Sony and Meta marked Halloween by revealing the name for its upcoming Ghostbusters game.
Ghostbusters: Rise of the Ghost Lord now has a coming soon page on the Quest store after being announced for the platform earlier this year. It’s coming in 2023, the companies announced, and you can play solo or co-op with up to three friends “to defeat a ghastly new threat – the Ghost Lord.”
Announced earlier this year, the new Ghostbusters game will be set in San Francisco with developer nDreams bringing the franchise to life in Quest 2 and Quest Pro. The game will take players to “iconic locations around the city” including catching ghosts at the Golden Gate Bridge.
There’s not much more to go on right now with the brief trailer earlier this year featuring cinematics rather than actual gameplay.
We’ll be curious to learn more about the project with Meta teasing details to come next year. This isn’t the first time Ghostubsters has been adapted to VR with The Void using it as a centerpiece for a couple years at its location-based VR installations. Rise of the Ghost Lord, however, will bring the spooky franchise to Quest headsets at home and the promise of co-op potentially leading to some fun social experiences.
Meta held a gaming showcase in April this year with numerous game reveals, and the company confirmed there’s one for next year as well though no timing has been revealed yet.
Following an App Lab and SideQuest release last year, Xlab Digital’s Iron Guard VR is now available on the official Quest store. Read on for our hands-on impressions of this tower defense game inspired by classic strategy titles.
Set in the 23rd century and spanning a 30-mission story mode, Iron Guard VR tells a story that wouldn’t feel out of place in classic sci-fi fare. After crash landing on another world, your team finds themselves threatened by rogue terraforming robots who’ve begun self-replicating. Your task is protecting the surviving crew members, and you can see a bit of this in action through the flatscreen PC trailer embedded below. We’ve also got the official story description below, courtesy of Xlab Digital:
The year is 2232 A.D and the crew of “Avalon” has crash-landed on the planet “Akris”, while trying to investigate why the earlier drone ship carrying the AI terraformer bots lost contact. Fortunately, the planet is habitable because the terraformer ship and it’s AI bots had done their job to make “Akris” habitable and sustainable for life. You are 1st Officer Graves. It is up to you to protect the lives of the surviving crew.
Commanding forces from an overhead view, your goal is keeping enemy robots in all their various forms away from your base. For example, scout units are weak but counter this with fast movement and larger groups, whereas fighters are slow, but pack stronger regenerating armor. Each level has multiple routes for waves to advance across, so focusing your efforts on a singular choke point won’t cut it here.
Dispatching these foes is reassuringly straightforward, though. As commander, you can take direct action via a controllable drone, firing shots and aiming with your right controller. Holding the trigger charges up your shot, but if that’s not enough, the drone can deploy a superweapon for a powerful area-of-effect attack. Upgradeable turrets, barricades, and more can be placed in set locations with the left controller, which comes at a cost. Earning money requires killing enemies, and structures can, fortunately, be scrapped for extra cash. That’s also handy if an existing strategy isn’t paying off.
What I’ve played so far is fun, if not terribly exciting. Levels have nice variety and difficulty feels balanced; the only times I got ‘Game Over’ came down to poor planning. Aside from requiring a headset, however, Iron Guard doesn’t really innovate beyond being a tower defense game in VR. It’s functional, never does anything particularly wrong, but never excels at anything either. I do enjoy the customization options, though. Finishing a mission earns skill points that are spent on permanent upgrades, including drone improvements, base resources, and elemental turrets. I wouldn’t call this especially expansive but it does what’s needed.
Where Iron Guard truly excels is in its visuals. It looks great on Quest hardware, thanks to the colorful environments and crisp textures, all of which are complemented by an energetic soundtrack. My biggest problem is that I don’t understand why Iron Guard needed to be a VR game. Notably, there’s a separate flatscreen PC version on Steam. In the VR version, beyond pointing with motion controls and the gameplay that requires planning your base defense from threats in every direction of the map, this isn’t a game that takes full advantage of virtual reality’s capabilities. You can play it comfortably sitting down, there are camera turning options, and that’s about it.
Still, few can deny that VR is seriously lacking tower defense games – Captain ToonHead and Defense Grid 2 aside. Iron Guard VR isn’t the most innovative game going, but the fundamentals are all here, making this a welcome sight. If you’ve missed those days playing Command & Conquer until 3am, this could potentially fill that niche.
Iron Guard VR is available now on the Meta Quest platform, alongside PC VR via Steam and Viveport.
After releasing a Steam demo this February, EALoGames has revealed that Paranormal Hunter will arrive next year on PC VR in early access.
First announced in last December’s Upload VR Showcase, this four-player co-op horror game comes from a team of former Shenmue and Shin Megami Tensei developers. Initially announced for Q2 2022 on PC and consoles with optional PC VR support, that’s now delayed into 2023. Once it launches, Paranormal Hunter’s Steam page says that this early access period should last for “roughly six months.”
Paranormal Hunter is similar to Phasmophobia, a separate VR multiplayer horror game that received a VR overhaul update in April. You’ll be hunting for supernatural spirits as a team with various investigative tools, and there’s differing elements across each playthrough. EALoGames has previously confirmed that full PC cross-play is supported between VR and flatscreen players, too.
Paranormal Hunter will launch in early access on PC VR in 2023. The Steam demo is still available, though VR support is currently limited to Meta Quest 2 headsets via Oculus Link. However, Paranormal Hunter will support HTC Vive, Valve Index, and Microsoft’s Windows Mixed Reality platform at launch.
A flatscreen release is coming to PS4 and PS5, but we’ve had no confirmation about a PSVR or PSVR 2 version. We’ve reached out to EALoGAMES for comment, so we’ll update this article once we hear more.
