Legendary Tales is a dark fantasy RPG with physics-based combat that’s just out on Quest.
Almost two years after its initial release on PC VR and PlayStation VR2, Legendary Tales is available now on the Meta Quest 3 and 3S. We found it has “satisfying” physics-based combat across its extensive dungeon-crawling, with the promise of more than 15 hours of content. Fully playable solo or in online co-op mode, its quest-driven storyline can be experienced with friends from the beginning all the way through to the end. While no specific port features were mentioned, developer Urban Wolf Games mentioned the Quest version has “the most advanced system updates that are not released on PCVR and PSVR2 yet.”
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Akin to a Dark Souls experience in VR, the core gameplay mechanic of Legendary Tales is the exploration of loot-filled dungeons complete with skeletons, orcs, and challenging boss fights. Its focus on a hands-on crafting system allows players to collect materials to craft weapons, as well as dabble in alchemy to use various potions to aid in battle. The physics-based combat focuses on precise parrying to retaliate against enemy attacks and hopefully leave every encounter unscathed. Finally, its detailed skill tree gives a bevy of specializations as a rogue, mage, warrior, or a personalized hybrid build.
In a heartfelt Reddit post the day before the game’s release this week, the developer acknowledged the bad timing while also talking about their personal experience regarding developing for virtual reality and its challenges. A DLC expansion named “Dawn of History” with new items, maps, and enemies is expected later this year.
The launch of Android XR, a newly announced headset from Valve, and major strategic shifts at Meta, are just the start of what made 2025 a significant year for the XR industry at large. 2026 will mark the 15th year that we’ve been following this XR journey here at Road to VR. With the context that comes with that long-term perspective, it’s once again time to reflect on the biggest stories of the last year and to talk about what’s on the horizon.
Meta Makes Aggressive Cuts as It Shifts XR Strategy
“This year likely determines whether this entire [XR] effort will go down as the work of visionaries or a legendary misadventure,” Bosworth wrote.
Well, by early 2026 it’s looking like “legendary misadventure” takes the cake.
Apparently not seeing the growth and traction it wanted, Meta is making an aggressive shift in its XR strategy. The last few days have seen reports of multiple first-party VR studios being cut down to size or outright shuttered. The company’s business-focused virtual collaboration space, Horizon Workrooms, is being shut down, and more. In total, the company is said to be cutting roughly 10% of its entire Reality Labs division as it shifts focus away from VR and “metaverse” efforts.
What it Means for 2026
It’s going to take a while for the dust to settle on this, and it probably won’t be until Q2 that the company shares a clear vision for what it hopes to accomplish with the cuts and new direction.
From what I’m seeing and hearing, it sounds like Meta isn’t exiting the XR space, but it’s shifting focus more strongly toward the glasses end of the spectrum, while doing away with the notion that building a “metaverse” (a digital space where people would gather, play, and work) is a strategic imperative.
Rather, it looks like Meta will continue to run its XR headset platform and let it evolve naturally rather than trying to place big content bets or force the metaverse into existence. Meanwhile, the company is said to be focused on boosting production of its smart glasses to serve growing demand.
Although that likely means a greater focus on smart glasses and AI assistants for the time being, it’s clear that the company’s end-goal is (and has been) to evolve its smart glasses into full-blown augmented reality glasses over time. In fact, Meta showed an early vision of this end goal back in 2024 with the Orion prototype. The 2025 release of the Ray-Ban Display glasses, and the ‘neural band’, was a clear step toward that goal.
Ray-Ban Display is still just a pair of smart glasses (ie: a small field-of-view and a static display with no tracking). But already the company that makes the waveguide in Meta’s glasses says it has a much larger 70° field-of-view waveguide that’s ready for production.
For many years I’ve explained that the industry has been working on the challenge of compact and affordable XR devices from two sides. On one hand, the industry has started by packing a wishlist of features into a bulky headset, and then trying to make it smaller. On the other hand, the industry is starting a tiny glasses-like package, and then trying to add back all the features enjoyed by the bulkier headsets.
Meta has mostly focused on the former (headsets), but it’s now shifting focus to the latter (glasses). The end goal, however, remains the same: an affordable and comfortable device that can digitally alter the world around you.
