Locomotion Methods

Method	Type	Required Devices	Description	Pros	Cons	Creator	Examples
ArmSwinger	Standing Room-scale VR	Motion-tracked controllers	Players move by swinging their arms as if they are running but do not move their legs.	More immersive than teleportation, works in most types of games and experiences	Cannot use weapons or perform actions with hands while moving.	Electric Night Owl, LLC
Astral body	Standing Seated Room-scale VR	Gamepad or VR controller with thumbstick	First person when you need to interact with the environment, Third person when you need to run around in the environment	Easy to navigate and interact, clean	Immersion breaking for some	???	Alice Mystery Garden
Blink	Standing Room-scale VR	Motion-tracked controllers	Builds upon Teleportation to create 3 more types of movement techniques called Cinematic Blink, Precision Blink and Volume Blink	Reduce simulator sickness, allows for the scaling of play space sizes	Negative impact on immersion, as acknowledged by its developer	Cloudhead Games	The Gallery - Episode 1: Call of the Starseed, The Gallery - Episode 2: Heart of the Emberstone
Bobbing-Walking	Standing Room-scale VR	HMD	Bob or shake the HMD to move, you'll need to run or bounce in place to activate the mechanism,	Hands-free; needs no hardware beyond the headset	The user bounces in place without seeing the real room, so the creator warns of a risk of falling and recommends a cleared, taped-off play space	cubic9	FROG JUMPER, BobbingBots, Mikujalus
Charge Float Jump	Standing Seated Room-scale VR	Controllers	The longer you hold the jump button, the higher you will rise in the VR space.	Player controls jump height with a single button; Crytek's designers described it as instinctive	Crytek found it can feel different without a visual aid such as a cockpit or constraint screen	Crytek
Climbing	Standing Seated Room-scale VR	Motion-tracked controllers	Players climb up walls, mounts and other objects by swinging their hands and pulling triggers to grab.	Movement is driven by the user's own arm motion; rated low for nausea in the Locomotion Vault database; high physical engagement	Mostly limited to climbable surfaces; slow; tiring for the arms; low motor accessibility; shaking a gripping hand also moves the viewpoint		Climbey, The Climb, The Climb 2, Horizon Call of the Mountain
Cloudstep	Standing Seated	Gamepad	Using the analog stick from a gamepad, players will move in that direction in discrete steps, similar to miniature teleportations. This method is designed to remove vection, which is suspected to cause simulator sickness during first person locomotion.	Reduces simulator sickness and improve player comfort	???	IrisVR, VR Bits	Technolust
Cockpit / Vehicle	Standing Seated Room-scale VR	None	A cockpit, vehicle interior or frame that stays fixed around the player gives a stable visual reference during virtual travel, which can reduce VR sickness; most players feel they are within a stable environment	reduces VR sickness; hides much of the moving scenery in the periphery while keeping the player inside the game world	only applicable in certain situations such as Driving, Spacecraft and Mech games; strong acceleration can still cause discomfort; enclosed cockpits restrict the peripheral view	N/A	Elite Dangerous, Gunjack, EVE: Valkyrie, Star Wars: Squadrons
Environmental Redirection	Room-scale VR	None	Design the game in a way to allow the player to move in circles in the play area. Players will never hit physical walls of the play area.	No artificial locomotion or teleport, no VR sickness	Requires meticulous game design, large play area requirement	Triangular Pixels	Unseen Diplomacy
Flight	Standing Seated Room-scale VR	None	Fly through the air with gaze as directional input, or with the direction set by hand pointing or body leaning.	Allows travel in three dimensions and beyond the physically tracked area; gaze-directed flying is easy for novice users to understand	Continuous visual motion without matching physical motion can cause VR sickness; lower sense of presence than walking; gaze-directed flying prevents looking around while moving	N/A	Eagle Flight, Marvel's Iron Man VR, Google Earth VR