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Developed by Mirowin and published by PM Studios, Desperate: Vladivostok brings bullet hell arcade shooting to the Quest platform and PC VR on November 3.
Taking place within a post-Soviet world, Desperate: Vladivostok imagines the Perestroika period of the 1980s in a Cyberpunk-themed setting. Stepping into the shoes of a hired contract killer called “Torpedo,” your goal involves taking down a political organized crime group by any means necessary. Portraying this story through comic book-style cutscenes, this comes with cell shaded visuals, reminiscent ofFrackedandBorderlands 2.
Featuring over 50 “hand-crafted scenes” and “reactive gameplay,” Desperate: Vladivostok promises an intense experience. Survival depends on your ability to hit, shoot and dodge through the levels, with each mission featuring a “unique dynamic soundtrack.” For the high-score chasers, there’s also global leaderboards to compete on for each level. If you’re after an endless mode, PM Studios confirmed on the Steam listing that a separate arena mode will also be available.
Desperate: Vladivostok launches on November 3 forMeta Questplatforms throughApp Lab, alongside PC VR via Steam. APSVRversion is also planned, which PM Studios tells us will arrive in 2023.
In this week’s episode of the Between Realities VR Podcast, Alex and Skeeva host emerging technologies expert Ashley Coffey.
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Trebuchet’s sword fighting game Broken Edge will launch on Nov. 17.
Coming to Steam and Quest for $9.99, the multiplayer title published by Fast Travel Games is now available to wishlist on those storefronts.
Broken Edge features 1v1 dueling with a variety of melee weapons and fencing mechanics. It brings to mind Ironlights, though with a different art style and approach to combat. Last month we published an early look at the game from some demo time at Gamescom:
A clash of swords in Broken Edge has a clear outcome – if player one slashes through player two’s weapon, it gets broken off at the point of impact. Player two is left with a maimed, but still usable, weapon – the titular ‘Broken Edge’, if you will. Your weapon becomes similar to a health bar and once it’s depleted down to just the hilt, you only have one last chance to counter against a fatal blow.
We’ll be curious if the developers are able to do anything interesting with the new haptics on Quest Pro’s controllers for the combat in Broken Edge, and we’ll be looking to dive into the game more as it releases in November.
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Resolution Games confirms VR tabletop dungeon crawler, Demeo, is to receive hand tracking support for the Quest platform.
Resolution Games told UploadVR that Demeo will receive hand tracking support on the Quest platform, with the studio stating: “More mixed reality features are coming in the future [to Demeo], including hand-tracking.”
Hand tracking uses the headset cameras to track hand movements allowing users to play controller-free. The quality of the Quest’s hand tracking feature has come a long way since it was first launched back in late 2019, with significant updates already rolled out and more planned to improve overall tracking reliability.
The studio has yet to confirm exactly how Demeo will use the hand tracking feature but it will presumably allow players to use their hands for navigating in-game menus, moving game pieces, holding cards, and rolling the dice. This latest news comes as Demeo receives mixed reality support on the Quest Pro and Quest 2. The new mixed reality feature blends the real world with the digital by using the Quest’s passthrough mode to place the Demeo game board in the physical environment.
In mixed reality, the virtual board can snap to any real-life surface and dice react to the boundaries of your mapped room. The addition of the upcoming hand tracking update should provide an additional layer of immersion that will bring Demeo closer than ever to a real-life board game experience.
While Demeo’s mixed reality mode and upcoming hand tracking support are currently only for the Quest platform, the award-winning tabletop game can also be played using PC VR, Rift, Pico 4, and in PC flat-screen mode. Demeo is also set to arrive on PS5 and PSVR2 in 2023.
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Reality Labs quarterly revenue dropped year-over-year in Q3 for the first time since Meta started reporting the division’s financials.
Reality Labs is the division of Meta behind Quest,smart glasses, Meta Avatars, Horizon, and research & development toward future devices such as theneural wristband project and AR glasses.
The division brought in $285 million revenue in Q3 2022, the lowest since it started reporting the division’s financials in Q4 2020. That’s down from $558 million in Q3 2021, a dramatic drop of roughly 50%.
This revenue drop isn’t unexpected though. Just before Meta raised the price of Quest 2 by $100 in August, CFO David Wehner warned investors to expect Q3 revenue to be lower than Q2. And in today’s earnings call Wehner confirmed the cause was lower Quest 2 sales.
Quest 2 has now been on the market for two years and the pace of major game releases has significantly slowed. With competition from ByteDance emerging in Europe and Meta “laser-focused” on the high-end Quest Pro this year, Quest 2’s sales probably would have declined even without the price hike – though obviously not as much.
With Quest 3 now confirmed to launch late next year at a similar price, Quest 2 sales could tank even further in coming quarters – but that’s not unusual for consoles in the last phase of their lifecycle. It will be interesting to watch how Quest Pro sales affect Reality Labs revenue over the next year. Meta would have to sell a Quest Pro for every four lost Quest 2 sales to achieve hardware revenue growth.
The cost of the $285 million revenue was a staggering $3.96 billion, resulting in a quarterly loss of $3.67 billion. Some of Meta’s investors are growing increasingly unhappy with the massive investment in VR & AR. This is how Zuckerberg responded to a major bank holding company questioning Reality Labs performance:
“I get that a lot of people might disagree with this investment. But from what I can tell, I think that this is going to be a very important thing, and I think it would be a mistake for us to not focus on any of these areas, which I think are going to be fundamentally important to the future.
So we’re going to try to do this in a way that is responsible and matches the way that the rest of the business is growing over time. And I think we’ve built up the team to a point now where I think we’ll be able to kind of match that growth with the rest of the business more going forward.
But over time, I think that these are going to end up being very important investments for the future of our business. And I think it’s some of the most historic work that we’re doing that I think people are going to look back on decades from now and talk about the importance of the work that was done here.”
