Not ready to plonk down your first $100 on Quest games? Thankfully there’s an impressive number of free games, experiences, apps, and social VR platforms to keep you playing before you’re paying—all of them compatible with Quest 2, Quest Pro, and Meta’s latest, Quest 3.

Looking to make your Quest 3 gaming experience even better? Don’t miss our top picks for the most essential Quest 3 accessories.

Free Quest Games

Yeeps: Hide and Seek

As a Yeep, your belly is full of stuffing used to craft anything from pillows for building to bombs for destruction. Pull items from your vast imagination and toss them into the world. The game’s intuitive block-based building makes it easy to express your creativity at any skill level.

• Developer: Trass Games
• Store link

Maestro: The Masterclass

Step on the podium and become a true orchestra conductor in Maestro: The Masterclass. Play hands free or grab a chopstick and master the real hands motions that command the orchestra through an off the rail conducting masterclass that culminates with an epic symphonic concert in a packed opera house. Good luck, Maestro!

• Developer: Double Jack
• Store link

Gorilla Tag

Like your primitive ancestors, Gorilla Tag will have you lumbering around a tree-lined arena using its unique ‘grab-the-world’ locomotion style that lets you amble around like a great ape. Chase the other apes and infect them or climb for your life as the infected chase you. Pure and simple. Make sure you’re far from TVs, furniture, babies, and pets because you will punch something in the mad dash for sweet, low-poly freedom.

• Developer: Another Axiom
• Store link

Noclip VR

Riding off the success of cult-like status of ‘The Backrooms’ Internet lore, Noclip VR lets you and online players explore the liminal spaces, solve puzzles, and escape that which lurks within. To move, you’ll need to swing your arms, and always keep in ear-shot of your friends, otherwise they won’t hear you scream. Gameplay is a bit barebones, making it feel more like something you’d find imported on a social platform like VR Chat or Rec Room, although it’s definitely invoking Gorilla Tag vibes.

• Developer: SuperFPS
• Store link

Population: One

Population: One is basically VR’s most successful battle royale, letting you climb, fly, shoot, and team-up with whoever dares. The free-to-play game does feature microtransactions, but only for cosmetics, which is nice. It’s more than just a battle royale though: you can play in the sandbox for custom maps and rules, team deathmatch with customizable loadouts, a 12v12 war mode, and more.

• Developer: BixBox VR
• Store link

Gun Raiders

Gun Raiders serves up a healthy slice of multiplayer shooter action with multiple game modes that let you jetpack through the air, climb from wall to wall, and shoot down the competition. There’s the same sort of microtransactions you see in bigger games, but it they’re all avatar skin stuff, so no pay-to-win here.

• Developer: Gun Raiders Entertainment Inc.
• Store link

Gym Class – Basketball

Gym Class – Basketball is the solution if you’re looking to shoot some hoops and dunk like you probably can’t on a physical court. Online multiplayer lets you go head-to-head for a pretty convincing game of b-ball thanks to the game’s physics-based and full-body kinematics.

• Developer: IRL Studios
• Store link

Blaston

This room-scale shooter is now free-to-play, letting you take on friends, family and foes in head-to-head 1v1 dueling. Refine your loadout and jump into the action as you scramble for weapons and send a volley of hellfire at your enemies, all the while Matrix dodging through this innovative bullet hell meets futuristic dueling game.

• Developer: Resolution Games
• Store link

Hyper Dash

Hyper Dash is a multiplayer shooter that basically fills in where Echo Combat never could (never mind that Echo Combat was never on Quest, and is now entirely defunct on Oculus PC). Letting you quick dash, sprint, and rail grind around, Hyper Dash manages to serve up an impressive number of modes, including Payload, Domination, Control Point, (Team) Deathmatch, Capture The Flag, and Elimination. You can also take on both Quest and SteamVR users thanks to the inclusion of cross-play.

• Developer: Triangle Factory
• Store link

Ultimechs

Ultimechs should look pretty familiar: it’s basically Rocket League, but instead of driving around in cars, you’re given rocket-powered fists to punch balls into the goal. Online multiplayer includes both 1v1 and 2v2 matches, offering up tons of opportunities to earn cosmetic gear that will let you outfit your battle mech into something unique. There are also now two paid battle passes too, offering up a ton of cosmetics to set you apart from the competition.

• Developer: Resolution Games
• Store link

Battle Talent Demo

Battle Talent is one of those fighting sims that let you go ham on ragdoll baddies, which in this case are wily goblins and loads of skelingtons. This physics-based roguelite action game lets you climb, run and slide your way through levels as you slash, shoot, and wield magic against your foes.

• Developer: CyDream
• Store link

Cards & Tankards

Cards & Tankards is a pretty addictive social collectible card game, letting you collect and battle friends with over 180 cards. With cross-play against SteamVR headsets (also free on PC), you may consider hosting your regular game night playing more than a few rounds in the game’s characteristic medieval fantasy tavern.

