The Best VR MMORPGs That You Can Play Today On The Oculus Quest 2 and 3

You might be wondering what VR MMORPGs and VR MMOs are out there to try, and what they’re like as a new player.

Well whether you’re playing standalone on an Oculus Quest 2 or Oculus Quest 3 headset, or playing on PCVR, there are several VR MMORPGs out there to try.

There are still other VR MMORPGs in development, or rumored to be, the amount of VR MMOs that you can actually play today is still not very large. Regardless if you want to get that MMORPG feeling in Virtual Reality, one of these may very well suit you.

While they definitely vary in quality, gameplay mechanics, and style, VR is definitely taking off as a unique way to experience the MMORPG genre.

So in this article we’ll be taking a look at each of the available VR MMOs from a new player’s perspective, examining what the early game experience looks like, and determining the strengths and weaknesses of every VR MMORPG currently avaialble.

You might want to wait until new titles appear, though if you really want to get the MMO experience in VR then one of these games will surely give you that.

Ilysia - VR MMOs and VR MMORPGs

The Ilysia Logo

Ilysia is the latest entry into the VR MMORPG arena, and has definitely seen the least amount of development effort and time than other titles.

You can definitely tell that Ilysia hasn’t had a lot of development time, and is for all intents and purposes in an Alpha stage at the moment. There are quite a few bugs, but we won’t be focusing on those here.

Instead let’s talk about the gameplay, starting from the beginning.

Character Creation in Ilysia

After making an account and logging in Ilysia immediately drops you into a tutorial area with a few quests to destroy dummies and talk to the skill trainer.

All around are little blue globes that, when you activate them with trigger, give you a tutorial prompt with some ghostly dialog narrating it.

This is a decent tutorial area, but what becomes immediately obvious when playing Ilysia is how dull and undercooked it is not only technically, but in its design as well.

To be fair to the developers it’s no secret that this game still has a lot of development ahead of it, but what already exists doesn’t paint a very pretty picture for the future of this game.

After all, any future additions will have to be built on top of this foundation of… whatever this is.

Fighting in Ilysia is incredibly boring and unresponsive

Even ignoring all the choppiness when running this game on a new Oculus Quest 3, everything is a little off and a little janky.

You run incredibly fast, but if you look down you can see your character’s legs running at an unnatural angle, like their feet start extended forty five degrees out from their body.

Your legs look extremely weird when running or walking, then again so does almost everything else

The NPCs share a lot of models, and despite playing this game shortly after the addition of a new patch to update the graphics for the Quest 3, the environments still look weird.

Like a lake that I found where the water was constantly rushing around, despite being an inland lake that should have pretty still waters.

This is common problem in VR MMORPGs, but Ilysia gives an even worse impression of a living world than others.

The UI is not fantastic for anything. This is a Quest from an NPC

There’s an interesting looking skill system, but you only start with a single point, which I spent on a magic missile type damage dealing ability.

Magic is interesting, but gets boring quickly, draw a rune in the air to cast a spell once you’ve unlocked the ability, and then fire it at your enemy.

I tried each method of combat, melee, bows, and magic, and found them all to be similarly lackluster. Mostly due to the fact that all of the enemies you fight operate like World Of Warcraft NPCs, except without any meaningful skills differentiating them.

You hit them, they run at you and hit you, and just kind of stand in place while you trade blows. Unlike World Of Warcraft you have basically no abilities to give you any additional decisions during this combat.

You just stand there, swing or shoot your weapon, and rinse and repeat until the enemy is done. Unlike in other VR MMORPGs these enemies are basically all the same and despite having different models and amounts of health aren’t mechanically different.

They don’t have special abilities or magic. They just run up to you and try to bite you.

Fighting a wolf with magic

In all honesty I didn’t play too much of Ilysia, because there was nothing exciting to look forward to.

It’s also worth nothing that the entire time I played it and progressed through multiple zones, I didn’t run into a single other player, which isn’t a very good sign.

After completing the Tutorial island I found myself shipwrecked.

The quests by the shipwreck were the same as on the Tutorial island. They’re all a combination of the classic kill or gather sorts of quests, and all of the interaction with quest objects is done by pointing your hand at an object and pressing a button to collect the thing. Very little use is made of VR controls.

Ilysia feels like a port of an ancient free to play abandonware MMORPG ported to VR. There was really nothing exciting happening, compounded by the long run from the shipwreck to the nearest town.

For some reason this game loves to make you walk long distances, which would be a great way to show off nice environments if this game looked good at all.

You’ve got to run around a lot in Ilysia and that might be the most pleasant part of the experience

Ilysia needs to completely replace and rethink large parts of its systems and gameplay to be more interesting at the start.

Despite being driven to find out as much as I could to tell you all about this game I didn’t have any gas left in me to continue after reaching the first major Town that had a lot of quests in it.

The only part of this game that constituted gameplay was the combat, and the combat was terrible. Everything else was just walking around, pointing and clicking, with very little story or world to back it up.

I had the vaguest of notions of who I was or what was going on, and so an interesting world didn’t propell Ilysia into being anything more than mediocre.