Far from backing down, Zuckerberg warned investors Reality Labs losses will actually “grow significantly” next year. But he said from 2024 Meta will “pace Reality Labs investments to ensure that we can achieve our goal of growing overall company operating income”.
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Espire 2 releases next month for Quest 2, this time featuring a co-op campaign that lets you and a friend revisit levels from Espire 1, reimagined for multiplayer.
The key takeaway from my time with Espire 2’s single player campaign at Gamescom earlier this year was that Digital Lode is building a toolkit and framework that encourages experimentation and gives the player as much freedom as possible. After trying out two multiplayer missions last week, it’s clear that philosophy has also translated over seamlessly to Espire 2’s co-op campaign.
Espire 2’s co-op campaign features four missions, all of which take place on repurposed and reimagined maps and envionrment from the original Espire campaign. I played through two missions with Michael Wentworth-Bell, Digital Lode’s founder and developer, last week – the second of which you can check out in the gameplay video embedded above.
All of the sequel’s cool new mechanics are available in its co-op mode, including the two new character options (referred to as ‘frames’), Sooty and Sinder. As I covered in my first hands-on, players will be able to choose between Sinder (the large protagonist from Espire 1) and Sooty (a much smaller, faster character with a different toolset) on any given level in Espire 2’s main campaign. While the maps stay the same, your options and approach will change depending on the character you pick – Sooty can reach places or discover items that Sinder can’t, and vice versa.
In Espire 2’s co-op campaign, one player will embody Sooty and the other Sinder. You’ll have to work together, using each character’s strengths and unique abilities, to achieve each mission’s given objectives. This means your approach to each levels can be quite open ended, with many different options available and select routes available for either frame. While it’s still the same stealth gameplay as the main campaign, the strategy becomes much more about coordination and communication, with players able to tackle challenges together or split up in different directions.
All of the cool and interesting new mechanics from single player are also available in co-op, now with additional uses, thanks to the presence of two players. A good example is Sooty’s noisemaker, a throwable device that Sooty can speak into remotely, used either to distract enemies or issue commands. In co-op, the noisemaker can be deployed directly onto the other player, potentially opening up some interesting (or chaotic) combos.
However, double the operatives also means there’s double the chance to blow your cover. Going for that perfect stealth run will be a little harder with two players, requiring good coordination. That being said, Digital Lode doesn’t want to punish players for having fun. If you want to go guns blazing and ignore stealth, you’re more than welcome to – it’ll just mean your final mission rating isn’t very high.
This mission rating will likely be the make-or-break for the co-op mode’s replayability. Espire 2 has a couple of different post-mission rating stats, including a 5-star rating, five badges and a mission budget. The 5-star rating is determined by your overall performance, measured by factors such as time, stealth, detection, unnecessary kills and more. On the other hand, badges are awarded for specific achievements, such as remaining undetected across an entire mission or only performing non-lethal takedowns.
With only four co-op missions available at launch, it probably won’t take you and a friend very long to work through the co-op campaign once, but hopefully those rating systems will give dedicated teams reasons to keep coming back for more. At the very least, it’s should ensure that casual players can have fun without taking things too seriously, while hardcore stealth fans can buddy up and work towards the top of the leaderboards together.
Overall, what I played of Espire 2’s co-op was a surprisingly fun and dynamic experience. All of the intelligent envionrment and mechanic design from the single player carries over to co-op, with multiplayer adding yet another level of strategy. There’s a lot of potential to be had in working with the same teammate across multiple attempts, aiming for that perfect run. The question will be whether there’s truly enough longterm diversity in the gameplay to sustain replaying the same four maps multiple times just to improve your rating, but that’s something to evaluate after launch.
Between the single player and co-op modes we’ve tried so far, Espire 2 looks set to be a solid addition to the Quest 2’s stealth lineup when it launches in November. Keep an eye out for more coverage and our full review in the lead-up to release.
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Quest Pro’s key accessory for fully immersive VR ships in late November.
Meta revealed the Quest Pro Full Light Blocker accessory arrives starting November 22, with $50 pre-orders available now.
The $1500 Quest Pro headset is Meta’s top-of-the-line standalone headset designed for remote work and mixed reality. It features color passthrough views and ships with partial light blockers in the box that magnetically attach on each side of the headset to block out some light. Quest Pro can be used without the blockers to view the periphery rather than the closed-off tunnel approach on every other currently available consumer VR headset. This approach is what makes Quest Pro a “mixed reality” device rather than a strictly VR headset. The partial light blockers optionally block out the periphery but still allow views downward so you can check out your phone or see your keyboard.
The Quest Pro Full Light Blocker, then, brings back that traditional VR experience to fully block out the outside world for complete focus on virtual content. You can still activate a mixed reality view passed through the color cameras on the headset but that’s optional and both the downward view and periphery are black with Full Light Blocker attached.
While Quest Pro is compatible with all existing Quest Games the approach to moving forward Meta’s platform toward mixed reality comes with notable trade-offs. Developers building for Quest and Quest 2 have assumed full immersion in their VR games due to the current standard. Mixed reality, meanwhile, can keep you aware of people and objects in the same physical room as you. That means straddling two realities rather than completely disappearing into a virtual one. A game like Resident Evil 4 VR, for instance, might be easier to approach if you’re reminded that you’re not alone. But players looking for that isolation to enhance the fear factor, or workers looking to block out their physical environment to focus on their virtual workspace entirely with the $1500 Quest Pro, need something like the $50 Full Light Blocker to have the same fully immersed VR experience as the $400 Quest 2 or Pico 4.
Meta sent us a Full Light Blocker to test and it does indeed fully block out the light — with the exception of the same minor nose gap visible to many people on most other VR headsets. During our brief testing we found the Full Light Blocker might require the headset’s halo strap to be adjusted differently than using the partial light blockers or open sided.
