Marvel Powers United VR

Marvel Powers United VR
Information
VR/AR	Virtual Reality
Developer	Sanzaru Games
Publisher	Oculus Studios
Platform	Oculus Rift
Device	Oculus Rift
Type	Game
Genre	Action, Shooter
Input Device	Oculus Touch
Game Mode	Single-player, Multiplayer, Co-op
Release Date	July 26, 2018
Price	US$39.99 at launch (no longer sold)
App Store	Oculus Store

See also: VR Apps and VR Games

Marvel Powers United VR (styled MARVEL Powers United VR by its publisher) is a cooperative first-person action game for virtual reality in which players take the roles of Marvel Comics superheroes. It was made by Marvel Games, Sanzaru Games and Oculus Studios and released on 26 July 2018 as an exclusive for the Oculus Rift with Oculus Touch controllers, at US$39.99. Up to four players, each controlling one of 18 heroes, defend objectives against waves of enemies and fight Marvel villains.

Reviews were mixed. Critics liked the playable characters and production values but found the missions repetitive. Facebook removed the game from sale in late 2020 and made it unplayable, including its single-player content, after 1 March 2021.

Reviewed 15 October 2026. Announcement, pre-order, release, bundle, update and shutdown dates, price, roster, gameplay descriptions, review scores and quotes, fan revival and studio closure, checked against every cited source. About review dates.

Gameplay

Apart from a prologue tutorial, in which the player chooses between Captain America and Black Widow, the game has no story missions; Shacknews described the rest as wave-defense matches. After the prologue, all heroes and arenas are available from the start. The character Lockjaw acts as the guide in the hub area. Matches take place in small arenas themed on locations from the comics, such as the X-Mansion; Oculus said the game had 10 locations at launch.

In its review, Road to VR described the core mode as a wave shooter in two phases: players first defend nodes from enemies, then defend a node while delivering eight power cells to it. Several villains appear as mini-bosses during a round. Collecting 25 Cosmic Cube pieces unlocks a fight against Thanos in a separate arena; UploadVR noted that losing that battle resets the progress toward it. Teams earn extra points by combining abilities, for example by stunning enemies to set up combos.

Each hero has its own weapons and powers. Destructoid's review described viewing the battle from the Hulk's height, Spider-Man's webs, characters who can hover over the battlefield, and Deadpool drawing guns and katanas from different parts of the player's body. Costumes, poses and props are unlocked through loot boxes, which contain only cosmetic items.

The game is built mainly around online matchmaking. A solo mode fills the team with computer-controlled heroes, but players cannot choose their AI teammates, and UploadVR noted that players had to enter matchmaking before they could select single-player.

Heroes and villains

The launch roster had 18 playable heroes and nine villains. Iron Man was not among the heroes; he later appeared in a separate game, Marvel's Iron Man VR.

Playable heroes	Villains
Black Bolt, Black Panther, Black Widow, Captain America, Captain Marvel, Crystal, Deadpool, Doctor Strange, Gamora, Hawkeye, Iceman, Rocket Raccoon, Spider-Man, Star-Lord, Storm, The Hulk, Thor, Wolverine	Dormammu, Loki, Madame Hydra, Magneto, Ronan the Accuser, Scientist Supreme, Thanos, Ultron, Venom

Locomotion and comfort

Movement uses free locomotion relative to the head, with snap turning, dashing and an optional vignette. Road to VR's reviewer reported being comfortable through multi-hour sessions. Destructoid noted that teleport movement is available as an option and that smooth turning can be switched on, while the screen briefly goes black when the player drops down a level.

Development

Oculus announced the game at Disney's D23 Expo on 15 July 2017 as "an action-packed, multiplayer co-op title from Marvel, Sanzaru, and Oculus Studios" for the Rift, due in 2018. It revealed the Hulk, Rocket Raccoon and Captain Marvel as the first three heroes and promised "full locomotion, smart comfort options, and more than a dozen playable characters". A first public demo was shown at the Marvel booth at San Diego Comic-Con from 19 to 23 July 2017, and on 19 July Oculus announced Deadpool as the fourth hero.