Maybe in time it will get better, maybe in a lot of time, but a lot of things need to be rebuilt from the ground up for that to happen. There are much better VR MMO alternatives where you should spend your time and money.

OrbusVR: Reborn - VR MMOs and VR MMORPGs

The OrbusVR: Reborn Logo

While Ilysia is the newest VR MMORPG to come out, OrbusVR: Reborn is by far the oldest, having recently celebrated its 5th anniversary at the time of writing.

I first tried OrbusVR when I first got into Virtual Reality gaming, and at the time it was the only VR MMO around, and just like Ilysia it shares a somewhat generic and blocky fantasy aesthetic. It’s not the best looking VR game out there by a long shot.

My memories of OrbusVR were mostly of being confused as to what I was supposed to do and how everything worked, and then a lot of repetitive waving my arm around trying to attack little wooden people.

I gained a few levels, progressed to harder enemies, and got some more abilities, before realizing any further progression would really be a grind I wasn’t ready for, and decided to head off to different, non MMORPG VR games.

This memory would prove to be both right and wrong. The first thing I noticed when trying OrbusVR: Reborn again is the new tutorial.

The New Tutorial is Fantastic

Instead of wandering around aimlessly and not really knowing what to do, where anything was, or where to go, this time OrbusVR had a very long, but very informative tutorial.

It was an extremely pleasant surprise, and despite my experience with the game, I was already learning new things almost immediately.

A good tutorial is absolutely vital to the experience of a new player to a VR MMORPG, and it was fantastic to see that OrbusVR: Reborn had finally included one.

I quickly knew how to do missions for experience and rewards, how to use the various menus, how to play my class and progress, how to try other classes, and how to craft potions with alchemy (among other things).

Each class gets its own combat tutorial for their different combat mechanics

One of the best parts of OrbusVR: Reborn is its variety of classes that you can choose from, and the fact that you can switch between any class that you like on the same character. So there’s really no need to create more than one to try different classes.

There are some that are more digestable to beginners like the Paladin or Warrior, and involve a lot of swinging and throwing weapons, and those that encourage finesse a little more like the Musketeer and Runemage.

Of course like a lot of VR MMORPGs (and MMOs in general) most of what you’ll be doing in OrbusVR is combat, and right off of the bat the ability to choose from and play around with multiple different classes without needing to create a whole new character for each one is a great strength of this game.

That being said, the combat in this game repeats a lot. It has the same problem as any other VR MMO due to the nature of the genre.

The combat becomes repetitive, and you get kind of tired of waving your arms around in the same way to defeat tens to hundreds of enemies you need to grind for a mission.

Of course though, if you’re looking for a VR MMO that’s what you should expect.

Fighting enemies with a friend

In OrbusVR: Reborn you engage an enemy, and they either run up to you to attack, or cast some spell at you from a distance.

What makes this VR MMO slightly more interesting than others is that the enemies won’t just stand in place while they attack you. Instead they’ll jump from spot to spot around you, so you’re forced to turn and attack them from a different direction.

This gives them a little more variety during combat even when they’re just simple enemies who attack you in melee over and over, and most enemies are not so simple.

Very quickly enemies evolve from punching bags to punching bags with explosives strapped on them. When this enemy gets to low health you need to back away from them, or get blown up.

Fighting a lot of enemies with a lot of people in a Public Event

Then, suddenly, they’ve also got ranged magic.

In a very short time after starting the game you’ll encounter various enemy types that make you fight them in different ways

Each class has its own mechanics, the Runemage draws symbols to cast spells

Combat in any VR MMORPG gets grindy over time, after all a centerpiece of the MMO genre is needing to farm enemies over and over again for rewards.

I have to say that OrbusVR does a very good job at making fighting those enemies engaging from very early on in the game, and you do advance up to new enemy types quickly. That’s not even the best part.

What really makes OrbusVR: Reborn stand up head and shoulders above other games in the VR MMORPG space is how friendly the people are. Interactions with others in the game is what makes an MMORPG different from just a normal RPG, the people.

Very early on I ran into a ton of others who were willing to group up with me to fight monsters and do other various things.

You’ll come across other players all of the time in OrbusVR

Though the combat is arguably not the best of any VR MMORPG, what made it a lot of fun was experiencing that combat while hanging out with other players.

Very soon I found myself in the middle of one of the many public events, fighting waves of enemies while cracking jokes and generally having a good time.

Of course if you’re a little older keep in mind that a decent portion of the playerbase is obviously fairly young from their voices and short avatars, but in my time in OrbusVR I didn’t run into a single screeching, screaming kid. Everyone was nice, enthusiastic, and very helpful.

As you might see in the screenshots the class I chose to focus on was Runemage, and Runemages draw runes in the air to cast spells to deal damage. You’re encouraged to explore to find new runes for more powerful spells… or someone else can tell them to you, just like a very friendly player I ran into early on.

This museum showcases the various enemies you’ll fight in this VR MMORPG

I learned more about OrbusVR from other players than I did from any in game tutorial, and at the end of the day that’s what a good MMORPG is all about, fostering a community that is encouraged to play with and help each other to get more powerful and overcome the challenges of the game.