“I don’t know if we’ll do this for all the devices going forward,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said of the open periphery approach when we spoke to him last month.
The Quest Store Halloween Sale is now live, offering discounts on Quest 2 games until the end of the month.
As you would expect, Meta announced that a load of Quest content is getting discounted in the store to celebrate everyone’s favorite spooky holiday. As has been the case with previous Quest Store sales, the discounts cover a mixture of single items, bundles of apps and rotating daily deals.
The Grave Decisions Pack includes After the Fall, The Room VR: A Dark Matter and Arizona Sunshine for a total of $69.99, roughly 37% off. Then there’s the Stayin’ Alive Pack, including Population: One and Onward, for a total of $43.99 (20% off) and the Think Fast Pack, including Pistol Whip, Thief Simulator VR and Superhot VR, for $48.99 (35% off).
There’s also the Vader Immortal Pack, which pops up in almost every sale, including all three episodes for $20.99, a discount of 30%. If you’ve already played through Vader Immortal but want more Star Wars VR, then the Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge Pack includes the base game and the Last Call DLC for $24.99 – a 30% discount.
Lastly, the Classic Sports Pack includes The Thrill of the Fight, ForeVR Bowl and Golf+ for $38.99 – a 37% discount.
In terms of single item sales, there’s some decent bargains on offer, including:
The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners for $27.99 (30% off)
Myst for $17.99 (40% off)
Waltz of the Wizard for $11.99 (40% off)
Unplugged for $14.99 (40% off)
Puzzling Places for $8.99 (40% off)
Warplanes: WW1 Fighters for $12.99 (35% off)
Resident Evil 4 for $31.99 (20% off)
Zenith: The Last City for $20.99 (30% off)
After the Fall for $27.99 (30% off)
Demeo for $20.99 (30% off)
That’s just a small taster of the full list – you can check out the entire sale selection here. The sale launch also coincides with the release of Quest Pro today. Quest 2 content is compatible with Quest Pro, so it’s a good time to pick up some games if you plan on playing through some classics on Meta’s latest headset.
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Meta formerly referred to Quest Pro as “Project Cambria” – the codename given when it was teased at last year’s Connect. It’s neither a successor to nor a variant of Quest 2. Instead, it’s the first in Meta’s new “high-end” product line targeted at professionals, early adopters, developers, and businesses.
Meta is marketing Quest Pro as a headset for both virtual reality and mixed reality.
For mixed reality, it shows a 3D color view of your room reconstructed via the front cameras with virtual objects superimposed. Unlike purely VR headsets it can be worn without a facial interface, so you can still see the real world in your peripheral vision and below you. The headset rests against your forehead and doesn’t touch your cheeks.
For virtual reality (or if bright lights in your room are reflecting in the lenses) the two light blockers included in the box magnetically attach to each side of the headset. But to block out the real world below your eyes you’ll need to buy Meta’s $50 Full Light Blocker or a third-party alternative.
Quest Pro has a significantly slimmer visor than Quest 2, achieved through the use of pancake lenses. Pancake lensessupport smaller panels with a shorter gap to the lenses. The new lenses have better visual clarity and a 10% wider field of view compared to Quest 2.
Whereas Quest 2 only offers three preset lens separation distances, Quest Pro’s lenses are continuous to support the vast majority of interpupillary distances (IPDs): 58mm–72mm.
The battery is in the rear of the strap to act as a counterbalance, and Meta said it will last between 1 and 2 hours depending on the content. While the overall device is actually heavier than a Quest 2, the visor itself is noticeably lighter.
It features dual 1800×1920 advanced LCD panels with quantum dots and local dimming mini-LED backlights, which result in a 30% wider color gamut and 75% more contrast than Quest 2. That resolution is lower thanPico 4– but it’s slightly higher than Quest 2’sroughly 1720×1890pixels per eye.
Quest Pro is the first headset to use the Snapdragon XR2+ chip. Meta said it has “50% more power than Quest 2 with better thermal dissipation, resulting in significantly better performance”. However, a representative told UploadVR that figure “refers to the increased SoC power that supports additional sensors and new use cases”, and apps not using these new features will only have “a little more performance headroom”.
Quest Pro has eye tracking and face tracking, so your real-time gaze and facial expression are mapped to your avatar. A total of five internal cameras are present: one for each eye, one for your upper face, and two for your lower face. The three face cameras should, in theory, provide higher fidelity face tracking than HTC’s one camera add-on for Vive Focus 3.
Eye Tracking is optional, but if you turn it on you’re guided to set the lens separation precisely for your IPD, and Eye Tracked Foveated Rendering is enabled – the technique where only the small region of the display you’re currently looking at is rendered in full resolution, thus freeing up performance since the rest is lower resolution.
The included new Touch Pro controllers are self-tracking, with three cameras and an onboard chipset, meaning tracking works in a full 360 degree range of motion. They have new features including three motors for precise haptics, index finger sensing, and a pressure-sensing thumb grip. Included stylus tips attach to the bottom so they can act as pens to draw on virtual whiteboards. Touch Pro controllers will also be available for Quest 2 owners later this year for $300.
Quest Pro accesses the sameMeta Quest Store and runs the same apps & games as Quest 2. If you’re an existing Quest owner you won’t have to re-buy content.
The $1500 price includes the headset, side light blockers, controllers, stylus tips, a 45W USB-C charger, a portable controller charger cable, and the charging dock. The headset and controllers attach to the dock with magnetic pogo pins, but you can also charge the headset via USB-C.
Quest Pro is available from the Meta Store online in the USA, UK, Canada, Ireland, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Austria, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan.
Cyborn announced its upcoming action-adventure VR game Hubris will release on December 7 for PC VR.
