Virtual Reality gets more and more popular every year, but the price point for headsets is still far from being affordable. That’s why more people start to get Google Cardboard: the cheapest way to get into the VR world.
Lucky for you, we’ve found the 12 best VR apps for Google Cardboard for you to try in 2024. These apps are all different: there are educational ones, apps to watch content, and even games.
You’ll get to explore famous sights and museums, watch your fave movies, communicate with friends, and even fly around space. All these apps are fully compatible with Cardboard and a bunch of other VR headsets. Take a look!
ExpeditionsPro
Let’s start with an educational app that lets you explore the world in VR.
This app provides you with virtual tours and expeditions you can enjoy without leaving the comfort of your home. For now, the app already covers over 200 destinations for you to explore, so you won’t run out of content for quite a while. The list includes a bunch of famous landmarks, sites f historic battles (and other events), and more.
All the experiences can be explored in HQ and 360-degree views, which adds up to the fun. The main idea here is to help you understand the significance of all these places and learn about their place in history. It’s some kind of VR tour you can take at any time.
You can use this app to explore locations you wouldn’t visit in real life, and to educate your kids and students as well. You’ll get to add notes and create custom tours with locations you’ve enjoyed the most. The app is fully free and works nicely with Google Cardboard.
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Fulldive VR
This is a VR platform that lets you discover various types of content.
It comes with a wide base of vids and games you can experience in VR. There are practically millions of photos and vids to watch, and over 500 built-in games, so you won’t get bored here. The base is growing all the time, too, so it’s easy to find smth new to watch (or play).
All the content comes from approved sources like YT, FB, and more, so no adult content there. It even includes YT compatible player, which is pleasant. There are a bunch of 3D vids and vids with a 360-degree view, and most of these are available for free. In fact, you can store and view your own photos in VR in this app as well.
The app runs as a social network that lets you follow mates and see what they’re watching. You’ll also get to react to your fave vids and share these with your audience. The app is fully compatible with Cardboard, and a bunch of other headsets out there.
Google Cardboard
Well, it would be odd not to include an app made specifically for Google Cardboard, isn’t it?
It’s an official app from Google that is an absolute must-have for everyone who just got the headset and needs a tutorial on getting started. It’s a pretty simple VR to help you set up your headset and dive into the VR world.
Beyond that, the app covers a couple of VR experiences you can try. The lib of experiences is not too wide, but it’s more than enough to get into VR. Plus, the app lets you view any kind of VR content from your device: vids, photos, and all that.
However, this app hasn’t been updated for a few years now, so once you’ll get through all the experiences, there won’t be much left to do here. At this point, it’s a great starting point that you can move to more complex VR apps.
Sites in VR
This app is here to provide you with HQ virtual tours.
Yeah, we’ve already had a similar app, but this one is a different breed. It’s here to guide you through famous landmarks from multiple countries: Egypt, Turkey, Morocco, Belgium, and much more. Shortly said, it helps you to explore the architecture, castles, museums, tombs, parks, and religious sites.
For now, the app covers over 1K of 360-degree vids and panoramic pics for you to explore. All the content come in HQ, so you get the most realistic experience. You won’t only get to look at the sights from afar, you’ll be able to actually go up the Effie Tower, get inside the pyramids of Giza, and much more.
There’s even a full-on category that lets you take a virtual tour on Mars. Herewith, you get to customize the image to match your prefs. The app lets you correct the eye separation, adjust the vertical center, field of view, and much more.
Google Arts & Culture
Next, we have an app that lets you explore museums in VR.
While the previous app (along with the first on our list) is focused on sights and famous locations, this one is all about museums and galleries. This app lets you dive into arts and culture right from your house with the help of a headset.
This app has partnered with hundreds of museums from over 70 countries around the globe, so you could see whatever your heart desires. It has a special non-virtual version, but the VR one is much more impressive as you get fully immersed in the experience.
You’ll get to walk around museums and galleries and view all the installations you’re interested in. More to that, you’ll get to zoom the installations to get a closer look and even sort these by time period. You can also mark your fave art pieces for quick access and share them with friends as well.
Within VR
This app lets you fully enjoy a cinematic VR experience.
It covers a wide range of fully immersive stories in different genres: documentaries, horror, animation, and even music vids. There’s content for any test and mood, and all the vids are categorized for simple navigation. Herewith, the app is fully free with no ads or paid content.
All the stories contain highly realistic people and places with high-quality CGI. However, these are just movie-like stories, the app doesn’t include interactive games (but don’t worry, our list does). Plus, the amount of content is not huge, the app takes a quality over quantity and all the stories are hand-picked.
All the stories also come from independent creators, studios, and film festivals, so you get to enjoy unique content. The new ones get added every month, though, so you won’t run out of content. The streaming goes on first, but if you need high resolution, make sure to download the vids first (the streaming quality is slightly lower).
