PSVR 2 hands-on review: Sony's PS5 VR headset renewed my hope for virtual reality

My 30-minute demo with the PlayStation VR 2 proved Sony's got the goods

➡️ The Shortcut Skinny: PSVR 2 the moon

• 🥽 I got to test Sony’s PSVR 2 headset early – it has a lot of potential

• 🪶 It felt more lightweight and comfortable than PSVR1

• 🏔️ Horizon Call of the Mountain looked fantastic on the 4K headset

• 👀 PSVR 2’s eye-tracking tech is more advanced than I expected

• 🆚 Better than the Meta Quest 2, Sony’s biggest VR rival

• 📆 The PSVR 2 release date was February 22

• 💰 It costs $549 for the headset and two controllers

I got early access to Sony’s PlayStation VR 2 headset, which is all the rage in my Twitter DMs. Scores of people who sought my PS5 restock advice are suddenly asking me: “is the PSVR 2 worth pre-ordering?” Today, I finally have an answer for you.

My early access experience with PlayStation VR 2 renewed my hope for virtual reality at a time when I – and a lot of people – have been skeptical. VR hasn’t exactly wowed us in a few years, but Sony has massive potential with PSVR 2.

Why the surge in hype? I can finally confirm that the PSVR 2 is comfortable (this headset is lightweight), it’s capable (the specs, especially the 4K display and eye tracking, really wow), and it’s chock full of PSVR 2 games (and PlayStation’s potential IP) that I actually want to play. It’s enough for me to go from being bearish to bullish about its chances against Meta Quest 2 and even Meta Quest 3.

I’ll have a full PSVR 2 review up next month, but, until then, here’s what I thought of my time with what’s soon-to-be one of the best PS5 accessories along with Horizon: Call of the Mountain – a potential addition to our best PS5 games list.

Why I’ve been bearish on PSVR 2

Sony hasn’t shown off the PSVR 2 headset nearly enough. Only a few press outlets got hands-on time with it before today, it briefly popped up at the Tokyo Game Show and it showed up at a MediaTek event (MediaTek makes the PSVR 2 chipset) where it was a hands-off experience. Sometimes that’s not a good sign in this industry.

It’s also $549 for the PSVR 2, which includes the 4K headset and a pair of wireless orb-shaped controllers that Sony’s dubbed “the PSVR 2 Sense controllers.” For many of my subscribers – some of whom finally caught a $499 PS5 Disc restock late last year – that’s a big ask in a tough economy.

But even with that, the headset, which is still very much available to pre-order, has me feeling more bullish today than yesterday. I’m keeping my pre-order from PlayStation Direct based on my PSVR 2 demo that had me wanting more.

Matt Swider (tracking PS5 / Xbox / GPU restock) @mattswider

How PSVR 2 feels

• 🏋️‍♂️ PSVR 2 felt noticeably lighter than PSVR1, reportedly by 40g

• 🥽 Easy to adjust the fit with two knobs on the headband

• 📸 No external camera is needed with inside-out tracking

• 📳 Subtle vibrations from the headset motor match the on-screen action

The PlayStation VR 2 looks like a polished remix of the original PSVR from 2016, one that fits the white PS5 aesthetic of today. It looks better and, importantly, in my demo, it felt better on my head for the full half hour. This is very necessary for VR.

PSVR 2 reportedly weighs 560g, 40g lighter than the 600g PSVR1 headset, according to a leaked manual. That brings it closer to the Meta Quest 2 at 503g. Additionally, it feels like the weight is better-distributed front to back on the new PlayStation VR 2.

I felt the hard plastic front of the headset – as if to feel my face – with my bare hands before strapping into the two Orb controllers and I was surprised at where the front started. The lightweight material made it feel more flush than it actually was.

The PSVR 2 headband sat high in the front and wrapped around the lower back of my head for a secure fit. On the back, there was a knob to loosen and tighten the band. There was also a front lens adjustment button for extra tweaks, i.e. for eyeglasses.

Once strapped in, I noticed the PSVR 2 felt more solidly built than the original PSVR  and there was no external camera or PlayStation Eye to set up. Its six-axis motion sensing system is, in part, taken care of with four cameras embedded inside the headset, something called inside-out positional tracking.

The cherry on top of the PSVR 2 cake is the vibrating motor within the headset that provides force feedback to match the on-screen action. It’s subtle so it doesn’t overpower or distract from the gameplay, but it’s a welcomed addition to making VR even more immersive.

For everyone already asking (I already see the Twitter replies), yes, there was a single long USB-C cable attached to the PSVR 2 headset and plugged into the PS5 console. It didn’t detract from the whole VR experience as much as I had expected (I didn’t tug on it until the very end of my demo), and if that truly gets us more performance vs a wireless PSVR 2 at this point, I’d favor wired – for now.

Incredible PSVR 2 eye-tracking

• 👀 IR camera tracks your eyes and it’s surprisingly accurate

• 🙅‍♂️ Won’t find it in Meta Quest 2; Meta Quest Pro is 3x pricier

• 🚀 I’m interested in where game developers take this tech

This was the game changer for me. PSVR 2 has eye-tracking via an IR camera, and it’s something you can’t experience on the Meta Quest 2 (it’s in the Meta Quest Pro, but that’s ridiculously expensive at $1,499 and a consumer-friendly Meta Quest 3 is months away). This just in from CES: the newly announced $1,099 HTC Vive XR Elite doesn’t have eye-tracking either – at least not without a future add-on.

