Sneaking suspicion there’s a Quest 3 or Quest 3S under the tree? Whether you’re into active games, puzzles, or just want to slice or shoot the ever-living crap out of something, we’re here to help you settle into your new headset with a few games that should keep you playing for hundreds of hours yet to come.
In games, nothing breaks player flow like a loading screen, and in virtual reality this problem is amplified tenfold. ‘Presence’ or ‘immersion’, the magical yet fragile feeling of ‘being there’, is what makes VR so special. When a player is suddenly teleported out of a fantastical world and into a cold, black expanse with a solitary loading bar, the illusion is instantly shattered. Worse yet, unaccounted mini-loads can cause frame rate stutters and subsequent VR sickness. In this Guest Article, VR developer Charlie Cochrane explores a range techniques for designing around immersion-breaking loading screens.
Google is starting to roll out new photorealistic avatars which they call “Likeness”. Similar to Apple’s Personas, Likeness avatars are generated by scanning a user’s face, then animated it with input from the sensors on a headset. The avatars can be used to represent the user in video call apps, but Google doesn’t yet have a way to have spatial meetings with other Likeness avatars.
Meta appears to be planning to raise the price of its VR headsets moving forward, according to a recent internal memo, which company leaders hope will combat rising costs. Meta may also be retiring the Quest 3 and 3S line a little later than expected.
Meta has partnered with Coldplay in a big way, soon bringing the British pop-rock band’s music to Beat Saber, and an immersive concert to Horizon Worlds before the New Year.
Meta may be pushing back the release of an upcoming XR headset that tethers to a pocketable compute puck. Meanwhile, the company says its next-gen Quest will be a “large upgrade” over the current generation.
HTC announced today that its VIVERSE immersive social platform has reached 1 million monthly-active users, a major milestone. The platform is accessible on flatscreens and VR, so it’s unclear what portion of users are visiting with headsets.
Google is rolling out a beta version of PC Connect, a free first-party virtual desktop app for Android XR. With the app, users can stream content from their Windows PC. Desktop apps work, of course, but Google says it has also optimized PC Connect for streaming flat games, and ensured that content on the screen works with Gemini.
Set to launch in 2026, XREAL Aura is the first pair of see-through AR glasses to run Android XR. Here are the impressions from my first hands-on.
Apple’s Vice President of Human Interface design, Alan Dye, is leaving the company to lead a new studio within Meta’s Reality Labs division. The move appears to be aimed at raising the bar on the user experience of Meta’s glasses and headsets.
Thief VR: Legacy of Shadow does a respectable job of bringing the storied series to VR for the first time, all the while offering up one of the best stealth games currently in the medium. Some stumbling blocks keep it from being the end-all VR stealth game of my dreams, and it’s painful to know how surprisingly close it actually got.
Valve says that Steam Frame won’t be able to display traditional (‘flat’) games in stereoscopic 3D at launch, but they are looking into the feature for future development.
