Arizona Sunshine

Arizona Sunshine was one of the first major zombie shooters designed specifically for virtual reality, and it's still counted among the titles that helped define what an action VR game with a hearty dose of humor and tension should look like, without ever taking itself too seriously. The player crosses a parched Arizona wasteland overrun by the undead, gathers weapons and ammo, and solves simple but effective puzzles while trying to survive the journey to the goal, either alone or in co-op with another player watching their back against hordes attacking from every side.

Shooting relies on physically manipulating weapons – reloading, aiming down sights, and having to keep track of ammunition give even ordinary zombie plinking a tension that flat-screen games can't offer. The humorous tone, combining a raw zombie apocalypse with the main character's lighthearted one-liners, gave the game a distinct identity apart from darker survival horrors. The two-player co-op mode was also a fairly unusual feature at the time of release and contributed to the game's long-lasting community, since clearing the wasteland of the undead together turned out to be one of the most enjoyable ways to experience virtual reality with a friend, even for players who otherwise prefer single-player experiences.

Arizona Sunshine became one of the most commercially successful early VR titles and helped prove that the zombie shooter genre could work just as well on the new platform as on classic consoles and PC, without having to sacrifice content scope for the sake of technological novelty. The parched desert scenery, abandoned gas stations, and overgrown cacti gave the game a visual identity players easily associated with the whole series. Its influence is visible in the sequel and a range of other VR shooters that adopted its basic formula of physical shooting combined with a light tone.

Why play: For a lighthearted zombie shooter with a striking desert atmosphere that proved the genre could work in VR just as well as on classic platforms, and influenced a whole line of successors.