Arizona Sunshine

Lore & Background

The game's unnamed player character, voiced by Sky Soleil, awakens in a cave in an Arizona river valley. After finding a radio and hearing a human voice among static, he searches for the signal's source, eventually reaching a military-reinforced refinery that has been overrun by zombies. After killing the zombies in a fit of rage and having a breakdown, he continues aimlessly until finding another radio that leads him to the town of Sunshine, Arizona. At the radio station, he discovers the signal is automated, but when he screams into the microphone, someone answers and rescues him by helicopter after he withstands a massive zombie horde.

Gameplay involves using motion controllers to manipulate virtual firearms and interact with inventory and the environment. The player can carry a firearm in each hand and two more in holstered positions. Originally, long-distance travel required teleporting, but a January 2017 update added artificial locomotion as an option. The game includes a campaign and a horde mode, both playable in single-player and multiplayer. Zombies spawn according to difficulty level, with tougher armored zombies appearing more frequently on higher levels. Certain player actions trigger large zombie hordes.

Shortly after release, players discovered that unadvertised features were only available on systems with an Intel Core i7 CPU due to a deal between Vertigo Games and Intel. PC Gamer referred to the hardware lockout as unprecedented. After a large negative backlash, Vertigo Games unlocked the features to all players a day after the lockout was discovered.

Reader's Guide

Arizona Sunshine is notable as an early major VR first-person shooter that established conventions for the medium, including motion controller-based gunplay and room scale tracking. Its release on multiple VR headsets helped define the zombie survival genre in virtual reality. The game received positive reviews on PC but mixed reviews on PlayStation VR, highlighting the platform-dependent nature of early VR experiences. The Core i7 exclusivity scandal drew significant attention to hardware lockout practices in gaming, with Vertigo Games quickly reversing the decision after community backlash. A sequel, Arizona Sunshine 2, was released in 2023, and in 2024 features from the sequel were integrated into the original game, which was re-released as Arizona Sunshine Remake on modern platforms including PlayStation VR2, Meta Quest 2, Meta Quest 3, and Steam VR. A flat-screen remake allowing third-person play is set for release in 2026 on Windows, Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and Series S. The remake received generally favorable reviews on PC, Quest, and PlayStation 5.

Did You Know?

• The game's player character is voiced by Sky Soleil.
• A January 2017 update added artificial locomotion as an option, replacing the original teleport-only movement.
• The game's Core i7 exclusivity lockout was reversed by Vertigo Games one day after it was discovered.
• A flat-screen third-person remake is scheduled for release in 2026.

Roots in Tucson and an Unlikely Path to Public Service

Gabrielle Dee Giffords was born on June 8, 1970, in Tucson, Arizona, to Gloria Kay Fraser and Spencer J. Giffords. Her upbringing blended two faiths: her mother was a Christian Scientist and her father Jewish. That Jewish lineage reached back to her paternal grandfather, Akiba Hornstein, a Lithuanian immigrant who changed his surname to Giffords to protect his family from anti-Semitism. Through her father, she is a second cousin of Gwyneth and Jake Paltrow. After finishing at Tucson's University High School, Giffords earned a bachelor's degree in Sociology and Latin American History from Scripps College in 1993, followed by a Fulbright year studying in Chihuahua, Mexico. She then completed a master's in Regional Planning at Cornell in 1996, focusing on Mexican-American relations. Before entering politics, she worked in regional economic development at Price Waterhouse in New York City and later returned to Arizona to serve as president and CEO of El Campo Tire Warehouses, the auto-service chain her grandfather had founded. The business was sold to Compañia Goodyear Del Peru in 2000, an episode that left her acutely aware of the struggles local firms face against national competitors.

Climbing the Ladder in Phoenix

In 2000, Giffords made a decisive political shift, switching her registration from Republican to Democratic. The move paid off quickly: she won a seat in the Arizona House of Representatives in 2001 and, the following year, became the youngest woman ever elected to the Arizona Senate. She served in the upper chamber from January 2003 until her resignation on December 1, 2005, to pursue a congressional race. During her statehouse years, Giffords focused heavily on expanding health-care access and advancing mental-health legislation, earning the Mental Health Association of Arizona's 2004 Legislator of the Year honor. She also collected the Sierra Club's Most Valuable Player award and was named Arizona Family Literacy's Outstanding Legislator in 2003. A key part of her work involved the bipartisan Children's Caucus, where she pushed for better education and health services for Arizona's young residents. She collaborated with Governor Janet Napolitano to promote all-day kindergarten and advocated for supplemental state aid through bonds and tax credits to fund school supplies. In a 2005 address, she warned that the state's rapid growth was straining education, health care, and transportation while threatening the environment.

The Shooting, the Recovery, the Farewell

Giffords had just stepped into her third term in the U.S. House, representing Arizona's 8th district, when tragedy struck in January 2011. During a constituent event near Tucson, she was shot in the head in what became both an assassination attempt and a mass shooting. The injury was severe, yet over the following months she regained much of her ability to walk, speak, read, and write. Her return to the House floor in August 2011 was met with a standing ovation. On January 24, 2012, she attended President Obama's State of the Union address, and the very next day she appeared on the chamber floor to formally submit her resignation. Colleagues and House leadership rose to their feet in a sustained ovation and offered words of deep respect. As a Democrat, Giffords had been only the third woman in Arizona's history to win a seat in the U.S. Congress, and her departure marked the close of a five-year congressional career that began in January 2007.

A New Mission and a Life Rebuilt

A moderate during her time in Congress, Giffords channeled her post-political energy into a single, urgent cause: preventing gun violence and strengthening gun-safety laws. In January 2013, she and her husband launched Americans for Responsible Solutions, a non-profit paired with a super-PAC dedicated to that mission. The organization later merged with the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, creating the entity now known as the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. Her husband is Mark Kelly, a former Space Shuttle Commander who serves as Arizona's senior U.S. senator. Their partnership has become a visible symbol of the family's continued commitment to public service. On a deeply personal note, Giffords has practiced Judaism exclusively since 2001 and belongs to Congregation Chaverim, a Reform synagogue in Tucson. In 2021, she celebrated her bat mitzvah at that congregation, completing a spiritual journey that had been two decades in the making.

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