Best Educational VR Games
5 min read
The amazing capabilities of VR aren’t just for video games. Creators are using it to provide educational experiences that people may not find otherwise. You will get to learn to use tools that were once only available to highly-trained professionals and educators.
You will learn how the human body works, see the amazing things humans have created throughout history, explore our planet, and travel through the vast world of outer space, all in fully made-for VR environments. The games on this list provide such an immersive experience that you will forget their entire purpose is to educate.
10 InMind 2 VR
The Disney movie Inside Out and Lovheim’s theory of emotions both inspired luden.io during the development process of InMInd 2 VR. You will learn how brain chemistry influences emotions by going inside the brain of a teenage boy named John. Experience what he does and trigger the proper emotions during certain scenarios.
John will grow into an adult as the game progresses, providing increasingly difficult emotions for you to manage. Based on the emotions you trigger, he’ll react differently to the world around him — these emotional responses build his interests and relationships.
9 Mission: ISS: Quest
Mission: ISS: Quest is an Emmy-nominated simulation game where you board the International Space Station to experience what it is like to be an astronaut. Real-life NASA astronauts will take you on a guided tour through the ISS by using informative videos and images. The game also features interactive experiences like learning how to operate a robot arm and spacewalking outside the ISS space station to a nearby satellite.
Users have reported this game can cause motion sickness, so keep this in mind if you are prone to it when using VR.
8 National Geographic Explore VR
In National Geographic Explore VR, you take on the role of a reporter hired to capture images for the National Geographic magazine. Embrace your inner explorer by traveling to two vastly different locations in this fully interactive experience.
In Antarctica, you will search for a lost empire penguin colony while braving a snowstorm, kayaking around icebergs, and climbing an ice shelf. In Machu Picchu, you will find digital reconstructions of an Inca citadel while experiencing many of the sacred rituals performed by its lost inhabitants.
7 Great Paintings VR
As famous American painter Edward Hopper once said: “If you could say it in words, there would be no reason to paint.” Throughout history, people have expressed themselves by putting paint on canvas. Great Paintings VR brings you all these amazing works of art in one easy-to-visit exhibit.
There are over one thousand works of art from painters like Hieronymus Bosch and Leonardo da Vinci. The game gives the option to explore galleries or access a particular artist’s work individually, depending on the type of experience you are looking for. The game also has a beautiful and relaxing soundtrack to get you in the mood.
6 The Body VR: Journey Inside A Cell
The Body VR is a non-interactive, professionally narrated experience that takes you inside the body of a human. You will travel from the heart through the bloodstream to various locations in the body while learning how the cells in our body function. You will then travel inside a cell to learn about different parts of its structure. Finally, you will see how cells in our body fight off the most common diseases that make us sick.
The Body VR’s interface and audio are available in six different languages.
5 Ocean Rift
Ocean Rift is an aquatic safari park with 12 different habitats for you to explore. These habitats include places like swamps, shipwrecks, coral reefs, and the lost city of Atlantis. A few of the wildlife you will see are sharks, rays, dolphins, sea lions, whales, and dinosaurs.
By activating education mode, you will learn about the wildlife inhabitants by using forty fully narrated points spread across the habitats. The game features a state-of-the-art procedural animation system that provides lifelike behavior from every animal in the game.
4 VR Battleship Yamato
The Japanese built the biggest ever battleship in 1941 during World War 2. However, American carrier planes sank The Yamato in 1945, causing it to be lost to future generations. In VR Battleship Yamato, you will experience this monstrous battleship in a full VR environment by becoming a virtual crew member. Help your fellow crew members command the ship as they did in World War 2. T
The Yamato is fully explorable from the deck down to the ship’s kitchen, all created in amazingly accurate detail. Another neat experience is seeing and hearing the Yamato’s massive cannons fire.
3 Anne Frank House VR
During the Second World War, Anne Frank and her family, along with four others, lived in a Secret Annex to escape Nazi persecution. Anne Frank House VR lets you experience what it was like for them to live here from 1942 to 1944. You will get to explore the different rooms of the Secret Annex while learning from thoughts directly from Anne.
Not only will you discover about Anne Frank’s life while living in the Secret Annex, but you will also learn about the seven other inhabitants — their backgrounds, Anne’s interactions with them, and what happened to them after being discovered.
2 We Are Stars
NSC Creative is a studio at the National Space Centre, UK. They created We Are Stars with additional input from scientists, astrophysicists, and planetary scientists. Have you ever wondered what the planetariums in the future will be? We Are Stars provides you with the answer.
Narrated by Andy Serkis, this 25 minutes experience will leave you breathless. Acclaimed New Zealand composer Rhian Sheehan was hired to create the game’s score. In a 360-degree 4K experience, you will learn the origins of our solar system and how our planet was made.
1 SpaceEngine
SpaceEngine is a 1:1 scale universe simulator where you can explore everything in our solar system and beyond. The game has a spacecraft that follows Newtonian physics allowing you to travel anywhere in the universe. Each planet has 3D procedural generated terrain, which means nothing is off-limits in this game. If you can see it, you can explore it in breathtaking detail.
A fun feature of the game is the ability to speed up time to experience the behavior of the cosmos millions of years in the future. Plus, SpaceEngine has an extremely active modding community that has recreated spacecraft from popular Sci-Fi franchises.
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