Minecraft has been available on basically every VR headset outside of Quest up until now, but that’s changing with the beta release of ‘QuestCraft’, the unofficial Quest port for Minecraft Java Edition.

The project was thought long dead, however the QuestCraft team has just released its first public build of the standalone Minecraft port for Quest 2.

This includes a majority of the fun and flexibility of Minecraft Java Edition along with motion controller support so you can mine, chop, slash, and build with your own two hands in VR.

That means you’ll need a legit copy of Minecraft Java Edition to play, although installing and playing it on Quest is free. Take a look at the gameplay teaser below:

As a beta, QuestCraft still requires some love in terms of multiplayer. Servers are up and working, however local LAN games are easier and more accessible if you’re looking for a quick out-of-the-box way of playing Minecraft multiplayer with a friend.

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To play QuestCraft, you’ll need to download the APK to your Quest using SideQuest, the unofficial sideloading software and library for Quest. Here’s a quick explainer on how (and why) to use SideQuest.

For now, installing QuestCraft isn’t as simple as going to SideQuest and downloading it though. You’ll need to jump through a few hoops to get it working, including installing the QuestCraft launcher, plugging in a few extra files, and granting all requested permissions.

The team provided a short explainer on how to install QuestCraft:

The team says QuestCraft is still fairly slow since Minecraft Java Edition hasn’t been optimized for standalone headsets. They recommend a few mods to help with performance issues in the near-term:

  • Cull Leaves – Culls leaves that are behind other leaves
  • Starlight – Improves the lighting engine
  • LazyDFU – Removes DFU Caching
  • C^2M-Engine – Speeds up chunk generation (Back up your worlds before using!!)
  • Lithium – General purpose performance mod

Check out the full installation instructions and links over at the project’s GitHub for more.

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Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 3,500 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • Cless

    Yeah… why would you do this though…? You already got the Quest 2, just use it on the PC and play it at high framerates. If you have a good computer, mod the hell out of it. I mean, I’m running the game on VR with raytracing enabled ffs lol

    • Sean

      I expect not everyone has a gaming PC. Sidequest will work with an Intel potato powered PC, so just because they have a PC to install the Java version doesn’t mean that same Pc is PCVR capable.

      Personally, I like having Minecraft on the Quest 2 natively. I probably use the Quest 2 standalone 80% of the time and for PCVR 10%. My actual PCVR tethered headset the last 10% of the time….if that.

      • Cless

        Fair, not everyone does have a gaming PC… But my gaming PC has 2016 specs… so an average barely gaming PC should suffice for that nowadays
        Still, a good point, I get that not using the PC is quite convenient (even if not my cup of tea!).
        I guess I played too much base minecraft and can’t have fun with that alone anymore, so its a me thing most likely.

        EDIT: wtf, not even half a second passes and already have that frigging upvote from the bot, what the actual hell

        • asdf

          its so funny to me that youd say something like…
          “Fair, not everyone does have a gaming pc… but my gaming PC….” lol
          yes were all here to hear about what YOU have at YOUR house cause thats the standard right? and everyone wants what you want right?

          just thought it was funny how people can’t think about what others might want right away :)

          • Cless

            Don’t you think, that MAYBE there was a point to me mentioning it? I don’t know, let’s see… Maybe the sentence after it will tell you something about it…
            You know, the fact that I compared my gaming pc to a low-tier/non gaming pc from today literally the next sentence, then mentioning how those low power current pcs should be able to do the same :O

            But nah… I probably just wanted people to REALLY know that I own a 2016 gaming PC, that was definitely it ;)

    • Rosko

      what mod for vr rt?

  • xyzs

    The crappy Java version for a standalone port? Makes no sense.
    The use of Java in Android was such an horrible idea.
    Now this unoptimized crap language drains smartphones AND standalone VR headsets batteries faster…