XREAL Aura's launch lineup takes shape with a new game from Google's Owlchemy

XREAL Aura is close enough to launch that the games are starting to arrive. On Oct. 22, Owlchemy Labs, the studio Google bought in 2017 and the maker of Job Simulator, announced Hyper Visor, an arcade game built for the glasses that will cost $1.99 on the Google Play Store when Aura ships.

Aura is the first pair of see-through glasses to run Android XR, Google's platform for headsets and glasses, and XREAL is Google's official AR hardware partner. Owlchemy's VR games already run on Samsung's Galaxy XR headset, which uses the same platform.

What Hyper Visor is

In Hyper Visor, a "mysterious pair of living shades" shows you cracks in reality hidden around your room, and you blast them shut with an energy stream that comes out of your hands. There are eight levels, each with its own targets, challenges and a boss. Road to VR describes it as more 2D than a fully immersive VR game.

"Our core philosophy is XR for everyone, and for a lot of people the biggest barrier has been the headset itself," said Andrew Eiche, who runs Owlchemy and carries the title "CEOwl." "XREAL Aura is essentially a pair of shades, which makes XR far more approachable for anyone who may have been hesitant to put on a headset before."

Owlchemy will also bring four of its older games to Aura at launch: Job Simulator, Vacation Simulator, Dimensional Double Shift and Inside [JOB]. Dimensional Double Shift passed one million downloads earlier this year.

What Aura costs and what you get

XREAL set the price on Oct. 7: $1,279 with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, or $1,499 with 16GB and 512GB. The glasses come in two sizes, M and L.

Aura splits the hardware in two. The glasses themselves weigh less than 95 grams and have the display, with a 70-degree field of view, plus hand tracking and speakers branded Sound by Bose. A compute puck on a cable does the heavy lifting with a Snapdragon Reality Elite chip, runs Android XR with Gemini and Google Play, and doubles as a trackpad. You can clip it to a pocket or hang it on a lanyard.

When you can get one

Not quite yet, unless you already have a reservation. Pre-orders opened on Oct. 7 only for people who had paid a deposit before that date, which XREAL put down to high demand. Everyone else can still leave a deposit for priority delivery, and general orders open at launch. Aura will ship first in the United States, Canada, Japan and South Korea, with more countries in 2027. XREAL hasn't given a shipping date, but its announcement said the launch was "just weeks away."