Focal Point VR	Standing Seated Room-scale VR	Motion-tracked controllers (HTC Vive)	To move small distances, Grip and drag the environment. To move large distances, place 2 focal points on the ground with the controllers then rotate, scale, and translate the world.	No VR sickness (creator's claim); crosses large distances quickly by shrinking the world and scaling it back up	Pointing accuracy drops when aiming toward the horizon; rotations that tilt the horizon cause sickness; package is deprecated on the Unity Asset Store	Albert Hwang
Freedom Locomotion System	Standing Room-scale VR	Motion-tracked controllers	Collection of various standing and room-scale locomotion solutions with CAOTS as its foundation.	Hands stay free for interaction while moving; travel direction is independent of head direction; physical walking in place is intended to reduce motion sickness compared with sliding locomotion; teleport-style fallbacks for sensitive users	Walking in place is physically tiring; users drift forward in the real play area over time; setting direction with the thumb adds an artificial step that new users forget; a learning period of several minutes	HUGE ROBOT	Freedom Locomotion VR (demo)
HMD Position Acceleration	Standing Seated Room-scale VR	None	Initiating movement by looking in the direction you want to go. You tilt your head forward, you move forward. Tilt your head backwards, and you go backwards.	Movement is started and steered by tilting the head; Crytek described it as fun and intuitive, especially with a visual aid	Crytek reported that it "can be a bit nauseating"	Crytek
Hallway	Room-scale VR	None	Player walks down a long hallway that rotates slightly with each step, forcing the player to turn to the right and leading them to walk in circles around the play area.	Uses physical walking; designed to keep the player from reaching the edge of the play space	May cause simulator sickness	/u/qwv4851
Handwalking	Standing Seated	Tracked motion controllers (HTC Vive or Oculus Rift)	…a Virtual Reality experience which takes places in planetary dream worlds. You explore artistically designed planets with a completely new concept, defining and navigating your avatar in a distinctive way, using hand motion controllers.	Reduced till no VR sickness. Easy to handle. Intuitive. Feels rewarding. Gliding possible.	Can only be applied to special movement concepts.	Nico Uthe	Lucid Trips
Holosphere	Standing Seated Room-scale VR	An input device; the 2015 demo used an Xbox 360 controller or a headset-mounted Leap Motion controller	whenever you move or rotate, a geodesic sphere appears around your entire view point and blurs everything else in the environment. The geodesic sphere disappears when you stop moving or rotating.	Designed to reduce nausea by giving the user a fixed visual frame of reference during artificial movement	Geodesic sphere appears when moving / rotating; the surrounding environment is blurred during movement	Tomáš "Frooxius" Mariančík	Neos: The Origin
Immersive Movement	Standing Room-scale VR Walking-in-place	Motion-tracked controllers (the original Unity package required SteamVR and the HTC Vive)	Hold a button on one of the controllers then run in place to move in VR.	Can use one of the hands to interact with environment while moving	Physically tiring over long sessions; less accessible than controller-based movement and limits what the hands can do while moving	Highsight
Lean-To-Move	Standing Room-scale VR	Motion-tracked controllers	Press a trigger on controller to record your origin, lean beyond the boundary threshold to move in game, return to origin to stop	Mitigates VR sickness, frees up the hands while moving, move for longer without being fatigued	Can drift from center of play area, difficult to turn	https://github.com/Erupac/LeanToMove
Ninja Run VR	Standing Seated Room-scale VR	Motion-tracked controllers in both hands	Stretch both arms in the opposite direction of your desired movement while leaning in the same direction of desired movement	Continuous movement without teleporting; the developer states that it reduces simulator sickness	Takes time to travel, can be tiring over long distances	Sean Hall	Shaolinja
Omnidirectional elevator	Room-scale VR	None	An elevator that can go in All directions	Fun, simple, not exhausting	Picky people will claim it makes them feel sick, Players are locked to their elevator.	???	???
