You can now shoot pool and grab a beer with friends in this virtual bar.
After a brief delay to perfect their online multiplayer competition, Pool Nation VR has finally arrived on the HTC Vive, and it was worth the wait.
Developer Cherry Pop Games, known for their popular billiards simulation Pool Nation, has reimagined their original series for virtual reality. Pool Nation VR lets you play pool, throw darts, smash bottles, and the best part – do it all with another human. Aside from the amazing pool physics, the multiplayer social VR aspect makes this an unforgettable experience, and i’m glad they took the extra time to perfect it.
Pool Nation VR just dropped onto the Steam store June 1st and takes full advantage of the Vive’s roomscale capabilities and hand-controllers. With the controllers, you have the ability to pick up objects like beer bottles or chairs and throw them. You can also teleport around the room or the pool table to line up your shot.
We haven’t had this much social VR fun since demoing Toybox for Oculus Touch. You can watch our full shenanigans in the video above, but be warned, we didn’t actually play much pool. Multiplayer is so social and immersive, we could easily have spent the entire night in this virtual pub.
Playing multiplayer Pool Nation VR at the office.
Yes I know, both Malia and I were in the same room, which might have added to the immersion. But even if she was clear across the globe, it still would have felt just as personal, like she was actually in the bar with me throwing our cue sticks around like ninjas. And yes we did run two HTC Vive headsets off of the same pair of lighthouses, just make sure you get them high enough for clean coverage. We are also running this off two separate computers, making sure we set the chaperone boundaries in-between us so we don’t run into each other IRL.
Pool Nation VR is on sale right now in the Steam VR store for $16.99 and at launch was one of the top selling games on Steam, already a major milestone for VR.
