Beat Saber’s 360 Degrees Mode is a Revolution

Beat Saber has already become one of VR’s must play games, but Beat Games has consistently been hard at work delivering new features and updates since its launch in early access. At this year’s E3, Beat Games announced that a new 360 degrees mode was coming in the future, along with an Imagine Dragons track pack, available now.

In my demo, I played two of the new Imagine Dragons songs in 360 mode on Oculus Quest. Instead of one single lane straight ahead where the notes come from, there are now multiple lanes in nearly all directions. Thankfully, notes don’t come from all of them at the same time, and the new mode makes it clear what direction you should be looking in, thanks to a large arrow in the background to guide you. There are also visual cues on the floor to show where notes will be coming next.

It’s hard to describe exactly why, but this new mode may have been the most fun I’ve had playing Beat Saber since the first time I played the original. The new dynamic of flowing from side to side made the game even more satisfying to play and the new forms of note combinations kept me on my toes.  Though I was told that everything I had played was still early, it was extremely impressive and left me wanting to play more.

Despite the premise being simple, Beat Saber in 360 degrees is a game changer. I’m sure it would be an incredible amount of work, but I’d love to see all the older tracks all mapped to 360 degrees. I could see it being the new main way for me to play the game. Currently, the new mode is only possible on the Quest, thanks to its lack of wires and freedom of movement, but there are also plans to do a more limited version of the mode on other platforms. Beat Games continues to innovate, and I can’t wait to see more.