this is often a problem. Sometimes even grabbing objects from the environment does not feel as responsive as it should. Future patches may fix this, but at the time of writing Sniper Elite: VR is barely passable in this respect.

There’s also some glitches with loading weapons as well. Often you need to pull a pin out of a grenade twice before it arms. These sorts of issues happen a lot with newly released VR titles, and when the patches come hopefully they will be fixed. Warhammer 40,000: Battle Sister also had a lot of issues like this at launch, and now they are almost nonexistent.

If you’re not good at sniper rifles in VR, well now’s your chance to practice. As the name implies the use of sniper rifles is heavily encouraged by the mechanics of Sniper Elite: VR. You’re often placed far away from enemies and are always outnumbered, so anything with a scope and large caliber is naturally the best option. Also there’s uh… well there’s the kill cam. Let’s talk about the kill cam.

The Kill Cam

When Sniper Elite came out as a PC title, one of it’s greatest back-of-the-box selling points was the kill cam. For those that don’t want to just see the Fascist soldier simply fall back, lifeless, after a good shot, but want to see their organs burst and the high speed bullet rip the life out of them with x-ray vision. Sniper Elite is all about how precise and well-aimed your shots are, after all.

This doesn’t port so well to VR, a medium all about total immersion into a new space. It’s a very weird feeling to suddenly be ripped off of your battlement or tower or sniper’s nest. It feels as though you are thrust, physically, in front of the soon to be dead opponent to watch their skull shatter and eyeballs turn into mist. Then you’re back to your post, as the player character once more. It’s jarring, it’s a bad idea for VR, and it’s a bit much. Especially since it triggers very often, even on the minimal setting. Luckily it can be turned off completely.

The Arsenal

Oh, but there is still a lot of fun to be had. VR Singleplayer titles tend to lack a large variety of weaponry, well not in Sniper Elite:VR. Over the course of the game you can use every conceivable weapon that could be found in Italy at the time. From Panzerfausts to M1911 Pistols. There is a wide array of not only sniper rifles, but sub machine guns, pistols, shotguns, and even high explosives to put to use against the forces of the Wehrmacht. Though you’ll be using the sniper rifles most of all.

Your player character can carry a large amount of artillery on them at any given moment, all on a fairly well implemented, though sometimes frustrating set of body points for storage. Two on the back for the big guns. Two for grenades, two for pistols, and two pistols or explosives. You could carry four pistols if you want to be a real desperado.

The various methods of loading, chambering, aiming, and firing each of these weapons is intuitive and highly varied. They are introduced at a good pace to keep things interesting. After you discover a weapon your favorites can be put into one of three loadouts to use your missions ahead. Though you’ll be using the sniper rifles more than anything else. There’s not much difference between those, though there are a lot of them. Sometimes it feels that the variety of weapons is a little wasted, but boy they are still fun.

Your enemies also vary their weapons, though not as much as you. You wouldn’t see a Nazi sniper using a Russian Mosin-Nagant after all, or a Fascist shocktrooper using a British Sten gun. They use german weapons, though their ammunition is compatible for the same weapon type. Over the course of the game you will see more and more elite enemies, which can absorb multiple shots before they are killed. Unless you aim for the face of course, the face is always the best place.

Pretty standard stuff, though what’s more interesting is their AI. Rather, what's more interesting is how uninteresting their AI is. Nazi troopers will generally spawn in, run to a predefined point, and shoot at you from the same spot. Maybe they’ll move around a little bit, or patrol the same path over and over. They’re not very smart, but there’s a lot of them.

Also, you are fragile, and the Nazis are pretty accurate at short range. Getting close to the Fascist Occupiers is hazardous to your health. You can die very quickly from a couple of bursts of an SMG. So you must take cover, which is fantastic in VR. No other type of game feels better to take cover in, physically crouching behind a wall, listening to bullets chip the rock as you steady your hands for the next time you pop out and take a shot. Sniper Elite: VR does this well, and it helps with its reliance on ranged combat.

Though if you would rather be throwing grenades and clearing trenches run and gun style, this game may not have enough of that for you. Like it says in the title, Sniper Elite: VR wants you to spend most of your time well… sniping.

Precision is Key

Some enemies can survive a sniper round to the body, head, legs, arms, but not the face. The face is where the points are, and where the satisfying instant kills are. Especially satisfying if you like the kill cam a lot. Sniper Elite: VR helpfully provides you the ability to “focus” your shots. Doing so gives you a little more zoom to your scope or iron sights, and highlights where you will hit. Also it slows down time, giving you plenty of time to line up the perfect kill. If you take your time, it’s pretty satisfying.

You get points for shooting certain organs or body parts, lungs, brains, et cetera. You get points for blowing up enemies. You get more points for killing enemies from stealth. If you like to see a nicer playthrough give you a bigger number, Sniper Elite: VR has that for you. There are also collectables hidden throughout the maps as well for any treasure hunters, and challenges to complete for every mission. Usually they are something like “Get so many points” or “Get X kills with X weapon.” Make sure you complete these, as a certain amount of objectives are needed to progress to later missions. Also there’s an experience bar for each weapon, though they don’t get you anything for filling it. Maybe if you collect all of them you’ll get… a golden gun? Please leave a comment if you’ve filled all of them.

While not as satisfying as getting a perfect playthrough on a game like Hitman, dispatching enemies in the most quiet and efficient way is definitely a form of satisfaction to be had here. The numbers will tell you how well you did so.

You can go back to previously completed missions at any time, so if you feel the need to perfect your playthrough, go nuts.

Stealth

Stealth is optional in Sniper Elite: VR, and that’s a good thing. Enemies spot you from very far away, which makes sense. You rarely have a chance to get into melee range. You’re meant to shoot them from afar with the silenced single shot pistol or sniper rifle. Unless you’re using the silenced rifle, found much later in the game. To shoot a Nazi guard stealthily with most sniper rifles you will need to wait for something to mask the sound of the shot. So you always know when you’re in a “stealth” section of the game, because some loud sound will constantly fill the top part of your screen with “Sound Masked”. If the “Sound Masked” icon is at the top of your screen, your gunshot can still be heard if the sound is not loud enough. You need to shoot at the very apex of the noise.

Other than not being heard, you also need to avoid being seen. This system is a little frustrating in VR, as you need to press the crouch button, rather than physically crouch, to enter stealth mode. Leave a comment if you’ve found a way around this, but physically crouching offers no stealth benefits. There is no hybrid method like in The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners, which allows you to physically crouch or press the button if you prefer to take it easy on your knees. Pressing the crouch button makes avoiding detection a lot easier. It’s also immersion breaking if you don’t prefer to use it.

The guards either seem to be completely oblivious or able to spot you from miles away. In general the stealth is alright, and not strictly necessary. If you’re looking for a Thief: Deadly Shadows VR this is not quite the game you’re looking for, but there’s some good sneaky gameplay to be had in some missions.

To Conclude/TLDR

The VR aspect of Sniper Elite: VR is not very new or revolutionary. Though for the Quest, which is starved for even decent Singleplayer shooters, it is a good addition. The mechanics are all about shooting accurately and carefully from range, though the VR physics are subpar and make this a bit more difficult than it needs to be. There are bugs, but only enough to annoy and frustrate occasionally.

If you like World War 2 Shooters, definitely get this game. There’s plenty of good Nazi killing to be had here. Shooting Nazis always makes for feel-good fun.