Oculus has officially announced their slate of games for 2017. At GDC 17 in San Francisco, we were able to try each one.

Alongside the many announcements and demos at last week’s GDC, Oculus had a few major ones to share. $100 price cuts to the Rift and Touch (bringing the total “all-in” price to $600), the launch of Robo Recall for free to Touch users, and an official showing of games scheduled to be released in 2017. Several of the titles had already made waves with appearances at conferences like October’s Oculus Connect 3—while others were making their public debut—but the notable commonality here was the consistent level of quality, detail, and execution across all games.

This felt less like a day of demos and more like chance to taste the breadth of an entire AAA platform; the kind of roster that can rightfully vie for attention against console platforms and mobile apps in equal measure. And with a new game dropping each month, players will be able to hone their VR chops in different genres throughout the year.

Rift Titles

Arktika.1 – 4A Games

Release Date: Q3 2017

When I first tried Arktika.1 last October, here’s what I had to say about it:

“If you thought 28 Days Later could’ve used a helping of robot mayhem, Arktika.1 is your next favorite first-person shooter. 4A Games established itself as a master of icy post-apocalyptic sci-fi with its beloved Metro series, and Arktika.1 proves the Ukranian developer has plenty more where that came from.”

Plenty more indeed. This go-around, an updated intro grounds players in the grimy sci-fi tundra where frosty exhalations are real enough to induce a psychosomatic chill. The tutorial element in “virtual reality” makes for a playful metatextual flourish that also acclimates players to their weapons and locomotion. From there, (at least in the demo) you’re tossed into an airfield that has fallen prey to renegades—it’s your mission to dispatch them.

The subject of the FPS in VR is no-doubt a fraught one, but 4A has quite obviously invested in fleshing out story and design, such that Arktika.1 stands on the weight of its art as much as its roster of weapons, bandits, and monsters. Notably, for offering such a beautiful arsenal, Arktika.1 is much more a game of defense than offense—if you want a prayer of staying alive to complete your mission, you must to pay attention to your environment and understand sources of cover (and how to get to them) rather than try to blast your way through with blunt force. It’s a gentleman’s strategy shooter dressed up as a frothy-lipped sci-fi horror.

Blade & Soul – NCSoft

Release Date: TBA

The first on the list of two real-time strategy games to debut at Oculus, Blade & Soul transplants a beloved franchise into VR, and to great effect. If you dig board games like Stratego, but wish things were a bit more animated, Blade & Soul will keep you hooked for hours.

Upon entering the game, you assemble your army. There’s a variety of warriors with different attributes—your job is to grab the perfect mix for attacks and defense. And because this game runs on Oculus Touch, you select them by picking them up with your hands.

Blade & Soul strikes the perfect balance between fast-paced action and patient strategy. With enemy combatants coming at you full force, you have to continually adjust plans on the fly. This game is definitely fun for a quick round, but ultra-competitors will crave longterm play to hone their skills. Intimate knowledge of your army is necessary to intuit the best positioning of your warriors without wasting time, and rewards offer the ability to unlock achievements that let you level up your army.

Brass Tactics – Hidden Path Entertainment

Release Date: Fall 2017

Rounding out the RTS contingent, Brass Tactics opts for a giant virtual table where battles come to life in the most playful one-on-one combat arena I’ve encountered in VR. But don’t let the clocks and gears fool you; this is a high-intensity game that taps every bit of your strategy reserves.

Your job is to overtake your opponent’s base while defending your own by placing structures and deploying troops across the board. And while I played PvP in my demo, the game will also sport co-op mode so that friends can band together rather than go head-to-head.

Brass Tactics stands apart most in its locomotion and interactivity. Players can reposition the height of the board at any moment for optimal viewing, as well as drag themselves all around the board with the Touch controllers to spy on what their opponent has cooking in the backfield. Though this might not seem like a big deal to newcomers to the RTS genre, fans will recognize how revolutionary this development is, singlehandedly proving that longtime “Fog of War” trope might not have a place in the VR update to the RTS.

All that, alongside the superb art design, creates a magical sense of presence. Brass Tactics captures a wonderful, childlike feeling of watching your childhood toys come alive in your bedroom (and then, you know, conquer each other). The strategy stakes are high, but so is the cute factor: serving as lord of a miniature world drives you to guide your tiny champions to victory—and with a five-mission solo campaign to complement PvP and co-op modes, there’s no end to the ways you can lead them.

Dragon Front – High Voltage Software (also on Gear VR)

Release Date: November 15, 2016 with regular expansions

In the world of Dragon Front, terrible war las laid wreckage to the world. Your job is to take up the mantle as a deity selected to go back in time to win that war. And you do that in a fully immersive collectible-card game where dieselpunk and high fantasy come together in a clash of steel, spells, and strategy. This is the resounding immersive answer to every CCG lover’s favorite existing franchise, be it Hearthstone, Yu-Gi-Oh, or otherwise.

Players choose from a customizable deck of 30 cards (different depending on which faction you represent), playable on different squares on a 4×4 grid. Some of these cards may be minions, others spells, and with the Touch connectivity it’s easy to peruse and place your cards—but the turn-based gameplay is kept at a clip with a timer. It’s vital to know what your cards can do and deploy your sorcery before time runs out…and with hundreds of characters and spells to choose from, the best way to learn is practice.

When I first tried out Dragon Front last year, I was able to choose from four factions using a traditional game controller. Fast-forward a few months and it boasts three new factions, two of which are pictured above (Essence and Delirium), and Touch connectivity. The live “in-person” feeling Dragon Front creates maintains a high degree of presence, even down to players’ ability to watch their opponent’s movements using the tracking system. Of course, this also means you have to be wary of your own tells.