This big shift isn’t just a big deal for Meta, it’s a big deal for the whole industry. Meta has been dominant in the space for years, thanks in a big part to being able to out-price the competition and attract developers, thus building the leading standalone headset platform. With its standing in the industry, Meta has been able to direct much of what has happened within the industry, either explicitly or implicitly.
If Meta is pulling back on its VR and metaverse initiatives, the door may open for another company to take over its influential role. Or, the space might settle into a new equilibrium with a renewed competitive landscape, which has long been suffocated by Meta.
All we can say for certain is that 2026 will be a year of major realignment as the industry figures out how hands-on Meta plans to be with its VR platform going forward.
The Biggest Year in Recent History for XR Hardware
2025 turned out to be a huge year for XR hardware launches and announcements.
Google finally revealed and launched Android XR, a direct competitor to Apple’s VisionOS. Samsung launched the first Android XR headset, Galaxy XR, a direct competitor to Apple’s Vision Pro.
Meanwhile, Valve is taking a whole new approach to its VR architecture. Frame is a fully standalone headset—a first for Valve—and the company has designed it to be a better companion to people’s existing Steam library, by allowing it to play pretty much any Steam game (VR or otherwise) either locally or streamed from a nearby PC.
While Valve is giving PC VR some much needed love, I’m still not convinced that Frame is going to revolutionize the space. Although it has some neat extras (like improved wireless game streaming thanks to eye-tracked optimizations), it doesn’t really do that much more than a Quest 3 or Quest 3S, which will inevitably be the cheaper options. As with its prior headset, Frame will probably remain limited to an enthusiastic niche of hardcore PC VR players. But ultimately, Frame shows that Valve never stopped caring about VR and that the company is still focused on making Steam an open VR platform on PC that will be maintained for years to come.
Meta has been hard at work prototyping full-blown AR glasses, but it hasn’t actually launched such a product yet. Meanwhile, Xreal and Viture have been rapidly evolving their smart glasses with growing AR capabilities, seemingly catching companies like Meta by surprise. The pair of $100 million investments into Xreal and Viture (and especially Xreal’s close partnership with Google) will put pressure on Meta to release its AR glasses sooner rather than later.
Valve Reveals a New Headset, But Confirms No New First-party VR Game to Go With it
Given that Valve launched Half-Life: Alyx back in 2020 to show what was possible with its first VR headset, there was widespread speculation that the company would similarly announce a new VR game to launch alongside Steam Frame. But as the company told me directly, there is no new first-party VR game in development.
What it Means for 2026
The lack of a flagship launch title to go out the door with Steam Frame has left many scratching their heads. New headsets are exciting, but given the dearth of exciting PC VR content in the last few years, what are people actually going to play… more Beat Saber?
I’m glad Valve is still in on VR, but I’m not exactly bullish on Frame. Luckily the PC VR landscape has never had more options to serve various hardcore PC VR niches, thanks to companies like Pimax, Bigscreen, and Shiftall—and hey, even Sony technically makes a PC VR headset!
A Shifting VR Player Demographic Comes to a Head as Veteran VR Studios Struggle to Stay Afloat
2025 was a brutal year for established VR studios. Highly immersive single-player apps were once the bread and butter of VR gaming. But VR was not insulated from the broader gaming industry shift toward free-to-play multiplayer games.
That shift seems to have reached a peak just as a wave of prior long-term bets on single-player VR content was coming to fruition in 2025. The result has been report after report of established VR studios struggling to stay afloat.
On the other hand, new studios focused on free-to-play multiplayer content have seen rapid growth and seemingly reached unprecedented new peaks of player counts and retention. Games like Gorilla Tag, Animal Company,Yeeps, and UG are dominating Quest’s Top Selling Charts by serving a younger demographic of players looking for free-to-play multiplayer experiences. Interestingly, all four of these newer top-earning titles are also built around arm-based locomotion.
What it Means for 2026
Whether we like it or not, free-to-play multiplayer is here to stay. Many of the most popular non-VR games are free-to-play multiplayer games, so it should be no surprise that the same formula would take over VR as well. The unfortunate part is that the transition happened so fast that by the time the latest wave of big budget single-player VR games landed, they were launched into a void of demand. With production times of some bigger VR games spanning 1-3 years, it’s difficult to course-correct.
