A shot across the bows

Reach and Thief VR aim to set the stage for the next generation of VR games

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The bow and arrow might be an ancient piece of technology, but in VR it's practically cutting-edge. In April 2016, Holopoint and Valve's The Lab launched alongside HTC Vive, together demonstrating how perfectly the essentials of archery translated into first-person motion controls. By the time Meta Quest 3 and PSVR2 arrived in 2023, their big launch title,s Asgard's Wrath 2 and Horizon: Call Of The Mountain, respectively featured bows based on those same interactions: reaching over one shoulder to grab an arrow; notching it; pulling back the bowstring with one hand while guiding the stave with your other.

This is just one of a few mechanics that have cropped up repeatedly during the past decade of VR games (see also: manually reloaded guns, handover-hand climbing, and body-mounted item storage). But archery is on our mind at the inaugural VR Games Showcase Live in London, which hosts what could be 2025's two key standard bearers for big-budget VR - Reach and Thief VR: Legacy Of Shadow. Both of them, of course, feature bows.