Ocean Rift
Ocean Rift
Swim with dolphins, come face to face with a great white shark, drift over coral reefs and explore the ruins of Atlantis. Ocean Rift is an underwater safari park with more than a dozen habitats and an education mode that narrates facts about the animals as you meet them. It has been a favourite first VR experience for years, and it still holds up.
Very positive
Ocean Rift calls itself the world’s first VR aquatic safari park, and it has a strong claim to the title. It began life in 2013 as a free demo for the original Oculus Rift development kit, was created by developer Llyr ap Cenydd and is published by Picselica Ltd. It has since appeared on Gear VR, Oculus Go, the first Quest, Steam and today’s Meta Quest headsets, where it launched on 21 May 2019.
The Quest version offers 14 habitats (the Steam listing describes 12), including coral reefs, mangrove swamps, shipwrecks, the deep sea, the Arctic and the lost city of Atlantis. Among the residents are dolphins, sharks, orcas, turtles, sea snakes, rays, manatees, sea lions and whales, plus some prehistoric marine reptiles. The main animals use procedural animation, which gives them natural, lifelike movement rather than looping routines.
See also our reviews of theBlu and Paleo Dive, which takes the same idea back to prehistoric oceans.
- Runs standalone on Meta Quest, no PC needed
- 14 habitats with lifelike animal movement
- Education mode with 40+ narrated points
- Mixed reality window mode on Quest
- Controllers or hand tracking
- Seated, standing or room scale
- Works offline
- Rated for everyone, low price
- Sharks and the deep sea can startle younger children
- Atlantis and dinosaurs mix fact with fantasy
- Steam version has more mixed reviews (78% of 128)
- Information points are short, not lesson length
- Free swimming can cause motion sickness
