A great idea held back by a lack of game support and poorly produced native app.

Immersion in the virtual reality (VR) space is key to getting the most out of any game you play.

Whether it’s the adaptive triggers of the PlayStation VR2 (PSVR2) – which makes every different action feel unique – or the wonders of mixed reality (MR) – that can overlay your physical space with game elements; the technological strides forward are incredibly important.

Over the years, there have been many peripherals that can be used in lieu of, or in conjunction with, the regular controllers that are used with most VR headsets. A few examples of this includes the Aim Controller for the first generation of PSVR, an abundance of different types of gunstocks, and the more recently released grip-to-putt golf accessory.

While each of the above mentioned accessories have a slew of their own pros and cons, none of them have been truly able to immerse a gamer without some intricacy that pulls you back out from the game experience.

Most, if not all accessories, still have a ways to go before they are advanced enough to ensure that nothing breaks the immersion. But, there is a new VR accessory on the market that is aiming to make archery games feel even better.

When it comes to games in the virtual world, archery has always been one of the best. Whether it’s something as simple as a tower defense game or as advanced as moving through the world like the Green Arrow, laying waste to your enemies with only a bow, there have been some pretty spectacular releases.

To compliment this genre of gaming, an accessory has been released to help improve the immersion of pulling back a bow string and loosing an arrow on your foe.

Created by Wonder Fitter, the Artemis VR Game Bow was released on Aug. 20, giving gamers a chance at feeling like a real archer. Boasting a 10 pound draw weight and Bluetooth capabilities, the bow currently connects to the Meta Quest series of headsets – as well as a native smartphone app to play training games streamed to your television.

The Artemis bow is not the first from this creator, in fact, it’s the third bow by a company that has worked for some time to create a series of home archery training systems. This bow stands above the other members of its family, simply because of the VR capabilities it boasts out of the box.

Picking up Artemis is like using a standard recurve bow, minus having to remove an arrow from a quiver and nock it to prepare your shot. The safety arrow module and low pull weight means this can be picked up and used by all members of the family. This means kids who want to learn archery after watching TV can take it up without the worry of real arrows.

While the bow is fun, and in theory a pretty good idea, it does have some faults.

If you’re using this with the phone app – which can be streamed to a TV – the gameplay is fairly straightforward. Pick a game, move the bow around to aim your reticle, pull and loose to fire. It can be entertaining for a bit, but if you’ve used a real bow and arrow, it’s less fun if you prefer to do things properly.

VR is where this accessory both shines and falters, depending on how you’re using it.

Let’s start by talking about the downsides.

When you play in VR – again currently only able to be used with the Quest headsets – there are very few games available. As of the time of writing, you can play the native Wonder Fitter VR app, or Tiny Archers. 

The app developed by the bow’s creator is good in theory, but had serious bugs and does not seem to work properly. Not only is the app very broken and does not seem to be supported properly, you cannot download this app through the Quest store, and must instead use SideQuest. This is a third party storefront where you can download any game or app that people create.

This was an immediate red flag, and it very quickly proved itself to be a letdown when the virtual bow you see in VR would not centre itself – ending up behind the player and was essentially not usable.

When using Artemis in VR, you must connect one of the Quest controllers to the provided attachment and connect the bow via Bluetooth. When playing the app it doesn’t signify which controller needs to be connected, nor which way it needs to be oriented. By the end it was frustrating that nothing worked and it seemed to be a dud.

Now, one could give the developers some slack since the bow was just released. However, the app has been out since May 2024, and hasn’t been updated at all since launch, so it looks like there’s no support for it whatsoever. Considering you are barely given any options to change settings in the app, there’s not much to do to try and fix it. Essentially anyone using this should hope for an update down the road.

The other app currently available to play with Artemis is Tiny Archers, developed by 1DER Entertainment. It’s here where the bow really has a chance to shine. The game in question was released July. 18, and is a tower defense style game where you defend against waves of attacking goblins.

Using Artemis is pretty seamless with this game, and while there are some hiccups – for instance, you may find yourself floating above the game hub and struggle to find a way down – the bow and game work flawlessly. Considering the game was developed by the same people who made the bow – the names are WAY too similar to not be connected – it’s a shame that their native app, which boasts many more styles of games, works so poorly while this one thrives.

The minute you connect your bow in game, the process to start playing is pretty seamless. The bow interacts the way you would want in world, and while it would be nice to see your arrows pull back in game as you do it in real life, this is a pretty good start for an accessory of this caliber.

While there is definitely a long way to go before the integration of accessories and VR gaming is perfect, this is a great start. The free app needs work, and there definitely needs to be more games, the path forward seems bright. While this bow can handle basic games where there’s no need to move around, some great games like In Death are not going to be playable, simply because you can’t move around – or use a shield – with this bow.

This is a good piece of technology, and anyone who enjoys VR and archery gaming should give this a try. Here’s hoping more games are created to work with this – and hopefully older games decide to add support for this – because even a simple game like Holopoint would be perfect.

The Artemis VR Game Bow costs $342 MSRP.