As we enter 2025, the integration of MR and spatial computing is helping usher in a new era where accessible gaming is not an afterthought but a foundational design element, by merging physical and digital realms and reshaping the gaming landscape.
While the demand for MR experiences continues to grow, largely driven by tech giants like Meta and Apple, there’s a clear lack of accessible, high-quality and affordable MR games out there. US tech giants struggle with capital-intensive MR and VR projects, which creates perfect conditions for nimble European startups to innovate and capture market share while opening up access to gaming.
MR has the power to level the playing field, making gaming more interactive, accessible, and enjoyable for players worldwide. Games should be designed to be intuitive, allowing for seamless integration into users’ daily lives, ensuring that every adventure is just another reality away. But how, and why, should we leverage MR to drive the future of accessible gaming?
Adaptive Gameplay & Enhanced Interactions
MR and spatial computing allow for real-time scanning of environments and custom game adaptations – bridging physical and digital worlds for immersive, barrier-free experiences, and boosting the reach and appeal of games.
There’s an appetite for specific MR gaming genres rising – we are seeing more co-op and communal gaming as an emerging trend – either in physical spaces, where people play games together, or in virtual spaces (like Horizon Worlds), where people just socialise through personalised experiences across gaming and entertainment. Gamers love to interact with each other, engage through leaderboards for example to track performance against the best players in the world, and be part of a vibrant gaming community. Games need to be tailored to individual player needs and preferences, adjusting to their abilities and preferences for a more engaging experience.
By listening to your gaming audience you can uncover insightful trends to help develop more accessible games for everyone. As an example, we noticed a nostalgia trend, driven by TV series like “Strange Things” or games like “Stardew Valley” and “Minecraft” with pixelated graphics for more ‘family-friendly’, less intense or graphic violence games, and a nostalgia for 80s and 90s games and entertainment brought to today. So we developed a simple and casual game that anyone can ‘pick up and play’- the generation that first played games in arcades, the generation that played the early consoles and, finally, Gen Z and Alpha.
Personalised Experiences with Hardware Front and Centre
One of the ‘hottest’ trends that will keep impacting the gaming market in 2025 and beyond, is the growing adoption, and innovation in XR/MR hardware. We’ll see more devices and accessories like leg trackers, heart monitors, heads-up display glasses – Google recently announced a pair of glasses like that – that will change the way people play on the platforms, which will lead to unique software and gaming experiences. This means that we may see games that raise the difficulty level based on your heart rate for example – if you are too ‘relaxed’, the game will increase the difficulty, and vice versa.
Handheld devices like Steam Deck or Lenovo Legion Go become more and more powerful for PC gaming and people are getting used to playing their games everywhere. Especially people that define themselves as gamers, that wouldn’t play mobile games. This actually makes it a very exciting moment for XR glasses in gaming, because people will have an already established habit of playing complex games on the move. We’ll have ‘true’ MR glasses in the next 5 years, which will help adoption skyrocket, as well as a consumer version of the Meta Orion glasses from Meta, and something similar from Apple.
Technological Barriers & Standardisation
With Meta reportedly selling over 20 million Quest headsets, demonstrating that consumers are eager to embrace this technology when priced appropriately, the XR landscape is undoubtedly poised for rapid evolution.
However, the cost of MR hardware and the need for powerful processing capabilities may limit accessibility for users. In addition, a challenge hindering adoption would be the fact that the user numbers on the Meta Quest and Apple Vision platforms are heavily limited by the platforms’ availability to a limited number of countries, as well as high costs. Meta Quest and Apple Vision Pro in particular seem to have sold more devices in the US than the rest of the world, EMEA specifically. This means that most of the audience is a young, US based audience and the types of games built for these platforms need to take this into consideration.
Accessibility will be crucial to unlock MR’s full potential – big growth will happen once the cheaper devices hit countries in India, SE Asia and Latin America. This is why gaming developers should also focus their efforts in 2025 on offering low-price, or free MR experiences where possible, to help drive mass adoption and open up new gaming experiences for users globally.
Design Complexity
In recent years, we’re seeing more and more young people playing headset gaming and being almost “native” with it, and they will likely be the ones to drive the need for innovation in the space. There’s an understanding of technology for Gen Z and Gen Alpha that we didn’t see from any previous generation. These generations are getting their gaming suggestions from short video social media (TikTok in particular), something that didn’t really happen before, especially in XR, where discovery is still not that good in the stores, and needs to be factored into the design process.
MR doesn’t have to be complicated – gaming development should be centred on game mechanics, developing and releasing games that resonate with audiences quickly to match their evolving needs. While big companies invest years in releasing one big title, smaller companies can create a niche for themselves by focusing on designing simple and ‘casual’ games that appeals to everyone – all generations of gamers, gamers who want to play in groups or alone, invest high or low time commitment to play, or simply anyone who wants to relieve stress for a while by picking up a controller and intuitively playing.
Finally, lack of universal design guidelines for MR and spatial computing can lead to inconsistent accessibility features across platforms. Ensuring that developers have the tools and knowledge to create accessible content requires significant investment in training and resources. To fully harness this potential, collaboration between technologists, designers, and accessibility advocates is essential to ensure that future innovations prioritise inclusivity.
Unlocking a Truly Inclusive Gaming World
2025 is the year that innovative smaller players should focus on accessible, mass-market experiences as they are more nibble, ‘scrappy’ and innovative, presenting a golden opportunity for them particularly in Europe to dominate the future of XR gaming.
The future of gaming doesn’t stop at creating games; it’s about creating truly immersive experiences that leave a lasting impression, pushing the boundaries of seamless integration between physical and digital realms to create ‘wow’ moments for gamers. In order to drive mass MR adoption and make gaming accessible to everyone, we need to focus on developing hardware, and games that are easy for anyone to play, and deeply immersive.
About the Author
Bobby Voicu is CEO and Founder of XR gaming company MixRift. MixRift creates Mixed Reality games for Meta Quest and Apple Vision Pro.
Featured image: Adobe Stock
