PlayStation VR2 launched on February 22, 2023 with roughly 40 titles across launch day and the first weeks and no backward compatibility. Here are the 20 launch-window titles that defined the library, ranked from the headline draws to the deep cuts.
PlayStation VR2 hit shelves on February 22, 2023, at $549.99, and it did not arrive empty-handed. Sony shipped roughly 40 titles across launch day and the first weeks. This is not a backward-compatible library — nothing from the original PSVR carries over — so every name below is a game you could actually put on the headset in those first weeks. I spent the launch window in this thing, and this is the ranked list of the 20 that mattered, from the headline draws down to the deep cuts.
#1: Resident Evil Village
2021 · Official Hybrid
Resident Evil Village is the single best argument for buying a PSVR2 at launch, and Capcom handed it to you for free. The flat game shipped in 2021; the VR Mode dropped onto it on day one, turning the whole campaign into a first-person horror you play with your own hands. This is the headline third-party get of the launch — the game that makes non-believers understand why a headset matters. If you own a PS5 and like being scared in your own living room, the library starts here.
Read the full Resident Evil Village review
#2: No Man’s Sky
2016 · Official Hybrid
No Man's Sky also arrived as a free VR update rather than a new purchase, and it's the launch's great escape hatch. Hello Games built one of the largest universes in gaming, and in VR the scale stops being a number and starts being a place. The PSVR2's OLED panel and 2000×2040-per-eye resolution make the nebulae and derelict freighters read with real depth. It's the game I'd hand someone who asks what VR is for beyond shooting things.
Read the full No Man’s Sky review
#3: Gran Turismo 7
2022 · Native VR
Gran Turismo 7 is the racing showcase, and again it cost nothing extra — the full game became fully playable in VR through a free mode at launch. Sitting in the cockpit of a GT3 car on the PSVR2's screen is the clearest proof the headset's HDR and contrast are not spec-sheet trivia. For a racing fan with a PS5, this is the title that justifies the cable running to the console.
Read the full Gran Turismo 7 review
#4: Horizon Call of the Mountain
2023 · Framework Only
Horizon Call of the Mountain is the game Sony built to sell the hardware, and it does exactly that job. As the flagship first-party launch title — sold both standalone and in a bundle — it's a constant tech demo: climbing, bow-and-arrow combat, and vistas that exist to show off the panel. The community's knock is fair, though: pretty, but repetitive.
Read the full Horizon Call of the Mountain review
#5: The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners - Chapter 2: Retribution
2022 · Native VR
The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners - Chapter 2: Retribution brings the most physically believable melee combat of the launch to PSVR2. The first Saints & Sinners was the gold standard for VR survival on Quest and PC, and Chapter 2 carries that weight into Sony's ecosystem. Stabbing, blocking, and scavenging all land with the tactile feedback the Sense controllers were built for. It's the deepest single-player VR action game in the early lineup.
Read the full The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners - Chapter 2: Retribution review
#6: Moss: Book II
2022 · Native VR
Moss: Book II is the rare port that feels handmade for the hardware. You guide the mouse Quill through storybook dioramas, and the PSVR2's headset haptics add a rumble to the world that the original never had. The puzzle-platforming is gentle, the art direction is gorgeous, and it's the most approachable thing on this list for someone who isn't sure they like VR yet.
Read the full Moss: Book II review
#7: Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge - Enhanced Edition
2020 · Native VR
Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy's Edge - Enhanced Edition is the licensed VR adventure that finally looks like the movies on Sony's panel. The Enhanced Edition polish — sharper visuals, smoother performance — sits well on the PSVR2's OLED. Lightsaber and blaster work is straightforward but satisfying. If a Star Wars fan in your house just bought the headset, this is the one they'll reach for first.
Read the full Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge - Enhanced Edition review
#8: Pistol Whip
2019 · Native VR
Pistol Whip is the rhythm shooter that turns gunplay into a music video, and the PSVR2 port makes it sharper than it's ever looked on a PlayStation. You move down rails, fire on the beat, and dodge in time with the track. It's the game you'll keep coming back to for a five-minute session that becomes an hour.
Read the full Pistol Whip review
#9: Creed: Rise to Glory
2019 · Native VR
Creed: Rise to Glory is the boxing game that will have you sweating inside twenty minutes. The PSVR2's tracking keeps your gloves honest through jabs and hooks, and the Sense controllers' haptics make landing a clean cross feel like something connected. It's a launch-window fitness staple — the closest thing the early library offers to a workout you'll actually finish.
Read the full Creed: Rise to Glory review
#10: Beat Saber
2018 · Native VR
Beat Saber is the VR rhythm game everyone already knows, and on PSVR2 it runs on the best screen the genre has ever had on a console. Slice the blocks, follow the beat, feel the haptics tick on each hit.
Read the full Beat Saber review
#11: Tetris Effect: Connected
2018 · Native VR
Tetris Effect: Connected takes the most familiar game on Earth and wraps it in synchronized light and sound until it becomes a meditation. On the PSVR2's OLED, the zones bloom in a way flat screens flatten. Zone mode — slowing time to clear a screen — feels like a superpower when the world is closing in around your head. It's the calmest thing on this list, and sometimes that's the game you want.
Read the full Tetris Effect: Connected review
#12: After the Fall
2021 · Native VR
After the Fall was a confirmed launch-day title, and it's the lineup's left-4-dead-style co-op shooter. Four players move through a frozen, zombie-ravaged Los Angeles with cross-play support. The gunplay is solid, the set pieces are loud, and it's the most social thing you can do on PSVR2 at launch. Not the deepest, but a reliable group night.