Especially with Meta’s latest cluster of studio closures, the message is now unambiguous: premium single-player VR games are no longer what the bulk of active VR users are looking for. That’s not to say there’s no room for great single-player experiences in VR, but the demand for them isn’t what it used to be.
Of the veteran VR studios that have managed to weather the storm, I expect to see many of them take their first stab at free-to-play multiplayer VR games, or focus on ‘VR optional’ titles, or even leave VR for the time being while they seek greater stability in the larger gaming market.
Frankly, I think this situation has a bit less to do with the ‘free-to-play’ part, and more to do with the ‘multiplayer’ part. As with almost every entertainment activity in existence, most people like to play games with their friends. The rise of massively successful paid multiplayer games with structures that are reminiscent of traditional single-player games (ie: Destiny, Valheim, Helldivers, Arc Raiders) tells me that pure single-player games as a whole will one day become a thing of the past.
That’s not to say that we won’t see great, ‘single-player style’ games still made (like, say, Red Dead Redemption 3) but I bet you’ll at least have the option to play them with a friend or two.
These changes were all clearly meant to address first-generation pain points. Specifically, the improved headstrap was a major admission that the headset was too heavy and bulky. Unfortunately a better head strap can only do so much.
I don’t expect we’ll see any new XR hardware from Apple in 2026. But I do expect to see the company continue to make more of these first-generation fixes and to further improve the headset’s most promising use-cases on the software side. I’m still personally hoping for better window management.
While there’s been much reporting about Vision Pro as a ‘failed’ product, those that are actually connected to the XR industry understand that Vision Pro is a significant contribution to the state-of-the-art that’s really only held back by its current size and weight. I’m certain Apple knows this too.
My bet is that Apple is far from done with Vision Pro and VisionOS. It’s rare for the company to make a product play only to cancel it after one generation. More likely, I’m willing to bet that Apple has set new and specific goals for the size and weight of its next Vision headset, and will happily wait for years until it can actually meet those goals. In the meantime, it will continue to invest in VisionOS, which I’ve long said is a more important contribution to the industry than the headset hardware itself.
First released in 1995, the Virtual Boy was portrayed as a type of “virtual reality” experience, but considering its small field-of-view, lack of motion tracking, and single-color (red) display, it was functionally just a 3D display on a stand. Still, the console has been culturally associated with “virtual reality” ever since—and it’s not exactly a positive association.
Ambitious as it was, Virtual Boy was an infamous failure of a game console, owed largely to its minimal game catalog, single-color display, and reports of motion sickness while playing. It was discontinued less than a year after launch.
The upcoming $100 accessory will use Switch or Switch 2 as the brains (and display) of the device, and it will play original Virtual Boy games like Mario’s Tennis, Teleroboxer, and Galactic Pinball, with a planned total of 14 titles to be launched in time (that may not sound like many, but it’s more than 50% of the entire Virtual Boy game catalog).
Nintendo will also sell a $25 ‘cardboard’ version of the Virtual Boy accessory which will allow Switch to play the same games but without the stand and plastic facade to hold the console.
We still don’t know if the games are simply being emulated or if they have been retouched or remastered. I hope they’ll be at least updated to render at the native Switch or Switch 2 resolutions, rather than the tiny 0.086MP (384 × 224) per-eye resolution of the original Virtual Boy.
In my book, the biggest wild cards for 2026 are Snap and HTC.
HTC was once a prominent player in the VR space, having built a long line of PC VR headsets that rivaled Meta’s Rift. But once Meta shifted focus to standalone, HTC wasn’t able to keep up. Sure, HTC released several standalone headsets, but none have come close to the consumer and developer traction of Meta’s Horizon.
Exactly where HTC heads next is unclear. Will it follow Meta’s lead again and shift its primary focus to smart glasses? Or could it swoop in and try to fill the vacuum left by Meta’s pullback from the VR and metaverse space?
The latter could be a significant opportunity for the company which, at very least, has the same core pieces already in place (standalone VR headsets, an app store, and a ‘metaverse’ platform). Not to mention strong traction in the B2B and LBE spaces, which Meta never quite got a handle on.
The company has launched two generations of its ‘Spectacles’ AR glasses, and the company has spent time focusing on developers and building out tooling based on feedback.
