Zenith: The Last City

Zenith: The Last City
Information
VR/AR	Virtual Reality
Developer	Ramen VR
Publisher	Ramen VR
Platform	SteamVR, Meta Quest, Oculus Rift, PlayStation VR, PlayStation VR2
Device	Meta Quest 2, Meta Quest 3, PlayStation VR2
Type	Game
Genre	Action, RPG, Massively Multiplayer
Input Device	Tracked motion controllers
Game Mode	Multiplayer, Co-op
Release Date	27 January 2022 (early access)
Price	Free-to-play; The Last City DLC US$9.99 (US$29.99 at launch)
App Store	Steam, Meta Horizon Store, PlayStation Store
Website	https://zenithmmo.com/

See also: VR Apps and VR Games

Zenith: The Last City is a virtual reality massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed and published by Ramen VR. It launched in early access on 27 January 2022 for Meta Quest, Oculus Rift, Steam (PC VR) and PlayStation VR, with cross-play between platforms and a launch price of US$29.99. A PlayStation VR2 version followed as a launch title for that headset on 22 February 2023.

In its review, UploadVR called it "VR's best stab at the genre yet". After early commercial success, player numbers fell, and in February 2024 Ramen VR relaunched the game as Zenith: Nexus, adding a free-to-play mode called Zenith: Infinite Realms and turning The Last City into paid DLC. The studio stopped new development in July 2024 and released a final content update in August 2024, while keeping the servers online.

Reviewed 4 October 2026. Release dates, platforms, prices, patch contents, Zenith: Nexus relaunch, funding, sales and retention statements, end of development, shard changes, review quotes and scores checked against each cited source. About review dates.

Gameplay

Zenith is set in an open fantasy world with an anime-inspired art style. At launch, Meta's store announcement described 15 large subzones across five biomes, more than 100 quests and side quests, and boss battles that about 40 players could fight at once. Players could choose between two classes, the melee Blade Master and the ranged Essence Mage, each with three sub-classes for damage, tanking and support roles. A third class, the Cyber Ninja, arrived in patch 1.3 in May 2023.

Combat uses motion-controlled weapons, with abilities triggered by gestures such as directional arm swings. Enemies can block and have weak points and stagger states. Traversal is a large part of the design: players can climb most surfaces and glide by holding their arms out, both limited by a stamina meter; wind gusts refresh stamina and encourage players to gain altitude. Movement is by thumbstick (smooth locomotion), with no teleport option, and the game includes adjustable comfort vignettes. Players can also cook meals by hand at cooking stations to improve their stats. UploadVR noted that the cooking minigame, which involves steps such as flipping dough and timing temperatures, worked well in VR.

Infinite Realms

Zenith: Infinite Realms, added in February 2024, is a free-to-play, season-based procedural action-adventure RPG played in co-op sessions. Players gather in a redesigned hub called City Plaza and enter procedurally generated worlds through gates whose layouts rotate daily or weekly, using parkour traversal to jump, rail grind, slide and climb. The mode introduced a premium currency called Zennies and a cosmetic shop with seasonal content.

Development

Ramen VR was founded in 2019 by Andy Tsen and Lauren Frazier. Its investors include Y Combinator, Makers Fund, Anthos and Dune Ventures. The studio ran a Kickstarter campaign for Zenith in 2019 that raised about US$280,000, and it closed a US$10 million Series A round led by Makers Fund in September 2021. At the game's launch, Tsen said: "Zenith is an immersive online world that only VR can provide."

In March 2022 Ramen VR announced a US$35 million Series B round led by Anthos and Dune Ventures. According to Road to VR, Tsen said the studio would double its staff and turn Zenith into a "gaming super-app" with multiple worlds and gameplay experiences across VR, desktop and mobile. Road to VR reported that this brought the company's outside investment to more than US$45 million. In April 2024 MMOs.com noted that Ramen VR had not delivered the promised non-VR version.

Post-launch updates

Update	Date	Main additions
1.1: The Celestial Throne	16 June 2022	New zones The Approach and the Celestial Throne, 4-player dungeons, 8-player raids, matchmaking, daily and weekly quests, left-handed controls, item level and infusion systems
PS VR2 launch	22 February 2023	PlayStation VR2 version released on the headset's launch day
1.3: Skyward Summit	11 May 2023	Cyber Ninja class (damage specialization only at launch), player-versus-player duels, player housing, the floating island Skyland, gathering and crafting life skills, a grappling hook
Zenith: Nexus relaunch	26-27 February 2024	Free-to-play Infinite Realms mode; The Last City becomes DLC
Season 4: Golden Isles	27 August 2024	Final content update: new Infinite Realms layouts and enemies, basic player-to-player item trading, lower minimum group sizes for some group content, doubled daily raid limits, return of the original Fast Fly, prestige ranks for level 100 characters

In April 2023 Ramen VR announced that the game would stop running on the original Oculus Quest on 23 September 2023, and that the PS4 PlayStation VR version would receive no updates after patch 1.2.2 and would move to a dedicated shard without cross-play.

