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Eight Video Game Franchises That Make Sense For VR
No more waiting; VR is finally here. Except we are still waiting – waiting for some games that we’d really like to play with our new toys. The Rift and Vive both have some novel launch experiences, but they are a far cry from the system-selling titles that gamers are used to seeing year-in and year-out on other platforms. While you wait for the libraries on the Vive and Rift to expand, let’s dream about which some established franchises we’d like to see make the move to VR.
This feature was originally published on March 29, 2016.
X-Wing
Eve: Valkyrie has already established that space-based shooters work really well in VR, so we’d like to see the king of space shooters make the plunge. Sure, we’ve done the Death Star trench run a million times in games at this point, but VR finally allows us to relive those epic space fights as we always dreamed we would.
Burnout
Car accidents are incredibly dangerous and no one wants to actually be in one, but as the Burnout series has taught us, smashing two souped-up muscle cars into each other creates an amazing visual display. That display will be even more impressive if players could experience it in a full 360-degree environment. We also wouldn’t mind a mode where you could pause time and actually walk around these car pile-ups – from the safety of your well-insulated house. Also, we really just want another Burnout game.
Fatal Frame
Fatal Frame makes a lot of sense for augmented reality, but VR seems like another logical choice. Not only is horror exponentially more intense when you’re in VR, but Fatal Frame is one of the most terrifying franchises on the market. We’d love to explore some creepy Japanese mansions while taking pictures of ghosts. That combo of presence and powerlessness is sure to give us some great nightmares. 
XCOM
Much like sports games, VR offers gamers the opportunity to strategize in combat from a unique perspective. We’ve been saving the Earth from XCOM’s aliens for longer than we can remember, but we’d love to actually set boots on the battlefield for once. Imagine walking through a war-torn street, and staring down aliens before you command your gunner to fire into the whites of their eyes. That’s the quote, right?
SimCity
We’d love to see EA – or the Cities: Skylines team – create a city simulator that allows you to hover over your city and then reach down and sculpt things out of the earth with your hands, or carve roads with your fingers. Imagine walking through your city like some kind of intangible Godzilla (or tangible). We’d also enjoy the option to press a button and then shrink down and see the city from the vantage point of the populous.
Ace Attorney
Ace Attorney has always been a lovable yet goofy adventure series about the struggles of a hapless defense attorney. Players use evidence and cross-examinations to prove their case. Now imaging being able to actually walk around a crime scene and pick up that evidence, or being able to cross examine those witnesses face-to-face. If Capcom wanted to make a game like that in VR, we wouldn’t object. See what we did there? Actually, we don’t really know what we did there.
WarioWare
This one is a real longshot. Nintendo hasn’t announced plans to jump into VR, and it will probably take ten years longer than everyone else to do so. But out of all of Nintendo’s properties, WarioWare seems most ripe for a VR adventure. We don’t want to pretend that we could guess what Nintendo would pack into a minigame collection like this, but we’re sure it would be weirder that usual…and a lot of fun.
No Man’s Sky
Hello Games’ universe simulator is one of the most anticipated titles of the year, and for good reason. You can hop in a spaceship, fly from one planet to next, and then get out and walk around, all without loading screens. No Man’s Sky is selling a dream that you’ll be able to explore an entire universe full of crazy creatures and otherworldly sights. Now imagine how much better Hello Games could sell that experience if you were completely immersed in VR.
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