• Developer: Divergent Realities
• Store link

Vegas Infinite

No real cash gambling here, but PokerStars’ Vegas Infinite not only let you go all-in on games of Texas Hold’em, but now a full casino’s worth of table games a machines that are sure to light up the dopamine starved pleasure centers of your brain. It’s all free play, so you won’t be risking real cash unless you buy in-game chips, which cannot be turned back into real money: it’s only to keep your bankroll flush for free play.

• Developer: LuckyVR Inc
• Store link

Bait!

Since the Fishin’ Buddies update, this classic VR title has gotten a whole new lease on life as a multiplayer VR fishing game that lets you sit back and crack a cold one with the boys as you reel in the big’uns. The additional social areas also let you sit back between your fishing adventures to take part in casual mini-games.

• Developer: Resolution Games
• Store link

Gods of Gravity

Gods of Gravity is an arcade-style RTS game where you compete in an epic showdown of between celestial gods (2-8 players). Scoop up ships and fling them to capture a nearby planet, or open wormholes to teleport them across the solar system. Hold planets and moons to boost your production. Mine asteroids for the powerful resources within. And if you dare, capture the sun for the ultimate buff. Then send a massive fleet to conquer your enemy’s home planet. Last god standing wins.

• Developer: Trass Games
• Store link

Social VR Platforms

Rec Room

Without a doubt one of the most fun, and most expansive VR titles out there… and it’s free. Sure, you can pay real cash for in-game tokens to buy spiffy clothes for your avatar, but that’s really up to you. Gads of mini-games await you in both first-party creations such as the ever so popular co-op Quests—that could be games in their own right—to user-created stuff that will keep your pocket book gathering dust. It’s social VR, so meet people and have a ball for zero dollarydoos. Fair warning: there’s a ton of kids.

• Developer: Rec Room
• Store link

VRChat

If you’ve been anywhere near the Internet in the last few years, it’s likely you’ve already heard about VRChat, the user-generated social VR space filled with… well… everything you can imagine, re-pro games included like Among Us, Mario Kart, and even a version of Beat Saber. Fashion your own avatar or download the millions of user-generated avatars out there so you can embody SpongeBob, Kirito from Sword Art Online, or any one of the million anime girl avatars that you’re bound to see there.

• Developer: VRChat
• Store link

Horizon Worlds

Horizon Worlds has changed a lot since launch. It now includes more tools, user-generated content, and some more compelling first-party games which has rounded out things to make it more competitive with Rec Room and VRChat. You may want to check in just to see the state of Meta’s first-party VR social platform. Whatever the case, the price of ‘free’ is hard to argue with.

• Developer: Meta
• Store link

Continue on Page 2: Free Experiences & Apps»

The latest software update for Meta Quest, version v54, is now rolling out, bringing with it a few new quality-of-life features, such as new customization options for Home environments, in-headset app notifications, and better tracking for Quest Pro’s controller.

Customizable skyboxes let you change the sky above your head in your Home space, so you can choose from a number of presets, or even upload your own skybox to get the perfect atmosphere. Meta says its goal is to make Home Environments more personalized and customizable in the future.

The update also introduces in-headset notifications for 2D apps, such as Messenger, letting users interact with these apps without leaving their current game or app.

Meta says you’ll also be able to consolidate messages from the same source to streamline your notification feed, toggle a ‘Do Not Disturb’ mode, or disable notifications entirely for specific 2D apps. App notification are an opt-in feature that should prompt the first time you open a compatible app, so you won’t just start randomly receiving stuff, which is reassuring.

Additionally, Meta says v54 has improved Quest Touch Pro controller to enhance positional accuracy. Meta says these updates are gradually rolling out to all headsets.

Virtual Desktop has collaborated with Qualcomm to integrate the company’s Snapdragon Game Super Resolution, a software enhancement squarely targeted at increasing the wireless streaming quality and latency of PC visuals to Quest 2 and Pico devices.

Virtual Desktop is a great tool not only because it provides standalone headset users wireless access to their computers, but because its developer, Guy Godin, is constantly adding in new features to tempt users away from using built-in solutions, e.g. Air Link.

That’s a tall order since built-in stuff like Air Link are typically free and usually pretty great, letting Quest and Pico users connect to their VR-ready PCs to play games like Half-Life: Alyx, but Virtual Desktop goes a few steps further. With its PC native application developed for high quality wireless streaming, you can do things like cycle through multiple physical monitors and even connect to up to four separate computers—a feature set you probably won’t see on the Air Link change log.

Now Godin has worked with Qualcomm to integrate the company’s Snapdragon Game Super Resolution for built-in upscaling, essentially creating higher resolution images from lower resolution inputs so it can be served up to standalone headsets in higher fidelity. Check out the results below:

Because producing clearer visuals with fewer resources is the name of the game, Qualcomm says in a blog post that its techniques can also reduce wireless bandwidth, system pressure, memory, and provide power requirements.