Release

Platform	Release date	Notes
SteamVR (Windows)	27 January 2022	Early access; VR only
Meta Quest and Oculus Rift	27 January 2022	Cross-buy between Quest and Rift
PlayStation VR (PS4)	27 January 2022	No updates after patch 1.2.2; separate shard without cross-play
PlayStation VR2 (PS5)	22 February 2023	Launch title for the headset
Zenith: Nexus on Quest	26 February 2024	Relaunch with free-to-play Infinite Realms
Zenith: Nexus on Steam	27 February 2024	Relaunch with free-to-play Infinite Realms
Zenith: Nexus on PlayStation VR2	By 21 April 2024	Infinite Realms free-to-play; The Last City sold as DLC

Announcing the PlayStation VR2 version, Ramen VR chief of staff Kristani Alcantara said the team had "added hundreds of hours of new content, made massive graphics updates, and leveraged the PS VR2 features" for it; PlayStation Universe reported that it supports the PS VR2 controllers' adaptive triggers. The game's Steam page still lists it as early access.

Commercial performance

According to Ramen VR, Zenith became the top-selling game on Steam, Oculus Rift and Oculus Quest during its launch in late January 2022. In March 2022 the studio reported a Discord community of 125,000 users and said players on Quest and Rift spent almost two hours a day in the game. Tsen said at the time: "We're already profitable". MIXED, citing reporting by The Information, wrote that the game had recouped its development costs in its first week of sales and had several hundred thousand players. In March 2024 MMORPG.com noted that the game had peaked on Steam nearly two years earlier with just under 5,000 players.

Player retention did not last. In January 2024 Ramen VR said it had been running the game "at a loss on a month-to-month basis for the better part of a year". In an FAQ published when development ended, the studio wrote: "Zenith has struggled with retaining players since very early on. Even though we've had hundreds of thousands of players, the vast majority of them stopped playing Zenith after about a month".

Reception

Outlet	Platform	Score or verdict	Date
UploadVR	Quest 2, PSVR, PC VR	Great	9 February 2022
MMORPG.com	Quest 2, PC VR	6.0/10	11 March 2022
PlayStation Universe	PS VR2	8.5/10	28 February 2023
Push Square	PS VR2	5/10	28 February 2023

Jamie Feltham of UploadVR called Zenith "VR's best stab at the genre yet" and praised its cross-platform social play, in which players could guide each other with body language, as well as its cooking and vertical traversal. He criticized presentation problems ranging from "text spilling out of menu formatting to environmental textures clipping into each other", repetitive quests, and the missing classes and crafting systems of the early access build. In Road to VR's review-in-progress, Ben Lang wrote that "all the gears are in place and seem to be turning just fine" for a working VR MMO, and he liked the climbing and flying. He found the combat "lacking compared to melee-focused games you may have played in VR elsewhere", the gesture abilities "less intuitive and not terribly fun", and the user interface too dependent on flat-screen conventions.

MMORPG.com's Kevin Chick called the game "an excellent VR experience that shows what the future of a fully realized VR MMORPG could look like", but pointed to limited endgame content, grinding and bugs. Reviewing the PS VR2 version, PlayStation Universe's Mark Kriska wrote that "the scale of the world, response of controls, and the overall systems put in place for the MMO experience never ceased to amaze me", while noting bare areas of the world and difficulty finding dungeon groups. As of October 2026, Metacritic shows no Metascore for the game because it has fewer than four critic reviews on record.

The Zenith: Nexus relaunch drew a negative response from existing players. MMORPG.com reported that the game's Steam user review rating went from "overwhelmingly positive" to "overwhelmingly negative", with long-time players and Kickstarter backers fearing that The Last City was being abandoned in favor of Infinite Realms. Tsen said the studio "had to make a choice between making fundamental changes or putting the game on ice."

End of development

On 12 July 2024 Ramen VR's co-founders announced that the studio would stop new development on Zenith to focus on other projects. The developers cited a "steep player drop-off in the weeks after a new release" and said they would "keep Zenith: The Last City and Zenith: Infinite Realms shards running for the foreseeable future", with advance notice if that changed. Instead of refunds for in-game currency, they promised "valuable gifts" in a future title.

Season 4: Golden Isles, released on 27 August 2024, was the final content update. With it, the price of The Last City DLC fell from US$29.99 to US$9.99. In its FAQ, quoted by MIXED, the studio referred to "the 5.5 years of development" during which it had been unable to improve player retention.

The servers remain online. In July 2024 Ramen VR announced that three little-used shards would be retired with the Season 4 update, and on 17 April 2025 it consolidated the remaining servers at the community's request, leaving Aether (US East), Acolyte and the PlayStation-only Soulless (US West), Titan (Europe) and Tidekeeper (Oceania/Asia). Accounts and characters are not tied to a shard or region. As of October 2026 the official website lists the game for Meta Quest 2, Meta Quest 3, Rift, PlayStation VR2 and SteamVR as a free-to-play title with two modes, and Zenith: Nexus remains available on the Meta Horizon Store and Steam.

See also

• VRMMO