Hubris is a sci-fi action adventure title that will see you traverse through some stunning space vistas while climbing, running and swimming through environments and fending off enemies with your blasters. The game was originally scheduled for a late 2021 release, but got pushed back into 2022. The final December 7 release date for PC VR was revealed today in the trailer embedded above.
We’ve been hands-on with Hubris twice now. Both times, we came away impressed with the visuals – it’s not quite a match for PC VR juggernauts like Half-Life: Alyx or Lone Echo, but comes pretty damn close – but remained a tad let down by the gameplay, particularly the combat.
While the gun fights are built a solid foundation of mechanics and interactions, it was the lacklustre enemy AI and slight feelings of repetitiveness that held back our most recent demo at Gamescom. Nonetheless, there’s plenty of time to improve before launch and there’s lot of other elements to love about Hubris – we’ll reserve our full judgement for when the final release drops in December.
Hubris is also coming to Quest 2 and PSVR 2, but not until 2023. Cyborn also noted that a release on some other unnamed platforms will arrive in 2023 as well – could this mean Hubris is coming to Pico headsets too?
Time will tell, but PC VR players will be able to start playing in just over a month, with Hubris launching on December 7 for $39.99.
HaptX says it is moving on from developer kits and taking pre-orders for its next generation haptic gloves targeting release in Q3 2023.
The G1 Gloves from HaptX start at $5,495 per pair along with an air compressing backpack expected to weigh around 17 pounds. The backpack pushes air into “hundreds of microfluidic actuators that physically displace your skin,” according to the company. The gloves come in four sizes with HaptX offering a bundled four-pack with each size included for around $18,000. There’s an additional subscription plan required with the gloves at nearly $500 per month for ongoing service and maintenance.
Image provided by HaptX shows the Gloves G1 with Airpack backpack.
HaptX frequently appears at tradeshows like CES and never publicly revealed the prices for its earlier development kits. We suspected them priced in the five figures with HaptX saying this latest model is “a fraction of the cost” of its previous DK2. The G1, then, moves the price down into four figures. That’s still far from consumer markets but the progress highlights the slow but steady advance toward a realistic sense of touch for virtual reality.
In recent years standalone VR headsets like Pico 4, Quest 2, and Vive Focus 3 have moved VR from back-strapped PCs toward broader consumer appeal. While backpack PCs are high-priced and inconvenient, they still found a foothold for use in enterprises and VR arcades. The G1 may essentially target similar “business applications” so that enterprises “don’t have to settle for controllers or hand-tracking,” as HaptX Chief Revenue Officer Joe Michaels said in a prepared statement.
Image provided by HaptX.
HaptX is far from the only company attempting to commercialize more realistic haptics. Interestingly, though, Meta showed prototype technology last year that HaptX called “substantively identical” to its patents.
The company says it is asking for a “small deposit” for the HaptX Gloves G1 “to establish a shipment priority and lock in this discounted pre-order pricing.” Customers will select the glove size “and subscription options” closer to shipment.
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Three years after the debut of the original Oculus Quest headset, the library of content available on the Meta Quest platform is now bigger than ever. That makes picking a list of the best Meta Quest 2 games pretty tough.
Meta’s line of standalone VR headsets, which seems to have singlehandedly reignited the entire VR industry, launched with over 50 apps in 2019. In the years since, the Quest platform has received a steady stream of greatest hits from over VR platforms and, since the launch of Quest 2 in 2020, doubled down on new content too.
Meanwhile, if you’re looking for our best VR game lists outside of the best Quest 2 games, make sure to check these out:
Also keep in mind that, while our best PSVR, Rift and Steam VR games lists are all fairly consistent, we approach our Quest list with a bit of a different lens. We have to weigh up how much the wire-free gameplay improves the experience against how well a game has been ported and its technical performance. The list also spans a diverse number of genres, offering everything from accessible entry points to blockbuster titans.
Note: Facebook changed its name to Meta in October 2021 and, with it, changed the name of the Oculus Quest 2 to Meta Quest 2. In this list, we sometimes refer to both the Oculus Quest and Meta Quest labels, to cover all bases.
Most of these games are available/compatible with the original Oculus Quest headset, however some are Quest 2 exclusive – we’ve noted that where relevant.
Before we kick off the full list, we want to mention a handful of games that were just shy of making the top 25, either because other games nudged them off or perhaps other entries in the same genre took their place.
The dream of a full VR MMO has long lingered over the VR scene.
It’s an incredibly ambitious idea that’s incalculably tough to pull off. Zenith doesn’t have all the answers and it’s still early days, but it’s already head and shoulders above the competition with a robust quest line, numerous events, fun character progression and cross-play between practically every VR headset out there.
Sure, it’s a rough game with a lot of bugs and issues to iron out, but Zenith’s just on the start of a journey that will hopefully last for years from now. If developer Ramen VR continues to maintain the game, it’ll easily climb our list of the best Meta Quest 2 games. Just a few months ago, Zenith released The Celestial Throne update, adding a bunch of new content and changes you can read about here.
Another physics-driven combat game, Gorn is a decidedly more slapstick experience than The Walking Dead or Blade And Sorcery, but that’s all part of its charm. You take on a series of gladiator battles, bashing, slicing and impaling meat-headed enemies with a variety of weapons, from wrist-mounted crossbows to Wolverine-style claws.
It’s might be silly, but Gorn absolutely nails its weapon handling, with an elasticated touch that helps take some of the weight out of throwing a sword around. As such, it earns a staple position in the best Oculus Quest games and best Meta Quest games list.
Vader Immortal isn’t a massive, multi-hour Star Wars epic with upgradable skills and deep combat. It is, by traditional gaming standards, a pretty slim package, lasting a little over 90 minutes. But look below the surface and you’ll find something much more interesting; an episodic series that wants to provide a completely immersive VR experience that anyone can enjoy.