Godin says in a Reddit post that the new upscaling works with “Potato, Low, Medium quality (up to 120fps) and High (up to 90fps), and it upscales to Ultra resolution under the hood. It can work with SSW enabled as well and doesn’t introduce any additional latency.”

You can get Virtual Desktop on Quest over at the Quest Store, priced at $20. It’s also available on Pico Neo 3 and Pico 4, and will also soon arrive on Vive Focus 3 and XR Elite too, Godin says.

Update (10:30 ET): Guy Godin reached out to Road to VR to correct that the new Snapdragon Game Super Resolution is available on Quest, Pico, and will soon come to Vive Focus 3 and XR Elite. We’ve included that in the body of the article.

We’re keeping an eye on the best Oculus Quest 2 Black Friday & Cyber Monday 2022 deals, don’t blink or you might miss the best Quest 2 sale of the year!

Updated – November 25th, 2022

The Best Oculus Quest 2 Black Friday & Cyber Monday 2022 Sales

Oculus Quest 2 (128GB)

The best Oculus Quest 2 (128GB) Black Friday & Cyber Monday 2022 sale so far is $350 bundled with Beat Saber and Resident Evil 4 VR.

That’s a $120 (25%) discount over what you’d normally pay ($50 off the headset and $70 worth of games).

You can find the deal at many retailers including: Amazon, Meta, Best Buy, Target, Walmart, and Newegg (includes a $50 gift card to Fanatics.com). At our last check, stock remains strong across the board.

Oculus Quest 2 (256GB)

The best Oculus Quest 2 (256GB) Black Friday & Cyber Monday 2022 deal so far is $430 bundled with Beat Saber and Resident Evil 4 VR.

That’s a $140 (25%) discount over what you’d normally pay ($70 off the headset and $70 worth of games).

You can find the deal at many retailers including: Amazon, Meta, Best Buy, Target, Walmart, and Newegg (out of stock).

Oculus Quest 2 Price Baseline

It’s important to keep in mind the base price of the headset so you can make an informed decision when purchasing. Without an special discount, the Quest 2 headsets cost the following:

• Oculus Quest 2 (128GB) – $400
• Oculus Quest 2 (256GB) – $500
• Oculus Quest 2 (64GB) – discontinued (don’t pay $300 for this model!)

Oculus Quest 2 Specs

Oculus Quest 2 Content Compatibility

Without being plugged into a computer, Quest 2 can only play games from the Oculus Quest library. If you plug the headset into a computer, you’ll have access to everything in the Oculus PC and SteamVR libraries as well. That means that Quest 2 is compatible with the vast majority of top VR content out there, as long as you’ve got a powerful gaming PC to plug the headset into.

Quest 2 Black Friday & Cyber Monday 2022 Game Sales

Meta is kicking off the Black Friday & Cyber Monday shopping season with seven Quest game bundles and a big sale on more than 80 individual games. If you already own any of the games in a given bundle, the price will be reduced accordingly.

Fight to Finish Pack – $40 (48% discount)

• Superhot VR
• Gorn
• Contractors

Vader Immortal Pack – $18 (40% discount)

• Vader Immortal: Episode I
• Vader Immortal: Episode II
• Vader Immortal: Episode III

Stayin’ Alive Pack – $33 (48% discount)

• Population: One
• Onward

Simulators Pack – $44 (41% discount)

• Vacation Simulator
• Thief Simulator VR: Greenview Street
• Cooking Simulator VR

Thrill of Victory Pack – $90 (40% discount)

• Creed: Rise to Glory
• The Climb 2
• Golf+

Quick Reflexes Pack – $40 (38% discount)

• Thrill of the Fight
• I Expect You to Die 2
• Pistol Whip

Enchantment Bundle Pack – $24 (40% discount)

• Wands Alliances
• Down the Rabbit Hole

At Connect 2022 this month, Meta announced the Quest content store has surpassed $1.5 billion in purchased VR content since its launch in 2019, representing continued but decelerating growth likely due mostly to market seasonality.

Update (October 18th, 2022): Article updated with the latest Quest platform revenue milestone from Meta of $1.5 billion. The article previously covered the $1 billion milestone.

Though Meta has still yet to share official unit sales for its Quest headsets, at Connect 2022 this month the company confirmed that the Quest store has surpassed $1.5 billion in purchased software since the platform launched in 2019.

This milestone shows the Quest platform continuing to grow in revenue; the average monthly store revenue has increased from $50.6 million to nearly $60 million since the last milestone the company shared in February 2022.

Though the platform continues to grow, the growth itself has decelerated somewhat. This, however, is to be expected considering the seasonality of the gaming industry which tends to ramp up considerably in Q4 (and this figure from Meta is only at the very beginning of Q4).

