As I put down my headset for the evening and went to make a cup of tea, I instinctually held my arm out as if I were going to drift into the kitchen with my hand-mounted skates. Of course, I don’t have hand-mounted skates in real life, but in Orion Drift, they’re a key part of how you move around in the world.
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In his weekly column, Android Central Senior Content Producer Nick Sutrich delves into all things VR, from new hardware to new games, upcoming technologies, and so much more.
Orion Drift, the latest game from the creators of Gorilla Tag, went into open Early Access on February 25 and it gave me the chance to finally spend time in a public lobby. Previously, I had only played with a few other players after interviewing the game’s creator at Meta Connect 2024. Playing in a public lobby is an entirely different ballgame.
Like Gorilla Tag, Orion Drift is free-to-play, and movement is driven primarily by your arms. But that’s really where the similarities end, as your hand-mounted “skate ball,” as I’ll call it, lets you drift around like a robot that’s watched too many Fast & Furious movies. Things only get wilder when you activate the thrusters on each hand, turning this game into a unique combination of Rocket League, Echo VR, and, of course, Gorilla Tag.
While Gorilla Tag’s movement is interesting and does a great job of reducing motion sickness some players experience with virtual movement in VR, I never found myself returning to that game. Things are very different with Orion Drift, as I’ve found myself jumping back in again and again to try new things, see new places, and meet new people. Getting better at Driftball is a nice side effect, too.
Sports for people who are bored with Earth
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Like Echo VR before it, Orion Drift’s core gameplay revolves around social sports that can’t exist in real life. Sure, they’re loosely based on actual sports — currently, you can play golf, basketball, parkour/rock climbing, and driftball — but only the most basic core mechanics from those games remain intact.
You can’t hold a ball in Orion Drift; you can only hit it. This makes it a bit like Rocket League mixed with basketball or volleyball, to draw some kind of comparison. Likewise, parkour is similar to real-life parkour but enhanced thanks to the low gravity of the space station and the rocket boosters on your wrists.
Parkour isn’t just a free-for-all showoff section, though. Players can enter Scrap Runs at scheduled times, a game broken into two teams where one team tries to get to the end of the course while the other team attempts to sabotage them in the process. It’s chaotic and a ton of fun.
The community welcomed me right away, showing me the ropes, where to go, and how to have fun.
Golf is where things really start to drift away from their real-world counterparts. These courses look like traditional golf courses — green fields, water and sand traps, trees — but the mechanics are more like frisbee golf meets Rocket League. Yes, again, with the Rocket League comparisons, but it’s hard not to make them.
You won’t be using a club; it’s just your hands and an innate sense of accuracy. You’re hitting a ball at full force with as much momentum as you can build up, trying to get it in the basket at the end of the course.
But these three sports are all still in development. The real bread-and-butter of Orion Drift is Driftball, a game whose closest real-world counterpart is probably Soccer. Arenas are multi-tiered like those found in Echo VR, but this isn’t a zero-gravity experience, even if a lot of mechanics feel similar.
Sure it’s free-to-play, but that doesn’t mean it has to be ruined by “sweats” or kids. Different servers have different rules, which may mean adults-only, parkour-only, etc.
You can grab the ground and throw yourself to gain some initial momentum, and the hand-mounted thrusters can temporarily propel you higher or farther for a short boost. Boost power can be refilled by collecting one of the containers that spawn on the field, so you’ll need to use the power wisely.
Like Echo VR, you can grab other players and hold on like a jockey, encouraging teamwork and unique skill-building you won’t find anywhere else. This can also be done while touring the station, not just during a game, which makes it a handy tool for newcomers and friends traveling to the same place.
Like any sport, Driftball is something you’ll need to practice a lot to get good at. The game has plenty of practice courts, including automated ones, half courts to practice shots with other players, and even separate servers to keep casual players from getting intimidated by “sweats.”
The “I’m really here” feeling
One look at the reviews for the game on the Meta Horizon store tells you everything you need to know. This isn’t just a “game.” It’s a place you visit and keep coming back to because you love it.
Central to the Orion Drift experience is a sense of community that most games lack. I’d call it a “metaverse” in that you’re together with 75 people at any given time — a number that’s set to increase to 200 players once the game hits version 1.0. However, the difference here is that your character doesn’t leave the game. It’s a fully enclosed system with its own set of specific, customizable character models.
While the game starts with you alone in a spaceship, you’ll quickly choose from a list of available servers or just hit the “quick join” button if you don’t care about the server category. All interactions in the game are with your hands, not a laser pointer or some other UI paradigm that makes you feel like you’re playing a game. Like Gorilla Tag, this is designed to feel like a world you live in and interact with.
My first time at the station was filled with friendly interactions that I’m simply not used to in public games. As I meandered around and figured out the locomotion system, a friendly player came up to me and asked how my day was going. After a brief conversation and the admission that this was my first time in the game, he asked me to hop on his back so I could take a station tour.
This isn’t just a “game.” It’s a place you visit and keep coming back to because you love it.
This was the first magical moment I encountered, and it’s stuck with me ever since. Each Orion station is massive. Truly and utterly huge, with a design that feels a lot like a Halo planet. Look up at any time, and you’ll get a full view of the rest of the station, including an idea of where you might want to travel to next.
The station is broken up into districts. Right now, there are “only” three — Driftball, Club (golf), and Parkour — but there are around a dozen different potential districts in development. Zero Gravity is next after Parkour is finished, which should give hardcore Echo VR users something to really celebrate.
Each district is a flat area that is surprisingly huge. Many districts include multiple levels — the Parkous District has a massive underground area while the Club District has floating golf courses — and each district is separated by free-floating space to keep things distinct.
The first time I grabbed a “zipline” and traveled to another district was surreal. Ziplines are fast but not overly so, avoiding the feeling of motion sickness that some games can cause by only sending players along a forward line rather than introducing any kind of lateral turning motion.
Likewise, the locomotion system has been proven to help reduce motion sickness, all while introducing more advanced concepts than were available in Gorilla Tag. Drifting with hand skates feels amazing and delivers a realistic sense of speed and momentum that makes me feel like I’m actually doing it, not just standing in the middle of my living room.
It’s this feeling and sense of movement that sticks with me for a while after the end of every session. When I take my headset off, I still have a faint feeling like I should be back in the space station with my fellow Drifters.
The game already has tens of thousands of players, with servers that’ll soon support 200 players concurrently, making this a very vibrant, alive collection of worlds.
Anyone who is interested in the game should join the Orion Drift Discord, a community that has already reached 50,000 people in a very short time. Even if you don’t want to join it, the game has a calendar listing of events scattered throughout the districts on bulletin boards.
It’s this welcoming community that’s made the game feel so immediately palpable — the excellent structure and gameplay mechanics were just the cherry on top — and has kept me coming back after learning the basics. The game even has dedicated servers for parkour or golf, so you can jump right in and ensure a full field of competitors and teammates.
Even if you’re worried about “squeaking kids,” there are adults-only fleets in the game that’ll kick any player who doesn’t meet the age limits. This is the first time in a long time that I’ve felt like a game is directly addressing the Echo VR community and trying to fill in the wound Meta left when it closed Ready at Dawn for good. Another Axiom has done it again, and this time, it feels like everyone can truly enjoy the spectacle.
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