There’s fun lightsaber combat to be had both in the story and the excellent Dojo mode, but Vader Immortal’s best moments come from basking in the presence of the Dark Lord himself and meeting other characters in VR. It’s an exercise in story-living and a pretty good one at that.
It stretches the definition of game, then, but not enough to avoid our best Oculus Quest games and best Meta Quest 2 games list.
Tentacular sits somewhere between puzzle game and physics sandbox, with a campaign to sees you embody a Kaiju-like squid creature and get to work performing various jobs around the island of La Kalma.
The game is full of happy accidents, driven by the amusing and sometimes chaotic physics of your wobbly tentacles, which extend well past your physical hands.
Grabbing an item with the small tip of your tentacles will prove wobbly and grant you less control over the object, whereas using the thicker part closer to your body will give you stability, but a lack of precision. There’s an intricacy to be found in the way you move around and interact with objects in Tentacular – mistakes are always your own fault (usually because you weren’t quite aware of your own physical space) and the physics strikes that perfect balance between elasticity and precision.
It would be easy to dismiss Tentacular – it’s not the longest or most in-depth campaign and this certainly isn’t a huge budget AAA title – but the sum of its parts add up to something special. Similar to Astro Bot or Moss, this game reminds you that VR doesn’t have to be life-sized to be convincing or compelling.
Cubism is an understated but absolutely stunning VR puzzle game – and one that’s deceptively simple. Each level features a 3D wireframe shape into which you have to fit different Tetris-like block pieces. The puzzles get harder and the pieces more complex – it’s a slow and measured puzzle experience.
While it may not be as flashy as some of the other titles on this list, Cubism is an experience that is perfectly designed for the current capabilities of Quest hardware. The minimalist design, reserved soundtrack and its simple nature all come together to create a fantastic and polished end product. It’s is also regularly updated with support for the latest cutting edge VR features – its post-launch updates include support for passthrough mode, hand tracking and 120Hz.
If you’re a fan of puzzles that put your mind to work, then don’t sleep on Cubism. Solving each level is infinitely more complex than you’d expect and the satisfaction you get at the end is incredibly rewarding.
While technically Moss Book I and Book II are separate games, we’ve included them as one entry on this list as they flow into each other – Book II picks up the story moments after the end of Book 1.
Moss is one of a handful of 2018 games that proved that third-person VR experiences don’t just work but can make for some of the absolute best content out on the platform right now. You guide an adorable little mouse named Quill through diorama-sized levels, solving puzzles and taking on fearsome critters in sword-based combat.
While it’s mechanically refined, Moss’ real claim to fame is the bond you build with Quill over the course of the adventure. Playing as a larger companion to the tiny protagonist, you really start to connect with her as you work together to overcome obstacles. It feels very much like a team effort, which is quite a remarkable feeling in itself.
The second instalment – Moss: Book II – is technically a stronger, longer sequel, but realistically feels more like a continuation of the same journey as opposed to a completely fresh adventure. That being said, it does add some new mechanics that innovates on the original’s the combat, as well as offering a wider range of environment and vistas than the first title.
Over the course of both games, the story will see you form a bond with protagonist Quill like no other. The Moss series is not one to miss.
It’s certainly not one for those who are new to VR, for starters. As you can read in our review, Bonelab is an intense experience with some performance hitches and a renegade approach to comfort and VR nausea.
However, it does serve a specific audience and purpose. The franchise’s first title, Boneworks, was known for its physics simulations and sandbox gameplay. Bonelab brings the Boneworks experience – warts and all – to standalone VR and Quest 2 for the first time. If that’s what you’re looking for, then you’ll find Bonelab to be an interesting, experimental sequel that features a short campaign and an extensive sandbox toolset that supports community mods.
Green Hell originally released as a flatscreen survival for PC and consoles. In 2022, Incuvo (taking over from the original developers Creepy Jar) brought the experience over to VR headsets – with a catch.
There’s two releases of Green Hell VR: one for Quest 2 and one for PC VR. While the PC VR version is full translation of the original, the Quest 2 version of Green Hell VR is not the exact same experience as the flatscreen game. Green Hell VR on Quest 2 follows the same story beats, but it’s a more focused and streamlined version that pares down aspects of game to accommodate for the limitations of standalone VR.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing though. While a little depth is lost and the overall length is a bit shorter, it’s still a deep and taxing survival game that fans of the genre will enjoy. It’s a much more straightforward experience, but one that also pays meticulous attention to VR interaction and physicality.
Red Matter 2 is a great sci-fi adventure and one of the most impressive visual showcases available on Quest 2.
After producing a similarly stunning experience with the original Red Matter, developers Vertical Robot doubled down on creating a compelling and gorgeous sci-fi game with this sequel. The gameplay is fairly slow, focused on environmental puzzles and occasional combat. It doesn’t always land – some of the puzzle begin to frustrate, especially toward the end – but any occasional hiccups in gameplay and pacing are supplemented by some beautiful sci-fi vistas and environments.
The Last Clockwinder is a delightful puzzle game that will see you program a supply chain of robots and create automated production lines to solve increasingly difficult puzzles.
You bring the robots to life by embodying them and acting out tasks that they will then endlessly repeat on a loop. You can record 1-4 seconds’ worth of actions using your controllers, which will become one repetitive piece in a larger chain of robots that work together to solve puzzles in the most optimal way you can think of.
It’s a puzzle game that encourages you to walk the line between creativity and perfection, while also taking advantage of roomscale VR in way that makes puzzle solving feel unique and extremely satisfying.
Mini golf is actually something that could and should work quite well in VR. Walkabout Minigolf is all the proof you need; it’s an accurate representation of the game that goes beyond what’s possible in real life whilst also remaining authentic throughout.