We’ll need to see how much activity the Quest store earns over the course of Q4 and the holidays before we can be certain that this apparent deceleration is seasonal or a more broad effect. Surely the recent price hike of Quest 2 is a notable variable that needs to be considered.

Meta hasn’t offered any detail breaking down the $1.5 billion figure, but we take it that it includes games, apps, DLC, and subscriptions sold through both the official Quest store and App Lab, and may also include cross-buy titles that were purchased to be played on the Oculus PC platform.

While Meta has never officially confirmed the number of headsets it has sold, Qualcomm (a key component supplier for the headset) estimated the figure to be in the 10 million unit range at the end of 2021.

Meta is getting ready to roll out Quest’s v46 update ahead of its Connect 2022 developer conference next week, bringing to the platform a modest set of new features alongside a new Home environment inspired by The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.

It’s only been a little over two weeks since Meta announced it was rolling out v44, which included a bunch of capture settings to make in-game video recordings better for the average user. Now, skipping over v45, Meta says it has a few things in store ahead of Connect.

When it rolls out, Quest v46 will include a new ‘Recent Apps’ section on the main menu bar, which lets you see the last three apps you opened—a bit quicker than having to pop into your library just to resume a game.

The update is also bringing a change to what online friends can see about your activity. You’ll be able to determine who can see when you’re online and what you’re playing on an app-by-app basis, meaning you’ll be able to hide your online VR activity from certain friends.

Starting October 10th, LOTR fans will also be able to step into the underground dwarven kingdom beneath the Misty Mountains, Khazad-dûm—aka Moria or the Dwarrowdelf. The Home environment will be free, but only made available for a limited time.

To access the list of available Home spaces, head into your in-headset ‘Settings’ menu and click ‘Personalization’. From there you can download and change your default home.

It seems like small potatoes, but Meta is likely holding much of their more exciting stuff for next week’s Connect conference, which takes places October 11th. There, we’re sure to hear plenty about the upcoming Quest Pro (née Project Cambria), which is set to push the ecosystem in a new direction thanks to the headset’s augmented reality capabilities.

You can learn more about what’s in store at Connect here. Make sure to follow along with us to hear all of the latest VR news next week when the one-day online event kicks off.

Quest’s v44 software update is rolling out now, and it’s serving up some long-overdue video capture options along with it, like the ability to record in 16:9 aspect ratio, and increase frame rate and bit rate for video capture. Those features were once only available through SideQuest, and now it seems Meta is equally intent on getting its youngest users away from the sideloading software entirely.

Data miners initially projected the changes to come in v43, but now the new v44 update is here with some options we’ve been patiently waiting for. Meta says Quest users can now go into an ‘Advanced Camera Settings’ menu and change the default format and resolution for videos, bringing more of SideQuest’s creature comforts to official firmware.

The v44 update is rolling out gradually and will let you record in landscape (16:9) instead of square (1:1), and increase both frame rate and bit rate. SideQuest users can tell you though that recording at higher frame rates at the max 1,920×1,080 resolution can cause stuttering in certain games, and of course take up more storage.

Additionally, Meta has included a new option to let parents remove developer mode on Quest 2, thereby blocking SideQuest for kids entirely. The popular sideloading software can only be installed by entering developer mode first, which then lets you install SideQuest for easy access to a third-party library of games and experiences. While parents have been able to lock specific apps on the Quest platform, that developer mode loophole has no doubt let some kids sidestep content restrictions.

It’s clear the company has been on a mission to effectively reign in sideloading by gradually offering basic feature parity with SideQuest. App Lab, Meta’s official experimental game distribution channel introduced in early 2021, has much of the same content now which was once only available through SideQuest, such as game demos and early access games that haven’t made the cut to be included in the full store. One thing Meta hasn’t done though is stop its users from sideloading all together.

Since it’s in the name of keeping kids safe, there’s likely to be little complaint from regular users who won’t be affected. That would be a different story if the company decided to entirely block sideloading altogether though. Meta has historically seen significant pushback whenever it’s attempted to wholly close down its headsets from third-party software.

Back in 2016 the company sought to block the Revive service for SteamVR which allowed non-Meta headsets like Vive to play exclusive Rift content from the official store. That was back in the PC days though, which Meta has long forgotten with the entrance of its Quest standalone headsets. Now it seems the strategy is to offer features that are on-par (or good enough from an end user standpoint) to keep people away from straying too far from the Meta Store and its App Lab experimental outlet.

In late 2020 Meta began requiring the use of Facebook accounts for all new users of its Oculus headsets, the culmination of a trend of deeper integration between Oculus products and Facebook services. Although the company is soon planning to only require a ‘Meta Account’ to use Quest, the company is likely to continue tracking similar things and offer similar privacy settings. Here’s a look at what privacy settings are currently offered to you and what data Meta collects on your VR usage.

