playstation vr2 it’s a simultaneously exciting and disappointing development in the VR space. With good specs, easy to set up, and reasonably light and comfortable, Sony’s latest still can’t shake the fundamental problems that have kept VR from going mainstream: a lack of compelling content, and despite a new 4K OLED display. , distracting image fidelity . It’s the best VR ever, and I’m still hesitant to recommend it to anyone who isn’t already on board.
The PSVR was one of the first truly affordable consumer VR headsets, and it was easy to set up for its time, but it also relied on outdated controls on instantly outdated Move controllers and a TV-mounted camera. Still, it proved that VR had a future in gaming, and that Sony was approaching it with an eye toward accessibility and ease of use.
Last year the PSVR2 was announced and based solely on the specs it generally led the pack, with a few exceptions here and there. With an all-inclusive retail price of $550, it struck a balance between the increasingly decent entry-level headset (Oculus Quest 2) and the more expensive and complex ones for PC (Vive Pro 2).
With a 4K OLED screen running at 120Hz, inside-out sensing (meaning no cameras or emitters mounted), and a couple of drivers copied from others and improved upon, it seemed to embody the best of its class, its main drawback being that it is a single platform device.
And really, in practice, that’s exactly what PSVR2 is: top of the class, with no significant hardware compromise beyond having a single cable. It’s very easy to set up and accommodates the scale of the room as well as sit and stand play styles. A variety of games are available from day one, including a Horizon: Zero Dawn spin-off and a resident Evil title, and others in less intense genres. So why am I still hesitating to recommend it?
Because VR gaming, as magical as it may be, is still a commitment. Even at its most fluid and compelling, VR is a sweaty, uncomfortable, and artificial-feeling experience, like sitting under a blanket and watching a 3D TV through a screen door. Within ten seconds of putting in Sony’s biggest hardware effort in years, I couldn’t help but think, “So VR is still that way, huh?”
Image Credits: sony
I know some will say that just makes me a hater. But I actually want VR to be good. I want it to succeed: I tested that Oculus prototype with duct tape all those years ago and immediately understood the potential. And now, a decade later, I am seeing a major fraction of that potential, but nothing like what you’d need to tell someone “hey, spend six bucks on this,” unless you’re willing to forgive a lot.
Still, I don’t want to completely dismiss a perfectly good VR headset because it’s part of a developing ecosystem, so let’s talk about what PSVR2 does well.
easy, breezy, beautiful
First, the headset is attractively styled and reasonably lightweight, not taking up a lot of space when not in use. Similarly, the controllers, which are a bit puzzling and pretzel-like at first, but eventually make sense. Everything is very well thought out and organized.
Setting it up is also incredibly easy – by far the easiest VR setup I’ve ever experienced. Plug the headset into your PS5’s USB-C port and you’ll see a step-by-step tutorial on how to put it on, adjust the fit, which buttons do what, and then how to sync the controllers (literally just by pressing the PS button on them).
Automatic scanning and customization of the playing area. Image Credits: sony
Establishing a play area is done automatically by looking around in walkthrough mode, which is a real-time black and white view of your surroundings (and for some reason a bit unnerving). Build a small play area using the clear space around you, which you can easily add to or subtract from by taking it out with a bolt of lightning from your controller (it’s actually quite fun).
Gaze detection is built in and setup is just as quick and easy: follow the dot and in 20 seconds you’re done. It was accurate enough for non-precision stuff, but I found it impossible to look directly at the crosshair in Rez:Infinity, which was frustratingly always half its width below my gaze. Repeated settings didn’t help, but I got through the first two areas unscathed anyway – it was skewed down but accurate and extremely responsive.
Once you’re in a game, you’ll get some familiar prompts, like whether you want to use gestures or the analog sticks to move around. I thought of gestures for sure until I found that in Horizon: Call of the Mountain, the gesture to advance is to hold the buttons on both controllers and move your fists up and down. I laughed out loud and switched to sticks, which weren’t much better. Movement in VR is still an unresolved problem.
(I didn’t have enough space to really test the game at full room scale, but from the little I did, the tracking seemed good, if not particularly necessary, for most games.)
