Demeo is one of the first immersive games announced for Apple Vision Pro

Resolution Games today announced that a version of DemosThe developer’s popular virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MR) tabletop RPG simulator is in “active development” for the Apple Vision Pro headset. Title is among the first VR/MR games to be officially confirmed for Apple’s highly anticipated $3,500 wearable computing device, expected early next year.

After DemosFollowing the launch of in 2021, Resolution Games added a Mixed Reality update late last year that places in-game objects on top of a real-world view (via passthrough cameras on compatible headsets such as Meta’s Quest 2 and Quest Pro and the Upcoming Quest 3). A “Mixed Reality 2.0” update for the game, launched today, adds support for controller-free hand tracking and “co-location” of mixed reality elements, which can now appear in the same place for multiple users in the same physical room .

These sorts of MR capabilities will be useful on Apple Vision Pro, which doesn’t use handheld controllers and focuses primarily on MR apps that can be overlaid onto a real-world view. But Resolution Games says Vision Pro will also support a “fully virtual” version of the game that doesn’t integrate passthrough images.

“It’s the interplay between the real and the virtual that truly makes MR magical, and few things in the real world are as interactive as the human hand,” Resolution Games co-founder and president Paul Brady said in a statement. “Advances in hand tracking have made a controllerless future not only possible but incredibly attractive. We are rapidly entering an era where your body is a far more effective controller than a portable piece of plastic ever could be.”

The resolution did not say whether it expects this port to be ready in time for the Vision Pro hardware to launch, which Apple says is expected “early next year.”

“We’ve heard a lot of requests for this, so we thought it was finally time to come clean,” a spokesperson for Resolution Games told Ars Technica. “Given the speculation around [Vision Pro’s] potential as a gaming device, I thought you might like to know that one of the most accomplished creators of mixed reality games is now officially in the mix.”

Where are the other games?

Apple’s initial Vision Pro announcement in June included a brief mention that over 100 Apple Arcade titles will be playable on headphones via a traditional handheld controller and virtual 2D screen. But examples of VR and MR games were all but absent from that sensational announcement and the hands-on demo that accompanied it.

The closest Apple came to that mention was the inclusion of the social play space Registration room in a list of “Apps and games we love” in a demo menu. That “fully immersive experience” (Apple’s term for “traditional” VR apps without passthrough) was later confirmed to come to Vision Pro during a video tutorial highlighting how to port existing Unity VR apps to Vision Pro. And in July, Unity officially rolled out visionOS support for its engine in a closed beta, making it easier for developers to port existing apps (like those made by Unity). Demos) to Apple’s next hardware.

Zoom in / VR social gaming space Registration room will also come to Apple Vision Pro.

Despite this kind of engine support though, we have yet to see any other VR or MR game makers announce plans to port new or existing titles to the Vision Pro platform. Perhaps these announcements will become more common as we get closer to the launch of the Vision Pro platform. Vision Pro hardware planned for next year. Perhaps these developers are just waiting to see if the Vision Pro platform offers more than a niche market for traditional VR apps. Or perhaps the VR development community is simply following Apple’s lead and accepting that the headset isn’t really designed with “traditional” VR experiences in mind.

Either way, Resolution Games says it has big plans for the future of mixed reality games. The company said in a statement that half of its employees’ workload is currently focused on MR titles “on a range of devices for 2024 and beyond, including many with dedicated controller-less play.” Whether or not some of these experiences will make it to the Apple Vision Pro likely depends largely on whether or not that happens Demos can find success on the new Apple platform.