Updated – July 25th, 2022

Where to Find Oculus Quest 2 Privacy Settings

Although there’s not a lot of customization of privacy settings available right now, at least Meta makes them easy to change. In fact, you can do it right now from your web browser by checking out the Oculus Privacy Center and then scrolling down to Privacy Settings.

Here what you can control and what each option does:

Who will see your activity on Oculus?

This controls how your current activity in VR is displayed on your profile (like which app you’re using). If you don’t want anyone to know what you’re currently up to in VR, change this to ‘Only Me’.

Who can see your friends list on Oculus?

This controls who can see your list of VR friends through your Oculus profile. If you don’t want anyone to see who your VR friends are, change this to ‘Only Me’.

Who will see your Facebook name on Oculus?

This controls which name people will see associated with your Oculus profile. Depending upon your setting, people may see your Oculus username or the first and last name of your Facebook profile. This also controls whether or not people can search for your Oculus profile by your Facebook name. If you don’t want anyone to see your real name in VR or be able to find your Oculus profile with your real name, change this to ‘Only Me’.

Who can receive push notifications to know when you’re active in VR and your activity?

This controls whether your friends can get notifications about what you’ve done recently in VR, like whether you tried a new game for the first time or got a new achievement. If you don’t want anyone to be able to get notifications about you regarding these kinds of activities, change this to ‘Only Me.’

There’s one other key setting you can change: whether or not Meta stores recordings of your voice captured by the Voice Commands feature; by default any time you use Voice Commands, a voice recording of the command will be stored on Meta’s servers.

You can only disable this option from within your headset, here’s how:

1. In your headset, click on the clock in the Oculus menu bar to open Quick Actions, then click the Settings button at the top right (gear icon).
2. In the Settings section select ‘System’
3. In the System menu, select ‘Voice Commands’
4. In the Voice Commands menu, select ‘Voice Storage’
5. In the Voice Storage menu, switch off the ‘Store Voice Commands’ and ‘Store Transcripts’ options

How to See What Data Meta Has Collected About Your VR Usage

Meta stores information about what you do in VR for various purposes, including basic account functionality (like knowing which games you’ve purchased), and advertising (like showing you an ad in your Facebook feed for Oculus games you recently searched for in your headset).

You can see a fairly comprehensive list of the data associated with your Oculus account by accessing the View Your Information section of the Oculus Privacy Center. Here’s the overview of what’s shown there:

• Profile Information
  • Real Name
  • First Name
  • Last Name
  • Username
  • Email Address
  • Avatar 2D Image
  • Profile Photo
• Other Information About You
  • Language
  • Current and Past Profile Photos
• Information About Your Account
  • Account Creation Time
  • Account Creation Source
  • Account Status
  • Your Apps and Content
  • Subscribed Events
  • Apps
  • Sent gifts
  • Recently Viewed Items
  • In-app Entitlements
  • Sent application invite
  • Received application invites
  • Achievements
  • Named Rooms
  • Cloud Saves
  • Cloud Saves v2
  • Challenges Admined
  • Challenges Participated In
• Your Ratings and Reviews
• Information About Your Devices
  • Online Status History
  • Oculus Home Status
  • Device Sharing (setting)
  • Devices
  • VR Device Sync Data
• Your Settings and Preferences
  • Who can see the apps you own and their activity (setting)
  • Notification preferences (setting)
  • Allow non-Oculus apps (setting)
  • Incognito Mode (setting)
  • Who can see your Facebook name on Oculus (setting)
  • Who can recieve push notifications to see when you’re available in VR (setting)
  • Who can see your friends list (setting)
  • Who can see your activity (setting)
  • Email Subscriptions
  • Interests
  • Single sign-on developers
• Social Connections
  • Following (people you follow on Horizon)
  • Followers (people who follow you on Horizon)
• Friends
• Security and Login Information
  • Active Sessions
  • Location History
  • Login History
  • App Presence Activity
• Rift Home Information
  • Last Login
  • Total Homes
  • Active Homes
  • Item Uploads
  • Place Uploads
  • Your Items
• Your Voice Activities

Can Facebook See Video From Quest’s Cameras?

As for what’s seen through Quest’s on-board cameras, Meta has told us previously that it does not send any video or scans from the camera to its servers, though it didn’t rule out the possibility in the future. Indeed, Meta doesn’t show any camera-related information in its list of information that it has about your account.

Your VR Data and Facebook Data May Be Cross-referenced

The list further above is the data Meta captures about your VR use, but if you’re using Quest 2, your VR data is inherently associated with data collected by Meta on your non-VR activity via Facebook. Thus it’s also worth looking over that information to know what kind of data will potentially be used to influence your activity in VR.

You can find the data Meta has collected on your non-VR activities by visiting the Access Your Information page on Facebook.