Setting up to play Horizon: Call of the Mountain, one of the first PSVR 2 games announced for the headset, required simple calibration. Through a series of tests, I followed a dot on the screen with my eyes, shifting them left and right, up and down.

“I’m good at this game,” I told the demo attendant, who kindly laughed at my joke. He shot back, “Yes, but it gets harder.” And it actually did get a bit trickier. The dot-following calibration test required me to follow a series of dots arranged in a large circle. This perimeter eye-tracking test was incredibly precise. I quipped, “Oh, this is stage 2!”

PSVR 2 eye-tracking also detected that my eyes weren’t centered within the goggles’ 110-degree field of view, a nice increase over the 100-degree PSVR 1. I was able to easily adjust the lenses to better match my eyes and saw a simple on-screen UI track their alignment. Super neat.

When Sony first announced PSVR 2 eye-tracking, I thought it was going to be limited to pushing pixels around the 4K display and not act as another input. There’s a neat trick in VR that increases pixel density based on where a user is looking called foveated rendering – I recall that even the Samsung Gear VR was capable of this – but Sony’s menus and games go beyond that. You can actually progress through screens or moments in a game based on where you’re looking with your eyes. This is eye-tracking for real and I’m interested in how far it’ll be taken in future game development.

Horizon Call of the Mountain on a 4K headset

• 📌 Sharp, fluid graphics on a 4K OLED and 120Hz

• 🏹 Game controls include intuitive bow-and-arrow gestures

• 🧗‍♂️ Lots of climbing ladders and mountainsides via motion controls

• 🤖 Enemy machines from the Horizon world get up-close-and-personal

PSVR 2 sucked me back into the world of Horizon with a demo that began with an on-rails riverboat ride in the PSVR 2-exclusive Horizon Call of the Mountain. I saw herds of Machines – friendly and not-so-friendly like Tallnecks and Grazers – approach in all directions, making full use of the 360-degree VR world as I turned my head.

The 4K resolution and 120Hz refresh rate provided sharp, fluid graphics, and I tried to pixel-peep, attempting to look for the screen door effect that felt like a distraction on the PSVR 1. I couldn’t see any gaps in the pixels on this higher-resolution OLED. You can confidently go into buying a PSVR 2 knowing that’s not an issue anymore.

My easy riverboat ride came to an end when a giant crocodile-like Snapmaw tipped me over. It was time to make use of the PSVR 2 controllers. I had to climb up ladders and mountainsides with gestures while gripping the shoulder buttons, and mime running while pressing the two face buttons. Horizon Call of the Mountain isn’t exactly on rails, though the game does a fine job of narrowly guiding me on where to go in VR.

Breaking out the bow and arrow had me mimicking real-life gestures. I had to shoot targets – and eventually a Scrapper boss – by, first, reaching behind my back and grabbing (L1 or R1) to retrieve the bow and then do that with the other hand to pull an arrow. Firing the arrow from the bow called for using both hands, as you’d expect.

The PSVR 2 controls felt more intuitive than they looked watching other people go ahead of me. It’s likely because I felt like I was in the game – watching someone else play just isn’t the same. I did manage to beat the demo’s Scrapper within the 30-minute demo thanks to plenty of dodging gestures and relentlessly firing my unlimited arrows.

Yes, the recent PS5 game Horizon: Forbidden West sports beautiful graphics with even more freedom, but Call of the Mountain is a different take on that same world. PSVR 2 makes the narrower gameplay feel more immersive and refreshingly different. I’m looking forward to going beyond the first 30 minutes.

PSVR 2 to live and die by sales and software

• 🎮 PlayStation has strong IP, and GT7 is coming to VR via an update

• 🤔 Will we see Uncharted, God of War, LittleBigPlanet, MLB, etc?

• 🎵 Beat Saber, immensely popular on Meta Quest, is coming to PSVR 2

• 📈 More sales = more developer interest = more games = more sales, etc

The PlayStation VR headset looks and feels good and the specs offer something not offered by some of Sony’s competitors: eye-tracking on a 4K display at a reasonable price point of $549. Meta Quest 2 is $399 but the resolution is nearly 4K and there’s no eye-tracking, while Meta Quest Pro has eye-tracking but costs $1,499.

Even more important than eye-tracking is Sony’s secret weapon: its familiar and fantastic original PlayStation IPs. It announced that Gran Turismo 7 for PS5 will have a free update to support PSVR 2, and it has a stable of franchises I’d love to see in VR, including Uncharted, God of War, LittleBigPlanet, Ratchet & Clank, Twisted Metal, MLB: The Show, Sly Cooper, etc.

It also has a healthy roster of third-party games coming. Beat Saber, the most popular VR game on Meta Quest, is coming to the PS5 headset, Sony announced at CES this week. We’re also due to get Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge, Resident Evil Village, Resident Evil 4, No Man’s Sky and The Walking Dead.

Sales and software of the PSVR 2 are more important than its competition, frankly. The more great software Sony pushes to PSVR 2, the better the sales will be, and the more it sells, the more developers will want to spend time and resources creating games for the virtual reality headset. No one wants to create games for a fraction of the PSVR 2 audience. It’ll live and die by PSVR 2 headset sales and software, and it helps that Sony has already sold 30 million PS5 consoles.

I walked away from my PSVR 2 demo a lot more confident that Sony has the right ingredients for bringing virtual reality to the PlayStation 5. It’s a “win” that everyone is going after in 2023 – Meta, HTC and maybe even Apple – but with the backing of the strong PlayStation brand, no company – except maybe Nintendo – can match the number of games I’d actually want to play in virtual reality.