Serious Games Supported by Virtual Reality—Literature Review

Serious games supported by virtual reality (VR) offer innovative solutions across diverse fields, such as education, therapy, and professional training, leveraging immersive and interactive environments to enhance engagement and learning outcomes. This paper provides a comprehensive literature revie...

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Main Authors: Nadia Damianova, Santiago Berrezueta-Guzman
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IEEE 2025-01-01
Series:IEEE Access
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10896660/
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author Nadia Damianova
Santiago Berrezueta-Guzman
author_facet Nadia Damianova
Santiago Berrezueta-Guzman
author_sort Nadia Damianova
collection DOAJ
description Serious games supported by virtual reality (VR) offer innovative solutions across diverse fields, such as education, therapy, and professional training, leveraging immersive and interactive environments to enhance engagement and learning outcomes. This paper provides a comprehensive literature review of VR-based serious games, focusing on their applications, benefits, and challenges. Key themes include the transformative impact of VR on education through improved motivation and experiential learning, therapeutic applications addressing physical and mental health, and professional training in hazardous and high-skill environments. Despite their potential, adoption is hindered by challenges such as high costs, limited accessibility, ethical concerns, and technical limitations, including cybersickness and scalability issues. This review also highlights emerging trends, including AI-driven adaptive learning, advancements in haptic feedback, and the integration of multisensory experiences, offering opportunities to address these barriers. By synthesizing current research and identifying critical gaps, this paper provides actionable recommendations for researchers and developers to maximize the impact of serious VR games in creating inclusive, effective, and scalable solutions for diverse user needs.
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publishDate 2025-01-01
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spelling doaj-art-08d00d4f01d44f18ae1eb7f7d9f769432025-08-20T03:15:26ZengIEEEIEEE Access2169-35362025-01-0113385483856110.1109/ACCESS.2025.354402210896660Serious Games Supported by Virtual Reality—Literature ReviewNadia Damianova0https://orcid.org/0009-0002-6945-0870Santiago Berrezueta-Guzman1https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5559-2056Chair of Software Engineering, Technical University of Munich, Munich, GermanyChair of Software Engineering, Technical University of Munich, Munich, GermanySerious games supported by virtual reality (VR) offer innovative solutions across diverse fields, such as education, therapy, and professional training, leveraging immersive and interactive environments to enhance engagement and learning outcomes. This paper provides a comprehensive literature review of VR-based serious games, focusing on their applications, benefits, and challenges. Key themes include the transformative impact of VR on education through improved motivation and experiential learning, therapeutic applications addressing physical and mental health, and professional training in hazardous and high-skill environments. Despite their potential, adoption is hindered by challenges such as high costs, limited accessibility, ethical concerns, and technical limitations, including cybersickness and scalability issues. This review also highlights emerging trends, including AI-driven adaptive learning, advancements in haptic feedback, and the integration of multisensory experiences, offering opportunities to address these barriers. By synthesizing current research and identifying critical gaps, this paper provides actionable recommendations for researchers and developers to maximize the impact of serious VR games in creating inclusive, effective, and scalable solutions for diverse user needs.https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10896660/Virtual realityserious gamesgamificationimmersive learningVR applicationseducational games
spellingShingle Nadia Damianova
Santiago Berrezueta-Guzman
Serious Games Supported by Virtual Reality—Literature Review
IEEE Access
Virtual reality
serious games
gamification
immersive learning
VR applications
educational games
title Serious Games Supported by Virtual Reality—Literature Review
title_full Serious Games Supported by Virtual Reality—Literature Review
title_fullStr Serious Games Supported by Virtual Reality—Literature Review
title_full_unstemmed Serious Games Supported by Virtual Reality—Literature Review
title_short Serious Games Supported by Virtual Reality—Literature Review
title_sort serious games supported by virtual reality x2014 literature review
topic Virtual reality
serious games
gamification
immersive learning
VR applications
educational games
url https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10896660/
work_keys_str_mv AT nadiadamianova seriousgamessupportedbyvirtualrealityx2014literaturereview
AT santiagoberrezuetaguzman seriousgamessupportedbyvirtualrealityx2014literaturereview