The Fine Print

If you want to dig in deeper to understand what Facebook legally says about its collection and usage of your data, here are the key documents that lay out the company’s position:

• Facebook Data Policy
• Supplemental Oculus Data Policy

Meta today announced “major improvements” coming to Quest 2’s controllerless hand-tracking capability. The ‘re-architected computer vision and machine learning approach’ is said to specifically improve reliability for overlapping or fast moving hands and specific gestures. The SDK and OS update to enable these improved capabilities will begin rolling out today.

Meta first introduced controllerless hand-tracking to the original Quest back in late 2019 where it remained an ‘experimental’ feature until mid-2020 when it began allowing developers to use the new capability in their apps.

Since then we’ve seen a handful of games incorporate hand-tracking into their apps and even the launch of some games that exclusively rely on hand-tracking, like Hand Physics Lab (2021) and Unplugged: Air Guitar (2021).

Now, a little less than a year later, Meta says it’s bringing “major improvements” to Quest 2’s hand-tracking capability (the company confirmed the original Quest will not receive these improvements).

The improvements come thanks to a ‘re-architected computer vision and machine learning approach’ which improves the robustness of hand-tracking in key ways.

With the 1.0 version of hand-tracking on Quest 2, the system had particular trouble recognizing the user’s hands when they obstructed or touched each other and when moving quickly. From the user’s point of view, their virtual hands would disappear momentarily during these lost tracking moments and then reappear once the system detected them again.

With the 2.0 version of hand-tracking on Quest 2, Meta says the system will handle those obstructed and fast-moving scenarios much better, leading to fewer instances of disappearing hands. The company calls it a “step-function improvement in tracking continuity.”

The update is also said to improve gesture recognition in the hand-tracking system. Gesture recognition looks for specific hand-poses which the system detects as unique and can therefore be used as inputs. For instance, pinching is one such gesture and it’s employed to allow users to ‘click’ on elements in the Quest interface.

In the demo below, a ‘grab’ gesture is used to hold the virtual object, and the improvement in robustness for clapping is demonstrated as well.

– – — – –

Meta says the hand-tracking 2.0 update on Quest 2 will begin rolling out via an SDK and OS update starting today. The company says developers who have already built hand-tracking into their apps won’t need to change any API calls in order to use the upgraded system, though it won’t be automatically enabled. The company says developers can reference “upcoming documentation” for enabling it in their apps.

The move should bring Quest 2’s hand-tracking a step closer to Ultraleap, which has maintained some of the best hand-tracking in the industry to date, though it isn’t clear yet how the two systems will stack up.

At GDC last month, Meta shared the clearest look yet at the number of apps reaching various revenue milestones on the Quest platform. So far, 124 apps have earned $1 million in revenue or more, while 8 have exceeded $20 million.

In February Meta said the total amount of money spent on the Quest store had surpassed $1 billion, showing just how much spending on the marketplace has grown since the launch of Quest 2.

Last month at GDC, Meta’s Director of Content Ecosystem, Chris Pruett, shared the clearest look yet at how many apps are seeing material success on the Quest store over the last year. Lining up the data with some previously shared figures gives us an interesting look at how the Quest store is progressing over time.

First, here are the numbers Pruett shared at GDC, which include data up to February 2022.

An important not here is that these revenue buckets are exclusive, meaning 35 of the apps have exceeded $1 million but not exceeded $2 million (and so on). In total, 124 apps have exceeded the $1 million mark.

Quest Apps Reaching Revenue Milestones Over Time

Lining up the data with the same figures shared by Meta previously gives us an idea of how things are trending over time. First is a naive look at the data points side-by-side:

But this doesn’t account for the time between data points, nor differences in seasonal sales volume. With some interpolation we can account for time and seasonal differences by looking at a yearly average of all apps exceeding $1 million in revenue.

Of our three charts so far, this is the most normalized way to look at the data. The chart above tells us how many apps are reaching the $1 million milestone each year, on average. The number is increasing overall, which is a good sign, though the rate of the increase is slowing.

One variable that could significantly impact how we understand this data is that rate at which apps are being allowed into the store (since Meta hand-picks which apps do and don’t go on the Quest store). The number of apps in the store has been growing at a surprisingly linear rate, so we can say it likely isn’t having much of an impact on the chart above.

Granted, many of Quest’s early apps have been previously successful VR games that were ported to the headset, which makes their success more assured than the growing number of brand new VR apps that have launched as the platform has aged. This could account for the slowing rate of apps reaching $1 million each year on Quest.

Continue on Page 2: Quest Store Revenue Distribution, Top Earning Apps »

Last year Meta added the ability to send simple invite links to your friends which would bring you together into the same place in VR. It’s a great way to easily join up with friends in VR, but it seems very few people know the feature exists.

Back in August of 2021, Meta extended its Oculus platform capabilities to allows users to create invite links from their smartphone and then send the link to their friends—by text, email, DM, etc—that when clicked would automatically launch the correct app and send all users into the same space to play together.