PSVR2 controllers, which look like pretzels. Image Credits: sony
Easily the most impressive aspect of the PSVR2 is the precision and responsiveness of the controllers. Although there’s still a layer of “well, these dumb fake hands aren’t my hands,” the immediate feedback of movement and rotation, without a twitch or jerk to be seen, tricks your brain very quickly. There’s a reason scaling is at the center of the Horizon game; change the awkward movement to something natural and fun. On flat surfaces, the game feels silly; on the cliffs is really exciting.
The screen is excellent, like virtual reality screens. It’s bright and vibrant and has nice deep dark tones because it’s an OLED panel. Motion is smooth too, whether running at a full 120Hz or interpolating a lower frame rate to that level. At 110 degrees, the field of view is among the best, much better than the tunnel vision of other headsets, but the vignetting is still very noticeable and sometimes distracting.
hard limits
But even at 4K and 120Hz, you can’t escape the physics, and in fact, your eyes are only an inch or two from the screen, with a complex set of Fresnel lenses between them. The result is, as it almost always has been, glare, chromatic aberration, smearing, aliasing, vignetting, and inevitably eye strain.
To be clear, it looks as good as or better than anything available right now, especially in intensity and depth of color. But still it’s not (and neither is the competition) what I’d call sharp. I found that there was a very narrow sweet spot where I got maximum clarity, and even then that clarity decreases the further you get from the center of the viewport.
Other reviews have said that 2K per eye drastically reduces aliasing, and that’s true, but it’s far from eliminated and the final image, while convincing due to depth, fluidity, and the very nature of VR, still seemed blurry and blurry to me. gross. . Unfortunately, the screenshots are not an accurate representation of what it actually looks like.
Against the backdrop of a detailed and immersive game environment as a Horizon jungle or stylized rez area, including the pictures from the storybook of the Moss series, you may well be able to look past the screen door effect and enjoy the moment, but it’s always there, waiting to be noticed. In more static scenes where detail can be admired at leisure, a lack of clarity will be immediately apparent, especially for gamers used to seeing ultra-sharp images on large 4K screens from 8-10 feet away. The idea that someone would want to play a normal game or watch a movie on their virtual screen in “cinematic mode” instead of any decent TV (and I mean $300 a few years ago, like mine) just doesn’t hold up.
A typical scene in the new Horizon game. Keep climbing! Image Credits: sony
The fundamental problems of convergence fatigue and accommodation (your eyes can’t choose their focus correctly when redirecting and reshaping) are also not alleviated by eye tracking and fove rendering, although these techniques hold promise. I’m not prone to motion sickness, but after an hour or so into the game, my eyes and temples were definitely aching and there’s a nagging feeling of optical distortion.
When you get down to business, even though the experience has been simplified very effectively and technology has improved vastly in recent years, the games still aren’t worth the price of admission for most people. No doubt some dedicated gamers who really love Horizon either resident Eviland are constitutionally suitable for playing in VR, they were sold on PSVR2 a long time ago.
And to them I say, enjoy! It’s better than ever, and super easy to set up, and the drivers are amazing! And there is a chance for truly new and powerful gaming experiences to be delivered!
But the PSVR2 advances, as significant as they are, seem unlikely to convince anyone who wasn’t convinced years ago. The games still feel like expensive window dressing and while some titles do benefit from VR (rez with eye controls is truly remarkable and the cover shooters will shine), the level of visuals and immersion possible on a TV screen continues to rise. I didn’t need to wear a VR headset to scare myself deep in a cavern in ancient ring. AND Resident Evil Village It was already scary when I was looking around with a mouse!
Games that really take advantage of the possibilities of virtual reality still feel tentative and half-formed, a hint of things to come. I hope to eat my words in the next year or two when a real killer app comes along. I wouldn’t want anything else.
But for now, VR is still simply too expensive for the experience it offers. And with the ever-increasing picture and audio quality of home TV setups, games aren’t in dire need of an update, let alone a side update. The PlayStation VR2 achieves its goal of making next-gen headsets simpler and more capable than ever before, but unless you’re already among the VR faithful, it can safely be considered another promising step on the road to holy grail.