Snap plans to launch its first pair of consumer AR glasses this year, but it remains to be seen if it has any unique technological advantages compared to what’s already out there. Even if not, it’s possible that Snap’s social and fun-focused approach to AR glasses could be a winning play, especially if it can successfully draw its fleet of Snapchat AR developers over to its glasses. The company says that’s the plan, anyway, as it has been building tools that make it easier for developers to build Lenses that span both hand-held and head-worn AR.
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As someone who has been reporting on this industry for nearly 15 years now, I truly mean it when I say I believe 2025 will be looked back upon as one of the most significant moments for the XR industry overall. The next five years are certain to see more change, competition, and innovation than the last five years.
Fun Train says it is not renewing its license to publish Tarzan VR from Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. and delisting the game from all platforms.
The Tarzan game was panned and earned a rare “avoid” rating from us in our review, titled “lord of the fumble.” The publisher is dropping the game to $4.99 where they can until it’s gone, claiming that if you buy it, it will “remain in your library and fully playable” after it is no longer for sale new. Fun Train “will not be supporting the game beyond Jan 31st 2026.”
Fun Train is associated as publisher with The Exorcist VR and Twilight Zone VR as well as BlackGate and Jungle Man. BlackGate in particular is off to a strong start on the Quest Store after releasing late last year. Fun Train says its other games aren’t affected.
‘While we would like to renew the license and keep Tarzan available for new players, the current state of the VR market makes it increasingly difficult to keep legacy titles active across platforms.” The email from Fun Train CEO Douglas Nabors notes. “With recent industry-wide studio closures and layoffs—particularly at Meta—it’s clear the market is under real pressure. At this stage, renewing the license for this IP is simply not commercially viable.”
The game will no longer be for sale from January 31st on Quest, Steam, and PlayStation stores.
While we warned players to avoid this one and they did, I just spent $5 on Steam for the version of the game originally developed by Stonepunk Studios to keep in my library as a curiosity. What happens when I try to launch it on the Steam Frame in standalone? I’m not sure, but I wanted to have that piece of VR history in my library before it disappeared.
If you haven’t had the chance to hear the song made for the Tarzan VR trailer, do give it a listen below before bidding farewell to “the lord of the fumble.”
AR glasses maker XREAL has filed a patent infringement lawsuit in the United States against affiliates of VITURE, its direct competitor.
Filed in the District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, the suit alleges that Eden Future HK Limited and Beijing Xingzhe Wujiang Technology infringed Xreal’s US Patent No. 11,988,839, which covers optical system technology used in AR glasses.
The suit was brought by Xreal subsidiary Matrixed Reality Technology, the company reveals in a press release.
The suit argues that the company’s patent, which was issued in May 2024, is based on an application originally filed in 2018. Essentially, Xreal claims the patent describes foundational optical architectures that address challenges in wearable AR devices, including image quality, field of view, ergonomics, and lightweight design.
Viture Beast | Image courtesy Viture
According to the complaint, multiple Viture-branded products have been sold or imported into the US—including the Viture Pro, Luma Pro, and Luma Ultra—which allegedly infringe one or more claims of the patent.
The US action follows a similar suit in Europe, as detailed by Android Central. In November 2025, Munich’s First Regional Court granted a preliminary injunction against Eden Future HK Limited, finding a strong likelihood that certain Viture products infringed Xreal’s European patent.
The injunction restricts the sale, offering, and import of specified AR products in Germany, including the Viture Pro XR, with language suggesting potential applicability to additional models.
XREAL Aura | Image courtesy Google
Xreal reports holding more than 800 patents and patent applications worldwide, including over 50 in the United States and more than 75 in Europe.
This follows a considerable shift in the overall funding landscape, as companies look to seize consumer interest and market share of the growing smart glasses and AR segment.
In September 2025, the San Francisco-based Viture announced it had secured $100 million in Series B financing, which the company earmarked for global expansion of its consumer XR glasses.
In kind, Beijing-based Xreal announced earlier this month it had also raised $100 million in a recent funding round, which follows a renewed hardware partnership with Google, making it the company’s leading AR glasses partner and announcement of ROG XREAL R1, a pair of high refresh rate AR glasses meant to appeal to traditional gamers.
Additionally, Meta has undertaken a strategic restructuring of its Reality Labs XR division, as it shifts focus from VR headsets and its metaverse ambitions and doubles down on AI and smart glasses.