This ticks all the boxes – plenty of courses, extensive multiplayer support, different themes for each level and, above all, pinpoint physics that are arguably better than the real thing because small snags on the surfaces of many physical courses aren’t here. Hard to fault!
14. Population: One (Quest 2 only)
VR does Fortnite right in this superb battle royale shooter. Population: One takes place on a huge map in which teams of three battle it out to be the last ones standing. Choose where to drop, scavenge for supplies and make sure to stay in safe zones as you fight to survive.
Not only is Population: One a rock-solid shooter, but it’s got some great VR mechanics too, like scaling up walls with your hands or holding your arms out to glide when you leap off the side of a building. It can be an intense experience that certainly won’t be for everyone but, if you’re looking to get your online shooter fix in VR, this is your best bet. Plus, it has cross-play support, so you can play with friends using other headsets.
Though we’d love to see Lone Echo itself come to Quest, Echo VR is a thrilling addition to the library all on its own. In this multiplayer zero-gravity game, you take part in futuristic esports, throwing discs to score points on a team. The movement is fast, fluid and entirely natural.
Echo VR has stood the test of time as a multiplayer game with a growing community that was naturally conceived for the platform. To us, that’s far more important than trying to cram a genre everyone wants to see in VR onto the platform with mixed results.
This is one of the immersive VR experiences and one of the best Oculus Quest games and best Meta Quest 2 games.
As great as VR is, its initial novelty is bound to wear off after your first few weeks or so.
If you want to recapture the magic of putting on the headset for the first time, though, there’s one destination that’s bound to deliver: A Fisherman’s Tale. This is a mind-bending puzzle game unlike anything you’ll see elsewhere. That alone makes it one of the best Oculus Quest games and best Meta Quest 2 games.
In A Fisherman’s Tale, you solve intricate, scale-based puzzles in which you work… with yourself. Its best puzzles utilize a miniature model of the lighthouse the game’s set in. Lift the roof of the model and you’ll see a mini-you, imitating your every move. Just try and keep your brain from breaking as you hand yourself giant objects, or reach down to poke your own head.
It’s a trip to say the least. Throw in a poignant story about self-acceptance and you have a short, sharp VR game that will stay with you much longer than most multi-hour epics.
If you want the most accurate, authentic representation of a sport in VR today, Eleven: Table Tennis is easily your best bet. This simulation-level game offers the most convincing take on a sport that makes perfect sense in VR.
Whether you’re serving up hotshots or getting in desperate returns, Eleven’s physics behave exactly the way you’d expect and tapping the ball with your controller starts to feel as natural as if it were a paddle.
More than just a great game, Eleven is one of the rare VR experiences that feels like a genuine replacement for our reality. It’s that good and one of the best Oculus Quest games and best Meta Quest 2 games.
10. Ultrawings 2 (Quest 2 Only)
The first Ultrawings was an enjoyable flight game that offered approachable controls for anyone to get started with as well as tricky missions that took skill to master.
Ultrawings 2 takes that gameplay and expands on it on a massive scale. There’s easily over 50 hours of content here if you’re committed to getting gold in every mission, but even just unlocking every plane and airport will take a significant chunk of time.
Not only that, but the game has incredible variety, with mission types that take you from races to full-on combat, and each of the five vehicles offers a new spin on the formula. With multiplayer and more content on the way, Ultrawings 2 is likely to be one of the best Meta Quest 2 games for some time to come.
Little Cities is the best city simulator game available on any VR platform, let alone Quest 2. It perfectly distills the formula down into a focused approach that emphasizes city management through design. Instead of getting bogged down in menus, the ebb and flow of your city (and whether it succeeds or fails) will be determined by how you lay out the roads, key services and various elements provided to you.
Little Cities is high on this list because it does all of this while being keenly aware of intelligent VR design. Everything in the game is designed to work optimally and intuitively in a VR headset. Every element feels well considered and incredibly immersive. Even if you’re not a fan of the city simulator genre, Little Cities is visually stunning and charming enough for anyone to enjoy.
VR’s poster child finds its most natural fit on Quest. In Beat Saber, you slash notes to a beat, dodge obstacles and try to master an ever-growing list of fantastic tracks.
Wire-free gameplay breaks down the barriers between you and the music as you slice your way through an ever-growing list of tracks. Beat Saber is empowering, energetic and VR’s most devilishly addictive game yet. Don’t expect that status to change any time soon.
Whereas Onward on PC is a worthy contender for the best online shooter, it definitely faces stiff competition. But, on Quest, the wire-free gameplay really comes into its own, opening up new tactics like easily going prone. Yes, the game’s suffered visually to get onto the headset, but when you’re aiming down your sights, scanning for targets, you won’t notice.
Onward pays close attention to realism, making it a game that can be hard to get to grips with, but absolutely rewarding to master.
Pistol Whip may be the new kid on the block but, for our money, its sharpshooting, sharp sounding, beat-based gameplay proves to be even more hypnotic than Beat Saber. In this neon-lit shooter, you stream down corridors, blasting bad guys to grizzly tunes, avoiding incoming fire and trying to rack up the best scores.
Pistol Whip’s takes influence not just from the VR sales king but also Superhot and, most prominently, John Wick. Whereas Beat Saber wants to make you a dancing Jedi master, Pistol Whip aims to teach you gun-fu with style, elegantly fusing the rhythmic and cinematic together into a pulsating, vibrant monster of its own.
We had our doubts that Resident Evil 4 would really work well in VR, but it not only survived the transition – it ended up being one of the best Meta Quest 2 games. This is a full port of Leon Kennedy’s best-known zombie adventure, with a first-person view and full motion control support.
Sure, some elements of this version of the game don’t hold up well, like virtual cutscene screens. But when you’re facing a horde of enemies with your back literally against the wall, it’s hard to care. This is a wonderful way to revisit a classic.