And it works great. I’ve been using the feature heavily with Beat Saber to join up with friends for multiplayer sessions. It’s as easy as saying “Hey meet me in Beat Saber in 20 minutes, here’s the link.”

And though the feature requires per-app implementation from developers, many of Quest’s most popular social games are already supported, like Walkabout Mini Golf, VRChat, Rec Room, Demeo, Horizon Worlds, and more. Invite links work with Rift apps too as long as both you and your friends are using the Oculus PC version of the app (or the game supports cross-platform play between Quest and Oculus PC).

But from my experience with VR users both personally and professionally, very few seem to know that ‘invite links’ exists at all. And it’s hard to blame them… the feature is fairly hidden and Meta doesn’t do a good job of telling users what invite links do or how to use them. So here I’m going to explain how they work, and why it’s problematic that more people don’t know about them.

How to Use Invite Links on Quest

If you want to create a Quest invite link to join friends in VR, start by launching your Oculus smartphone app.

1. In the Oculus smartphone app click the ‘Menu’ button (three lines icon)
2. Select ‘Invite Links’
3. Select a supported app (ie: Walkabout Mini Golf)
4. Select the destination that you want to go within the app (ie: the specific course within Walkabout Mini Golf that you want to play)
5. Select ‘Create Link’
6. Use the ‘Share’ button to share the link through whatever channel you’d like
7. Use the ‘Launch’ button to launch the app you chose on your headset and join your friends

Invite links are the perfect way to pre-plan a VR session with your friends and easily meet in the same place without fiddling with any menus or friends lists. Once you’re ready to play, press the ‘Launch’ button from the invite link and your headset will load the selected game and should automatically send you to the same location as your friends. Invite links on Quest are valid for 24 hours from their creation.

Why Don’t More People Know About Invite Links and Why Does it Matter?

Well, I think Meta is primarily to blame here. The Oculus smartphone app interface is far from perfect, and it confusingly separates the invite link functionality from your friends list.

Most users who intend to invite a friend to join them would naturally navigate to their friends list to find the friend they want to send an invite to. However, if you go to your friends list in the Oculus smartphone app (not so intuitively hidden in the ‘Menu’ section and called ‘People’), you actually can’t invite friends to a game that way.

Invite links (also hidden in the ‘Menu’ section) are a totally separate construct, and, as far as I’ve seen, they’re never tutorialized. So unless you know what an ‘invite link’ is at first glance, you might have just glossed over that button. If you want to invite friends from your Oculus friends list then you’d need to create an invite link first, then go back to your friends list and send the link as an Oculus DM. It works but it could be a much smoother and more unified process.

So why does it matter that more people don’t know about invite links? Well, beyond the obvious (it’s a hassle-free way to get together with friends in VR that everyone can benefit from), if few people know they exist then few people are using them. And if few people are using them, then VR developers won’t be particularly encouraged to spend time adding the feature to their games. After all, if hardly anyone is using invite links, why bother?

An ecosystem where all Quest apps support invite links (and by extension Destinations, Deep Linking, and Rich Presence features), would make it far more fluid to connect with friends in VR and even move from one app to another together.

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I hope you’ll give invite links a try, and if you find them convenient, spread the word! Over time hopefully we’ll see more and more Quest apps support the feature making it easier for everyone to play in VR together.

Last year Meta announced that it would finally be bring social features to the Quest home environments, allowing users to easily get together in the same virtual space. We aren’t there yet, but the company has taken a first step in that direction by adding node-based locomotion to all of Quest’s home spaces.

Back in October Meta announced that it “soon” planned to upgrade Quest’s home space into a social area where users can congregate together (without a third-party app) and do basic activities like watch videos and launch into other VR apps together. The company calls it ‘Horizon Home’.

Well, the actual social part of Horizon Home isn’t here yet, but the company has taken a first step toward it.

At launch, all Quest home spaces placed the user in one specific spot from which they couldn’t move.

Now, as of at least Quest v38, all home spaces have an array of nodes which users can move between by pointing their controller and using the thumbstick. Moving between nodes with controllerless hand-tracking alone doesn’t seem to work yet.

Ostensibly this will allow multiple users to navigate the same spaces. It isn’t clear how many users will be supported in a single Quest home space (though voice parties currently support up to 8 people).

Quest’s home environments appear to be using typical real-time rendering, so it isn’t clear why Meta has decided to limit users to moving between specific nodes rather than letting them move anywhere within a pre-determined safe area. Especially odd because users can navigate away from any individual node by physically moving within their playspace. Furthermore, the distance between nodes is decidedly ‘impersonal’, and further away than friends hanging out in the same area would likely want to stand.

So while movement within the Quest home spaces is a first step toward social features, it will hopefully see some refinement by the time users are actually able to join each other in the same space.