Check also: 11 Best Google Home Apps
VR Theater for Cardboard
It’s a multiplayer app that lets you watch movies in VR.
The app lets you enjoy 2D, 3D, 180, and 360-degree films in a classic movie theater setting. The app doesn’t give you a virtual character, everything happens from a first-person view. The setting menu lets you configure the theater and the vids, so you could fully customize the exp.
As for the formats, the app works with all MP4 files and lets you play movies from other apps and the web. More to that, it supports multiple formats of 3D vids such as SBS, Red-Cyan, and all that. The app comes with full-on sight-activated controls with no headset buttons required.
Thus, you’ll get to adjust the screen ratio, format, and even viewing position. The app also lets you re-align the screen and pause the vid with simple gestures. You’ll get to turn your head around to look at the cinema you’re currently sitting at. The app is fully free with no ads or purchases, so no worries here.
vTime XR
If you’re looking for a social app in VR, this one is your top choice.
This is the first social VR app that lets you share your pics and vids with a worldwide community and connect to thousands of people across the globe. At some point, this is like FB, but you get to hang out with friends in virtual reality. As always, you’ll need to create your avatar first.
More t that, you’ll get to create a unique virtual avatar, and there are hundreds of customizations to make it look more like you. The app covers a bunch of fun locales for you to visit, and you can pick destinations along with friends and explore this new world together. The lib of environments gets regular updates, so there’s always smth new to keep you entertained.
For instance, there are dozens of forests, islands, and even hotels for you to stay in. The app is compatible with a bunch of headsets along with Cardboard, and it also supports AR, so there are plenty of people for you to meet. It’s also totally free, so there is no reason why you shouldn’t try it.
InMind VR
Moving on to interactive games. This is an adventure game that lets you explore people’s brains (but not in a creepy way).
The game is pretty short and covers some arcade elements. It’s fully compatible with Cardboard, but it’s also playable without any special viewers. As for the setting, the game takes place in the future, where there are special bathyscaphes that allow healthcare specialists to travel inside patients’ bodies.
You take place of a doctor who needs to find the neurons that cause certain mental disorders. To do that, you’ll need to take a journey inside the patient’s brain. The game literally takes you into a unique world of the human brain that looks especially impressive in VR. You’ll get to experience all the miracles of the human mind in stunning HQ graphics.
Your goal here is to explore the human brain and look for disordered neurons. Once found, you’ll need to pacify the neurons and the patient will be considered cured. The game is fully free with no ads, so you can fully enjoy the journey.
Titans of Space
This VR game is here to give you a tour of space.
It covers a short guided tour around planets and stars that you can take without leaving your home. The game has HQ graphics that let you explore the beauty of space in all its glory. As you fly around exploring planets, you’ll get to read some educational info along with a dynamic soundtrack.
Plus, the game covers some additional pages of space information you might be interested in. You’ll get to compare the sizes of planets and stars and see the distances between them. Of course, everything is toy-sized here, but it’s shrunk down from the actual size, so it’s pretty accurate.
The game gives you full control over the pace of the tour, so you can actually stop and take a closer look if you’re interested. Overall, you get over 50 mins of narration and the tour provides you with all the essential info. The tour won’t be over after you’ve flown through the Solar System, so keep that in mind.
InCell VR
This is another game from the series that lets you get inside a human’s body.
It takes place in the same futuristic world where smart bathyscaphes let health professionals dive into a micro world and look at people from the inside. This is an action racing game where you need to drive through people’s cells.
Your goal in this game is to quickly find injured cells and save them from total destruction. But it won’t be that simple: there are multiple virus waves you’ll need to avoid in order to continue your journey. The game comes with high-quality graphics and no ads, so you can fully immerse yourself into the process.
The game is quite short, but it’s more than enough to enjoy an immersive VR experience. It even has some strategy elements, so you won’t get bored. It is fully compatible with cardboard and some other headsets, so no worries here.
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Fractal Combat X
And lastly, we have an action-packed VR game that lets you
This game lets you get into breathtaking flight combat in multiple locations. It comes with full VR support and intense 3D gameplay. You’ll get to fight in multiple fractal landscapes that give an unforgettable experience every time.
The story mode contains dozens of missions and the best thing is new ones get added every day. As it always is with such names, you’ll get to upgrade and boost your ships, unlock new armor and equipment, and more. Enemy forces will attack you all the time, so get ready to think smart and build new strategies on the fly.
The game has its own leaderboards and achievement system that lets you unlock new items and locations. It also saves your progress, so you won’t need to start over each time. The game is compatible with a bunch of headsets and game controllers, so you’re all the way covered.