Superhot VR is one of the oldest games on this list and yet, over four years later, it’s still easily one of the best examples of how VR can give us entirely new gaming experiences. In this cinematic shooter, times moves only when you do. Sit still and the world around you will freeze, but move your body and it will jolt back to life. It’s your very own Matrix simulator.
What makes the game such an enduring hit is its accessible design that instantly picks up on a professional slickness you won’t find anywhere else in VR. From last-minute gun grabs to well-placed knife throws, the game constantly delivers unprecedented satisfaction with its action.
Despite its age, Superhot VR is still one of the best Meta Quest 2 games available – surely we’re way past due for a sequel?
There was a heck of a lot of doubt — even from our camp — that Unplugged could really work. It’s a Guitar Hero-style game in which you strum notes arriving to the beat. But, instead of holding a plastic peripheral in your hand, the Quest version of the game relies entirely on hand-tracking. Despite having some technical hiccups, we think it really works.
When you hit a streak, Unplugged is a genuinely empowering air guitar experience that will have you shredding with the best of them, and it’ll only get better as the tech improves. For that reason, it earns a place on our best Meta Quest 2 games list.
Demeo isn’t a perfect tabletop game by any means. But it is a really good one and, more importantly, its first-rate four-player multiplayer VR experience makes it feel like a genuine social event in a way that no flatscreen game — and even few VR games — have ever really matched.
You pick a class and tackle randomly generated dungeons, but the game’s punishing difficulty means sessions can last anywhere from a few minutes to multiple hours. Demeo is already cemented as one of the best Oculus Quest games and best Meta Quest 2 games but, with more content on the way, including new dungeons and features, it’s only going to get better.
We would have never pegged a game based upon The Walking Dead to carry arguably the best design and user-interaction you’ll find in VR, but Saints & Sinners delivers all that and then some.
This sets the bar not just for VR zombie games but basically the entire medium with ridiculously entertaining physics-based combat that has you wrestling with hordes of undead, throwing every ounce of effort you can muster into every swing and stab.
But this isn’t just a silly sandbox or wave-based survival game (though it has that too). Saints & Sinners packs its action into a full, meaty VR campaign that sees you trekking through the remains of New Orleans. Add in human enemies, side-missions and the ability to kill zombies with a spoon, and you have one of the deepest native VR games on the market.
Plus, thanks to an obscenely good port from developer Skydance Interactive, Saints & Sinners takes the throne at the top of our best Oculus Quest games and best Meta Quest 2 games list.
Do you agree with our list of best Meta Quest 2 games? Let us know in the comments below!
Best Meta Quest 2 Games Update 18/10/22 – List reordered. The Room, A Township Tale, Blade & Sorcery, Song in the Smoke, Ghost Giant, I Expect You To Die 2 & Until You Fall removed. Moss: Book II, Cubism, Tentacular, Bonelab, Green Hell VR, Red Matter 2, The Last Clockwinder, Little Cities added. Former UploadVR editor Jamie Feltham was previously listed as the author of this article and contributed significantly to the list and most of the existing entries.
Best Oculus Quest games and Best Meta Quest 2 Games Update 05/17/22 – List reordered slighty, Honorable Mentions added.
Best Oculus Quest games and Best Meta Quest 2 Games Update 03/15/22 – Larcenauts, Carve Snowboarding removed. Zenith, Ultrawings 2 added.
Best Oculus Quest games and Best Meta Quest 2 Games Update 11/26/21 –Sniper Elite VR, Red Matter, Cosmodread, In Death, FNAFVR removed. Resident Evil 4 VR, Song in the Smoke, Blade And Sorcery: Nomad, Gorn, Unplugged added.
Best Oculus Quest games and Best Meta Quest 2 Games Update 08/30/21 – I Expect You To Die, Myst, Contractors, Job Simulator removed. A Township Tale, Sniper Elite VR, Larcenauts, I Expect You To Die 2 added.
Best Oculus Quest games and Best Meta Quest 2 Games Update 06/15/21 – The Under Presents, Blair Witch, Vacation Simulator, Accounting+ removed. Demeo, Carve Snowboarding, Walkabout, Cosmodread added.
Best Oculus Quest games and Best Meta Quest 2 Games Update 12/25/20 – Population: One, Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners, Myst, Blair Witch, Contractors added. Spaceteam, Robo Recall, Apex Construct, Lies Beneath, Phantom removed.
Best Oculus Quest games and Best Meta Quest 2 Games Update 10/12/20 – Until You Fall added. Trover Saves The Universe removed.
Best Oculus Quest games and Best Meta Quest 2 Games Update 09/13/20 – Acron, Down The Rabbit Hole, National Geographic, Rec Room, VRChat, Keep Talking, VVR, The Climb, Exorcist removed. Onward, Echo VR, Spaceteam VR, The Under Presents, FNAFVR, Phantom: Covert Ops, Trover Saves The Universe added.
Best Oculus Quest games and Best Meta Quest 2 Games Update 04/09/20 – Curious Tale of the Stolen Pets, SPT, Journey of the Gods, Face Your Fears II, Racket: Nx, Job Simulator removed. Down The Rabbit Hole, Ghost Giant, The Room VR, Eleven: Table Tennis, Vacation Simulator, OhShape added.
Best Oculus Quest games and Best Meta Quest 2 Games Update 12/06/19 – Fisherman’s Tale, Pistol Whip, Espire 1, SPT, National Geographic VR, The Climb, Curious Tale Of The Stolen Pets added. Raccoon Lagoon, Wands, Fujii, Orbus Reborn, BoxVR, Dreadhalls, Thumper removed.
Our list of best Meta Quest 2 games is designed to be updated at least three times a year.