PocketStrafe	Standing Room-scale VR Walking-in-place	Smartphone	Run PocketStrafe app on the smartphone, place the smartphone in your pocket, run in place to move.	Unlike other running-in-place locomotion methods, PocketStrafe frees up the hands and the controllers.	requires smartphone	Cool Font	Windlands, AltspaceVR, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter VR
Pull	Standing Seated Room-scale VR	Tracked controllers or hand tracking	Pulling the environment around you with your hands.	Fine-grained, precise positioning; travel speed and distance follow the user's own hand movement; rated low for nausea in the Locomotion Vault database	Physically tiring; slow for covering large virtual environments; rated high workload in a study of users with upper-body motor impairments		Google Earth VR, Lone Echo, Echo Arena
RIPmotion	Standing Room-scale VR Walking-in-place	Motion-tracked controllers	Put hands at your hips, press a button on each controller and run in place to move	Proprioceptive and vestibular engagement, VR sickness reduction, Immersive, Decouples head and body movement, fitness	Cannot interact with object with hands while moving,	Ryan Sullivan
Real world space	Room-scale VR	None	Users move in real world spaces.	Very realistic and immersive	Cannot function with large movements, Spaces are often limiting, spaces have to be designed for physical movement	???	Tea For God
Room-scale vehicle	Room-scale VR	Motion-tracked controllers	Entire play space becomes the inside of the vehicle, operate the controls in the vehicle to move the vehicle	Physical walking inside the vehicle combined with fast travel across large virtual environments; the vehicle's surroundings give the user a visual frame of reference	The vehicle's own movement is still artificial and can cause discomfort; the walkable interior is limited by the size of the physical play area	Hover Junkers	Hover Junkers, IronWolf VR
Shoot'n'Pull	Standing Room-scale VR	HTC Vive Motion Controller	Tower Tag offers an intuitive method of movement which gives the game a very dynamic gaming experience without the risk to cause motion sickness. Despite the relatively small space requirements.	No VR sickness. Easy to handle. Intuitive. Feels rewarding.	Fits only to one movement concept.	VR-Nerds GmbH	Tower Tag
Skier	Room-scale VR	Motion-tracked controllers	Moving the controllers backwards and below your waist causes the skier to propel himself forward.	???	???	/u/qwv4851
Snap N'Motion	Room-scale VR	None	When the player is about to hit a wall in real life, the character in VR instantly turns 180 degrees (face backwards). It forces the player to turn around in real life in order to move forward again.	Room-scale VR experience with limited physical space.	Constantly changing directions can be disorientating and unnatural.	RetroPlayGamerTV	???
Swimming	Standing Seated Room-scale VR	Motion-tracked controllers	Hold the triggers on the controllers then stroke or paddle to move.	Arm strokes give the user a physical action that matches the movement; in a seated study it reduced VR sickness about as much as teleportation while being rated more enjoyable than teleportation	Mostly used for water and underwater environments; tires the arms and shoulders; slower than joystick or teleport movement in some studies and rated harder to use		Ocean Rift, Freediver: Triton Down
Teleportation	Standing Seated Room-scale VR	None	Aim or point at a destination and press a button to relocate there instantly, usually with a short visual transition.	Intuitive and simple to learn; reduces vection and so reduces VR sickness for many users; needs no extra hardware	Can break immersion and presence; can impair spatial awareness, orientation, and distance estimation	N/A	The Lab, Budget Cuts, Vanishing Realms
Third-person	Standing Seated Room-scale VR	Gamepad	player's POV trails comfortably behind their character, works for third-person games with gamepads	very easy to implement, no need for motion-tracked controllers	Less immersive, can cause VR sickness		Lucky's Tale, Chronos, Moss, Astro Bot Rescue Mission
Tunneling	Standing Seated	Gamepad	The face-locked viewport ("tunnel") displays continuous motion and allows the user to steer the player like an FPS-style game. The peripheral view remains at the point of origin, so there is no controller-induced vection in the periphery.	Reduces VR sickness when moving with controller / gamepad	???	???	???
WalkAbout	Room-scale VR	Motion-tracked controllers	After reaching edge of playable space', virtual world is blurred and grid appears. Virtual world shifts to encompass open play area, forcing player to turn and face it. At this point the virtual world comes back into focus and grid disappears.	???	???	Tekton Games	The Dark Within
World Rotation	Standing Seated Room-scale VR	Motion-tracked Controllers	You pull a trigger, then move the controller left or right to rotate the world.	Controlled directly by a hand movement; Crytek reported that it can feel very natural and let players scan a scene while holding a weapon		Crytek	Crytek locomotion prototypes (2017); two-handed scene grabbing in Open Brush
World Rotator	Room-scale VR	None	Moving to the edge of the play area causes time to freeze and locks the world to the player's rotation. A HUD appears and shows the amount of open space in front of the player.	Works without controllers, using only headset tracking	Rated high for energy required and low for accessibility in the Locomotion Vault database	/u/qwv4851	Movement (2016 Unity demo)