The Advancements and Benefits of Virtual Reality during 2020

2020 was a hard year for all of us. Among many other challenges, the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic was one of the most prominent of the year. People were forced to isolate themselves and stay in their homes to try and stifle the spread as much as possible. Needless to say, this was a tall order for all of us and definitely a year that those who lived in it will remember forever.

During lockdown, people were essentially forced to find ways to entertain themselves while at home. While many people tried many different things, my experience at home was shaped by virtual reality. I wasn’t a complete stranger to virtual reality before 2020; a couple years prior, I was given a VR headset that I used regularly. That was until lockdown, when I really grew interested in the space.

It started as a fun way to pass the time, as I just played games like I would normally on my computer. Over time, however, playing games in VR became more normal than not. It was a lot of fun and even provided me with ways to interact with friends whom I couldn’t in real life, which was a much more impactful experience than I had anticipated. Virtual reality at the time, had a much higher barrier to entry. Luckily for me, I had another friend who also owned a VR headset. We would play games together, and seeing each other in real time like that was honestly surreal.

One virtual reality game, “VRChat,” was great for this because it’s literally just a platform to talk to people in VR and engage in different activities. Anything from traversing a horror attraction to hanging out at a comedy club was offered, and being able to hang out with my friend almost as if it were real life made it more special.

The social aspect of virtual reality is special by itself, but I used it for more than that. There were many solo games I played as well that helped me kill the time. I could go on and list all the games I did play, but there were a specific couple that stood out. Half-Life: Alyx was one of those games. It served as the long-awaited sequel to the Half-Life series, and this was the first VR game in the series. Gameplay and story aside (both of which were outstanding by the way), what really shined brightest about Half-Life: Alyx was its technical feats. Half a year prior to the release of the game, Valve, the game company behind the series and other virtual reality devices, released a new virtual reality headset paired with revolutionary controllers. Half-Life: Alyx was the showcase game for these new controllers.

Here’s what made the Index controllers special. As I said before, there had typically been a high barrier to entry for getting into virtual reality, specifically in terms of price. For what was offered with the Index controllers, at the time, it was worth spending the extra money for. The Index controllers had a function that no other consumer-level VR product had before: finger tracking. Typically, holding a controller would require you to have a full grip around the controller, leaving only your thumb and pointer finger to interact with buttons and triggers (think Wii controllers). The index controllers, however, had a strap that would hold itself to your hand, allowing full range of your fingers while still “holding” the controller. In addition to that, the controllers had the ability to track where your fingers are in real-time, and the game would reflect that. When I first experienced this, it blew my mind and added a layer of realism to the game I was playing. It felt more real.

(Here you can see how the Index controllers could reflect finger/hand movement in-game.)

My favorite virtual reality game (and one of my favorite games in general) is Beat Saber. Beat Saber brings me to the last genre of VR gaming that I wanted to mention. At a whopping (and slightly embarrassing) 488 hours, I easily spent the majority of my time playing this game, and I still do to this day. And while not specifically being called a “workout game,” it certainly is one. In Beat Saber, the player slices incoming blocks with a saber while listening to a song. Sounds easy enough, right? Not so much. As you play the game and get better, you can raise the difficulty of the songs you are playing to much higher levels. This is when Beat Saber becomes, quite literally, a workout.

I found myself playing it at least once per day and getting legitimately tired afterward. Not only that, but I would wake up the next day feeling sore and excited to play it again and continue getting better. During the lockdown, this was the only form of exercise I was getting, and for a while, I didn’t even realize it. I was just having fun, and the possible benefit of actually getting a workout in was just a bonus.

Virtual reality had piqued my interest and affected me in ways I didn’t realize at first. It provided me with a method to interact with friends during a time when that was hardest and effectively distracted me from the chaos that was happening in the world at the time. It also unexpectedly provided me with a way to stay active and have fun. It’s a practice that I still engage in today. VR has already grown so much in the past half-decade and as greater technological advances are developed, it will only get bigger. When the Valve Index was originally released, it was the best consumer-level headset at the time, since then, there have already been much greater headsets released. I really enjoyed the time I spent getting into the medium, and that enjoyment has stuck with me since the beginning. I’m excited to see how virtual reality continues to evolve over the coming years.

Logan Taylor