On 28 June 2018 Oculus revealed Black Panther as a playable hero, announced the 26 July release date and opened pre-orders at US$39.99. The full list of heroes and villains was shown in the launch trailer on 19 July 2018. Shortly before launch, Oculus confirmed that free downloadable content was in development. In a pre-launch interview, Oculus Studios executive producer Mike Doran told Road to VR: "There will be DLC for the game, it will be free, we're going to be generous with the community".

Release

Date	Event
15 July 2017	Announced at D23 Expo
28 June 2018	Pre-orders open on the Oculus Store at US$39.99
26 July 2018	Released for Oculus Rift
31 July 2018	Special Edition Rift + Touch bundle on sale at US$399
Late February 2019	Fourth and final content update
By 30 November 2020	Removed from sale on the Oculus Store
1 March 2021	Last day the game could be played

The Special Edition Rift + Touch bundle included the headset, Touch controllers and a download code for the game. It was priced at US$399 and went on sale on 31 July 2018 in select countries, while supplies lasted. Oculus listed participating retailers in Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, North America and the United Kingdom.

Updates and end of support

The game received four updates in the seven months after launch. The fourth, released in late February 2019, added a new objective and a new enemy along with what Road to VR called a "significant tuning pass" to hero abilities. An Oculus spokesperson then confirmed that no further updates were planned, and Sanzaru moved on to its next Oculus Studios project, Asgard's Wrath.

UploadVR reported on 30 November 2020 that the game had been removed from sale on the Rift store. It cited an email, shared by a Reddit user and attributed to Sanzaru Games, saying the game would be unplayable after 1 March 2021; it also noted that a Quest version Facebook had teased in 2019 never appeared. On 2 December 2020 Road to VR reported that Facebook was shutting down the game together with Ripcoil. Both would become entirely inaccessible after 1 March 2021, including single-player content, and Oculus advised owners to uninstall them "to avoid dead space taken up on your device". Refunds were not automatic; an update to the report said they were available only to customers who had bought the game within six months of their refund request. VR Sports Challenge was also removed from the store but stayed playable for existing owners. According to UploadVR, the email gave no reason for the shutdown.

Fan revival

In August 2024 a fan group working through a Discord server made the game's single-player mode playable again, saying the project was meant for people who owned the game, and said it hoped to find a way to emulate the multiplayer servers. In September 2024 the organizers announced that the "Powers Revival Project" would close. Road to VR reported that the trouble began when the group shared torrent links to the full game, and the organizers said Meta had asked them to take down the project and any infringing files. According to Road to VR, the project had come fairly close to releasing multiplayer servers, which were never released. Sanzaru Games itself was closed by Meta in January 2026.

Reception

On Metacritic the game holds a Metascore of 68 from seven critic reviews, a "mixed or average" rating. OpenCritic lists a top critic average of 72 from four reviews.

Publication	Score
Destructoid	8/10
Shacknews	7/10
IGN	6.7/10
UploadVR	6.5/10
Road to VR	5/10

Ben Lang of Road to VR called it an "unabashed wave shooter" whose "high production value can't keep secret the game's true identity", and scored it 5 overall, with 5 for gameplay, 4 for immersion and 8 for comfort. UploadVR's Jamie Feltham called it "a hard game to score": its best heroes felt like "an 8/10" while many others brought it "closer to 5/10", and he concluded that "it's a little more of a muted take on the superhero VR genre than we were hoping." Shacknews praised the fun of playing the heroes, the full locomotion and the prologue, but wrote that "that excitement will wear off quickly" because of the lack of variety. Chris Carter of Destructoid was more positive, describing a "giant horde mode" that was "fun" but "limited in scope"; he named the moment-to-moment combat as its strongest point and the reliance on matchmaking and weak AI teammates as a major weakness.

When the shutdown was announced, Road to VR noted that the game had received "middling scores across Metacritic and the Oculus Store itself".

See also

• Sanzaru Games
• Oculus Studios
• Marvel's Iron Man VR
• Marvel's Deadpool VR