Townsmen VR

Townsmen VR is a medieval city-building strategy game from German studio HandyGames, published by THQ Nordic Mobile. It brings the Townsmen series into VR, mixing village management with god-game interaction. It entered early access on Steam in February 2018, launched in full on March 24, 2022, and later came to PlayStation VR2 and Meta Quest.

How it plays

An island sits in front of you like a living model. You place houses, farms and workshops, build production chains that turn raw materials into goods, and keep your villagers fed and content as the settlement grows. You can survey the whole island from a bird's-eye view or zoom in to see the town from a villager's perspective.

Much of the world reacts to your hands. You can touch and use most objects, such as blowing on a windmill or roasting fish over a fire, and you can recruit soldiers to defend the town against enemies. The fully voiced campaign spans 13 islands and archipelagos with more than 20 buildings to unlock and upgrade. A sandbox mode drops the campaign structure so you can build toward your own goals.

Comfort

You look down on the island and change the view instead of walking through it, and Meta rates it comfortable. It works seated, standing or in roomscale, which makes it a relaxed pick for people new to VR.

Platforms and what to know before buying

• On SteamVR it lists at $39.99 and needs tracked motion controllers.
• On the PlayStation Store the PS5 version costs $39.99 and requires PlayStation VR2 and its Sense controllers, whose haptics it uses. A physical edition was also released.
• On the Meta Horizon Store the Quest version costs $29.99. It launched in January 2024 for Meta Quest 3 only, and the listing now also names Quest 2, Quest 3S and Quest Pro. A separate PC VR listing costs $39.99.
• It is single-player only, with no mixed reality mode, and is rated PEGI 12 (ESRB Everyone 10+).