Beat Saber

Beat Saber launched into Early Access in May 2018 and became the highest-rated game on Steam within a week—a VR rhythm game so good it transcended the platform's niche audience and became mainstream shorthand for "VR done right." The full 1.0 release hit May 21, 2019 for PSVR and PC, with Meta Quest following shortly after. By March 2019, it had sold over 1 million copies. StreamerHouse's 227-viewer peak across 2019-2020 reflected the game's "mass appeal" status—critics called it "the best evidence for VR being more than a niche technology." You slashed colored blocks to the beat with lightsabers. That's it. That's the whole game. And it was glorious. Beat Saber won Best VR/AR Game at The Game Awards 2019, plus D.I.C.E., Unity, and GDC awards. Facebook acquired Beat Games in November 2019, promising continued third-party VR support while folding them into Oculus Studios. Steam reviews sit at 95% positive across 52,000+ reviews—"Overwhelmingly Positive." The PSVR launch proved VR could work on consoles, and Beat Saber became the killer app that justified headset purchases. It's rhythm gaming perfected, the closest thing VR has to a universal system-seller. Dance Dance Revolution wishes it slapped this hard.