The gameplay is good and emulates what you traditionally do in MMORPGs well in Virtual Reality with great use of various types of hand controls and interactions in the different classes.

Though what really makes OrbusVR shine is the experiences you have in it playing with others.

Zenith: The Last City - VR MMOs and VR MMORPGs

The Zenith: The Last City Logo

Zenith: The Last City might not have been around as long as Orbus and may not be as new as Ilysia, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t show anything new or lack for content.

In fact since its release Zenith has seen a ton of major updates, including the addition of a new class, and big additions to skills, quests, progression, and even a large new area for players just starting out.

So when you begin your journey through Zenith it’s not in the same way as someone who started the game on release experienced it. I played this game for a while at release, and more recently as well when the newest class was unlocked, and so the new player experience was already well known to me.

Shooting a polygonal enemy in Zenith

Zenith has improved a lot over time for players starting out, and those a little further along, though the basis of its exploration and gameplay hasn’t changed too much.

As a new player you start in a tutorial area, where a few basic quests and some animated voiceovers presented by NPCs in cyber fantasy Facetime will tell you what to do and kind of what’s going on.

While the story they attempt to convey is generic and ultimately meaningless to what you do, the tutorial is extremely effective at teaching you how to play Zenith is a pretty entertaining way.

You’ll notice pretty quickly that Zenith: The Last City is unlike these over VR MMOs in that it has a more futuristic technology themed fantasy aesthetic and setting.

Zenith has a very sci fi fantasy look to it

You’ll also notice when creating a character that the class choices seem kind of limited. A close combat Blade Master, a ranged combat Essence Mage, and the combination melee and ranged Cyber Ninja.

This is kind of an illusion, since the Blade Master and Essence Mage have specializations for each traditional MMORPG role, DPS (deal damage), Tank (absorb damage), and Healer (heal damage), while the Cyber Ninja is meant for DPS.

So your class choice comes down to how you want to fight, up close, at range, or both.

Regardless of your choice, combat seems more refined from the outset in Zenith, and quickly offers a wide range of mechanics and skills to make combat more than just swinging your arms or pressing trigger over and over again.

Combat in Zenith is pretty good, if occasionally buggy and floaty

Though before you notice that when starting the game you’ll probably notice the story first, or rather what starts out as sort of a story in the tutorial area, and then quickly tapers off into fairly generic feeling quests once you really start the game.

Zenith: The Last City is not a VR MMORPG that impresses with its world building. The world is more fun to look at and explore than other VR MMOs, we’ll talk more about that in a moment here, but after the tutorial there’s not much of a story to speak of despite there being a main quest line.

There’s sort of a world around you too, the last city is under attack and the world is corrupted, but it’s really more utilitarian in that it just gives you a reason for there to be enemies to fight literally everywhere you go that isn’t the city or a major outpost.

You can craft new gear too

While we’re talking about negative things you’ll also likely notice when playing Zenith that it can be poorly optimized at points. You’ll be seeing a lot of pop in for other characters, and sometimes even your own limbs, and that it’s got a lot of bugs.

This is probably because of the quick pace of development for this game, and can be gotten used to, but it’s still disappointing whenever you see one. If you’re not tolerant of bugs or a bit of jankiness then Zenith might not be the VR MMORPG for you.

Though you might change your mind when hearing about the combat. While there isn’t as wide of a breadth of combat choices in Zenith as there is in Orbus, Zenith does have a very well developed combat system.

Combat differs for each class, but there are some general similarities like weak points you can hit, or combos that encourage you to hit a different part of an opponent’s body in sequence.

As already mentioned there are also a lot of different abilities to choose from and different character builds to explore no matter what class or specialization you’ve levelled.

The skill tree for a Blademaster in Zenith

There are also some unique enemies that are basically bosses, which you’ll notice early on in the game. Enemies generally have varying types of attacks, and while there are maybe a few too many generic melee attacking enemies you will have to change things up from time to time.

Though I’ve saved the best for last with Zenith, and that’s the exploration. This is what Zenith: The Last City does that no other VR MMORPG has done well.

In the other examples here you get around purely with slide movement or teleportation, and this isn’t the most interesting way to travel around. While Zenith also has these options it expands on them a lot by letting you fly,

Gliding is the best way to get around in this VR MMO

That’s right, you can fly around in Zenith by jumping, using your hookshot to latch on to the environment and launch yourself, and by gliding while you’re in the air.

It’s a ton of fun, and exploring Zenith’s beautiful worlds is made very interesting by the fact that you can climb and fly around basically anywhere to find new areas, collectible items for upgrades, and so much more.

What Zenith definitely does best is its take on VR MMO exploration. While the rest of the game comes down to a lot of grinding enemies, grinding public events, and grinding resource nodes just like any other VR MMORPG, what makes Zenith truly stand out is how free you are to move around and explore.

Though unfortunately August 2024 will see the release of the last patch deployed for Zenith: The Last City, and though the servers will remain up the game will not be receiving further updates.

That’s all for our exploration of every VR MMORPG currently available. When more come out then they’ll be added to this article. Feel free to leave a comment with whichever of these is your favorite, and no matter what you play have fun out there in Virtual Reality.