Read the full After the Fall review
#13: Song in the Smoke: Rekindled
2021 · Native VR
Song in the Smoke: Rekindled is the survival-crafting game that asks you to read an alien world instead of shoot it. The Rekindled edition brought it to PSVR2 with the visual bump the hardware deserves. You track beasts, craft tools, and learn the rules of a place that doesn't explain itself. It's the quiet deep cut for players who want systems over set pieces.
Read the full Song in the Smoke: Rekindled review
#14: Kayak VR: Mirage
2022 · Native VR
Kayak VR: Mirage is the launch's pure technical showcase — a kayaking sim built to show the panel what HDR water and distant mountains look like up close. It's gorgeous, peaceful, and thin on reasons to return once you've paddled the set pieces. It's the demo you show guests, not the game you live in.
Read the full Kayak VR: Mirage review
#15: The Light Brigade
2023 · Native VR
The Light Brigade is the launch's roguelike, and the one that rewards patience over reflexes. Each run drops you into a WWI-style front where a single wrong step ends the loop and sends you back to learn the layout. The PSVR2's tracking and haptics make the bolt-action rifle feel deliberate.
Read the full The Light Brigade review
#16: Rez Infinite
2001 · Native VR
Rez Infinite is Tetsuya Mizuguchi's synesthetic rail shooter, and it's the launch title that most justifies the headset as a creative instrument. The music, the visuals, and the flow of shooting through a digital body all lock together in VR in a way no flat screen reproduces. Among the ports, it's the one that feels born for this hardware rather than dragged onto it.
Read the full Rez Infinite review
#17: Before Your Eyes
2021 · Native VR
Before Your Eyes is the rare launch game built around the PSVR2's eye tracking as its actual mechanic. You advance the story by blinking — closing your eyes to move time forward — and the headset's cameras read that gesture natively. It's a short, emotional narrative piece, the closest thing the launch library has to a use of the hardware no other headset can claim.
Read the full Before Your Eyes review
#18: Demeo
2021 · Native VR
Demeo is the digital board game that turns your living room into a tabletop dungeon. Up to four players move pieces, roll, and fight through a campaign that plays like a physical RPG session. On PSVR2 it's the most relaxed co-op option in the launch window — the game you play sitting down with friends who think they don't like VR.
Read the full Demeo review
#19: Runner
2023 · Native VR
Runner is the launch's fast, arcade endless-runner — the kind of pick-up-and-play reflex game that fits a five-minute break or a score-chase session. It's lighter than the headline names, but it fills a gap the launch library needed: something quick, bright, and unmistakably built for the headset's sense of speed.
Read the full Runner review
#20: The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR
2023 · Framework Only
The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR is the on-rails horror shooter that arrived in the launch window, riding the Dark Pictures Anthology name into VR. You ride a crashing train through set-piece scares with a gun in each hand, the Sense controllers standing in for the weapons. It's the last name on this list, but for a horror fan it's a fitting capstone to a launch that leaned hard on scares and shooters.
Read the full The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR review
Honorable Mentions
The launch window ran wider than 20 names. Worth knowing, in no particular order:
- Altair Breaker — anime sword-action RPG
- Cave Digger 2: Dig Harder — mining roguelike with co-op
- Cities VR — city-builder ported to VR
- Cosmonious High — colorful alien school adventure
- Drums Rock — rhythm drumming with a rock twist
- Dyschronia: Chronos Alternate — anime time-travel mystery
- Fantavision 202X — fireworks puzzle game, PSVR2 exclusive
- Garden of the Sea — cozy island life and gardening
- GORN — cartoonish gladiator brawling in VR
- Jurassic World Aftermath — stealth horror on Isla Nublar
- Job Simulator — comedic workplace parody, still charming
- Moss — the classic puzzle adventure, still lovely
- Nock — archery-based competitive multiplayer
- NFL Pro Era — first-person football
- Pavlov — the addictive multiplayer shooter one launch player couldn’t put down
- Puzzling Places — 3D jigsaw puzzles in VR
- Ragnarock — Viking drumming rhythm game
- Swordsman VR — melee combat with motion-tracked blade swings
- Startenders: Intergalactic Bartending — sci-fi cocktail mixing
- Tentacular — giant tentacle puzzle game
- The Last Clockwinder — puzzle automation with a mechanical twist
- The Tale of Onogoro — Japanese folklore adventure
- Thumper — rhythm violence, still intense
- Townsmen VR — medieval settlement builder
- Unplugged: Air Guitar — air-guitar rhythm game using Sense controllers
- Vacation Simulator — Job Simulator’s sunnier sibling
- The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners — survival horror with physics combat
- What the Bat? — silly bat-hand comedy
- Zenith: The Last City — anime MMO with VR swordplay
- Zombieland: Headshot Fever Reloaded — arcade zombie shooter
The takeaway
PSVR2’s launch library was a strange beast: three of the best reasons to own the headset — Resident Evil Village, No Man’s Sky, and Gran Turismo 7 — cost you nothing extra, while the one game built to show off the hardware, Horizon Call of the Mountain, proved the screen before it ran out of ideas. The rest was ports, rhythm games, and a deep bench of smaller experiences that aged at different speeds. Buy the headset for the free updates and the Sense controllers; build your shelf from the 20 above.