It seems the Oculus brand is finally departing physical retail. While Quest 2 boxes emblazoned with the new Meta name and logo are already on store shelves in the US, the swap from Oculus to Meta still has a ways to go.

Spotted by Upload VR’s Ian Hamilton, Meta has rolled out the freshly-rebranded Quest 2s to Walmart, one of its largest retail partners. So far, online retailers like Amazon, Target, NewEgg, and yes… also Walmart’s website still list the headset as ‘Oculus’ Quest 2.

And it doesn’t seem the company is worried about any of the self-inflicted brand confusion either, as the newly dubbed Meta Quest 2 oddly sits right next to a stack of the headsets in its original Oculus packing.

Walmart now carrying “Meta” Quest 2 at this store in Bentonville where it is testing drone delivery. pic.twitter.com/LkXssaPIS7

— Ian Hamilton (@hmltn) April 5, 2022

Look a little closer and you can see the 256GB version of Meta Quest 2, priced at $400, is also still labeled on shelves as ‘Oculus Quest 2’.

The transformation from Facebook to Meta started back when the company announced in October 2021 it was putting a new emphasis on XR by becoming a “metaverse company.”

This also led to a progressive roll-back of the Oculus brand in effort to reposition its latest VR headset closer to its primary mission. And it appears that the rebranding has a ways to go, as the soft launch maneuver has yet to address some key areas.

Oculus.com is still the main digital storefront, which mentions the name Oculus a half-dozen times in tandem with Meta.

If you want to buy a Quest 2 direct from Meta, you’re also still buying an ‘Oculus Quest 2’ under the Oculus warranty. Need product support? That Meta Support’s job, though they help you fill out Oculus bug reports for Oculus devices. The Meta Quest YouTube channel also still features the old Oculus logo.

Quest users however have recently seen the iconic Oculus startup image replaced in-headset with the new Meta branding. So there’s that.

Meta announced it’s returning this year with another installment of its Quest Gaming Showcase, which means we’ll soon be getting our annual download on upcoming Quest games and updates coming this year.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg today announced the second annual Meta Quest Gaming Showcase, which is slated to take place on April 20th at 10am PT (local time here).

Meta says we can expect new game announcements, gameplay first-looks, updates on games coming in the next year, and “a whole lot of surprises.”

Ruth Bram, Executive Producer at Oculus Studios, will be returning to present the show this year.

Last year’s showcase, which was previously called the Oculus Gaming Showcase, was mostly centered on updates to platform favorites such as Pistol Whip, The Climb 2, The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners, and revealed footage of I Expect You To Die 2, Resident Evil 4, and Lone Echo II.

We’re hoping this year’s show focuses more on wholly new games. You can follow along with us on April 20th by watching the showcase via Twitch, Facebook, YouTube, and Oculus TV.

Earlier this month Meta acknowledged a Quest account issue that which led to some users being logged out of their headsets and others missing their library of apps entirely. A “majority” of affected accounts have been fixed, according to Meta, but for some the issues have lingered for nearly two weeks.

Update (March 22, 2022): Following Quest account issues which were purportedly fixed for a “majority” of users within a few days, some are still awaiting a fix from Meta to restore their headsets to proper working order.

The company has updated its official support site with a new header which reads:

The majority of account issues have been resolved and we’re now working on a solution for some users who had created or linked different accounts while their original one was unavailable.

The company created a support forum post to catalog any updates on the matter; the last update came on March 16th in which the company said that “every account that is currently still having trouble will be emailed the moment our engineering team’s solution is ready to go.”

So far as we know, that solution has yet to be sent out to those who are still having issues with their headset.

The lingering issue seems to be an offshoot of the initial account problems; per Meta’s messages, the ongoing account issues are likely the result of users who attempted to merge or modify the connection between their Facebook and Oculus accounts during the initial outage, and now the company is trying to untangle the mess.

The original article, which summarized the start of the Quest account issues, continues below.

Original Article (March 11th, 2022): If your Quest has been acting weird this week, you’re not alone. User reports of account issues began cropping up earlier this week with problems reportedly ranging from simply being logged out of the headset to accounts appearing to be reset to ‘new’ and losing access to their game libraries.

Meta first acknowledged the issue on Twitter on Wednesday and said it was investigating the issues. As of Thursday evening the company said that the “vast majority of impacted accounts have been restored,” but that it’s still working on fixing the issues for others.

It isn’t clear how many users have been impacted, but it was apparently enough to cause Meta to put a large temporary banner at the top of its support site to preempt those coming to report the issue; the banner reads “we’re currently investigating reports of account issues, including log-outs and missing app libraries.”

Though Meta says that the majority of accounts have been fixed, the crowd-sourced outage website Downdetector shows issue reports for ‘Oculus’ that are significantly higher than the baseline, suggesting the company still has some work to do before everything is straightened out.