What Is Dixotomia? The VR Sci-Fi Horror Shooter Explained

Dixotomia is a single-player sci-fi horror shooter made only for virtual reality, developed by the independent studio Deep Matrix. You play Reynor "Ron" Adams, a veteran soldier who lands on Karna, a mining planet owned outright by one corporation, and you fight a vampire cult with sci-fi guns on one arm and something far stranger growing in the other. It launched on Steam on 22 January 2026 and is also on the Meta Quest store.

That is the short answer. Here is what the game is actually like.

Where does Dixotomia take place?

The whole game happens on Karna, a planet in the Beta Virgo system. Karna is not run by a government. It is a company town the size of a planet, owned end to end by a corporation called Tibet Innovations, which operates the mine, the refinery, the research lab and its own private army.

Karna is hot, dusty and dirty. Mud storms roll through constantly, and outdoors you need a filter mask, because it rains a warm, oily mineral instead of water. The game's own tagline puts it simply: it rains liquid plastic here.

For the full picture of the world, read Karna, the planet explained.

The year is 2583. The story starts with a medical incident nobody can explain: 28 of the 42 miners in Deep Shaft 17 come up with a fever of 40°C and no diagnosis. You arrive on Karna to find out what is going on, and the planet makes it very clear that it would rather you did not.

Who do you play?

You are Reynor "Ron" Adams, a career soldier with eight years in the assault infantry behind him. He is short, broad, practical and very good at staying alive. He comes back to Karna after five years in cryosleep, which means everyone else has aged and he has not.

Early on, something in a dead elevator bites his left forearm. The wound heals in a way it should not, and from that moment the arm is not entirely his anymore. That arm is the heart of the game.

How does combat work?

Dixotomia gives you two playstyles and lets you mix them:

• Technology. Sci-fi firearms and gear: pistols, rifles, an SMG, a shotgun, a machine gun, a plasma cannon, grenades, armour, a visor and sensors, plus an experimental weapon called the Spark.
• Vampiric powers. Abilities that come from the infection in your arm, which let you fight in ways no gun can.

Both sides have their own upgrade tree, and there are 26 abilities across the two trees. The trees are incompatible, so you cannot simply max out everything. You build a version of Reynor that leans one way or the other, which is the "technology on one arm, something else on the other" idea the game is built around. Our breakdown of guns versus vampiric powers goes deeper into how the two sides play.

Because this is VR, the guns are physical. You aim with your own hands, reload with your own hands and duck behind cover with your own body. If you are new to that style of shooter, our guide to what to expect from the free demo covers setup and comfort before your first session.

What does "remain human or embrace the dark side" mean?

Dixotomia is built around a choice. Every decision on Karna pulls you toward one side or the other. The path you choose rewrites the story and decides which powers and which allies stand with you.

In other words, the upgrade trees are not just a stats menu. Picking powers is part of picking who Reynor becomes. That is where the name comes from: a dichotomy between the man he was and the thing the infection wants him to be.

Who and what will you fight?

According to the game's Steam page, you take on bloodthirsty vampires and their powerful shadow masters, along with cultists, androids and mercenaries. The official site shows robot soldiers, zombie soldiers, snipers and patrols among the regular enemies.

The bosses are characters from the story, including Alister Duncan, Edward Price and Viviana Eidenhart, plus a dragon. They are not just big health bars. As the story unfolds, people you meet gradually turn against you, so some fights carry history.

What locations are in the game?

Karna is varied for a single planet. You move freely through massive industrial complexes, quarries that look like the surface of Mars, towering skyscrapers and research facilities with occult influences. Named locations include:

1. The Mine
2. Tibet HQ
3. The Lab
4. The Tower
5. The Refinery
6. The Quarry
7. The Polygon

Where can you play Dixotomia?

Store	How you play	Notes
Steam	PC VR	OpenXR, Quest over Link or Air Link, Pico 4 and 4 Pro, Valve Index, Rift S
Meta Quest store	Standalone on Quest	No PC needed
itch.io	PC VR	Free demo available

On PC the minimum requirements are Windows 10, an Intel i3-6100 or AMD Ryzen 3 1200, 8 GB of RAM and an NVIDIA GTX 1050 Ti or AMD Radeon RX 470. The game supports eight languages, with full English and Japanese audio, plus French, German, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, Korean and Russian text. On Steam it also offers adjustable difficulty and Family Sharing.

Who is Dixotomia for?

Dixotomia suits you if you like VR shooters but want a story wrapped around the shooting, if you enjoy sci-fi horror that is more corporate dystopia than haunted house, or if you like games where your build and your choices actually change the character you play.

If you are still deciding, the easiest step is the free demo. It costs nothing and shows you the world, the guns and the feel of the combat in a few minutes. When you are ready for the full game, it is on Steam and on the Meta Quest store, and the Deep Matrix home page has the trailer.