Perspective in the Apple Immersive Video series Elevated is not just about altitude. It is rooted in how narrative, visual and audio choices work together to give those vantage points meaning.

Switzerland is the newest episode of Elevated available, following sweeping journeys over islands of Hawai’i (Episode 1) and Maine (Episode 2).

Across all three episodes of the series so far, a consistent creative approach gives each immersive episode the feeling of an authentic, elevated experience that grounds sweeping landscapes in context and perspective.

Storytelling That Creates A Sense of Journey

Majestic landscapes are never presented as simply beautiful and often unreachable views. Each episode carries visitors over dramatic terrain with local narrators framing these destinations as living, ever-changing environments. From landscapes shaped by powerful forces of nature in Hawai‘i to the breathtaking beauty of autumn in Maine, the episodes reinforce that our earth is alive and constantly evolving. This storytelling makes each journey over the real, visually stunning ultra-high-resolution moments captured in 180-degree stereoscopic video feel that much more precious.

Consistent Scale and Changing Perspectives

Another important creative choice of Elevated is not just the heights it reaches, but the scale it preserves. Visitors’ sense of scale in relation to these environments remains consistent and true to life, creating the sense of presence as oneself within each destination. From a small number of moments where you begin seemingly standing on the ground in Maine and Switzerland, to rising above snowcapped mountains, rugged coastlines, or dense forest - the visitor's proportion to the landscapes holds. This has not always been the case with Apple Immersive content.

Also, while these moments on the ground are limited in the series so far, beginning at ground level before lifting into the grandeur of elevated views makes a meaningful difference. The moment in Switzerland when I'm standing at the base of mountains is now a visceral memory for me, just as much as flying over The Alps. Seeing the detail of fall leaves up close at the beginning of Maine deepened my appreciation for the vast canopy revealed moments later from above. Establishing proportion on the ground reinforces the scale that follows. The contrast is what gives the ascent weight. Elevation feels more powerful when I understand the texture, distance, and human scale of what exists below.

Camera Movement and Transitions That Feel Natural

Movement in immersive experiences is critical to get right when it's not the visitor controlling it. The speed and steadiness of the camera movement in this series offers a consistent almost ethereal quality to the pace of the flights giving visitors time to look around and absorb detail before the perspective shifts. Transitions between views also feel fluid, and not rushed or abrupt. Instead, the change in scene often feels as if perfectly timed to when visitors may have simply chosen to turn their head to look out another window into new scenery. Like previous episodes, Switzerland maintains that discipline, guiding visitors through an expansive journey across the country’s hard-to-reach terrain.

Action Entering From Outside the Frame Challenges Immersion

In the opening scene of Switzerland, the episode begins at ground level, allowing me to register the scale of the surrounding mountains and the quiet beauty of the ice skating path in front of me before ascent. For the first time in the series, it also experiments with introducing people into the opening scene before ascent. Two skaters enter from my right on the ice path and glide ahead in the direction I had already taken in. Instinctively, I turn to see where they came from and meet the edge of the frame of the 180-degree immersive video. In earlier episodes, I was engaged with the details of the evolving landscapes in my field of view and never felt compelled to look beyond them. Here, the entry point pulled my attention outside the designed field of view. Had the skaters entered and locked eyes with me, or stopped to playfully pick up some snow, for example, the moment could have anchored focus forward instead of prompting curiosity toward uncaptured space.

Frictionless Control Expands Moments

Epic content like this benefits from how naturally Apple Vision Pro features can be controlled. The visuals of Switzerland are so expansive and pausing to take them in with a simple gaze and pinch feels instinctive, not disruptive to the sense of immersion. My time in Switzerland felt longer than eight minutes because of that. I paused when up-close with an old castle overlooking a village. I easily found the beginning of the scene to fly right next to the Matterhorn mountain multiple times.

More of This Please

Switzerland reinforces what Elevated consistently demonstrates. Beautifully detailed visuals, compelling narrative, thoughtful pacing and preserved scale work together to create a true sense of journey. In a medium where spectacle is easy, creating the illusion of immersion is harder, especially with a limited field of view. Elevated proves that the most compelling immersive travel experiences are not only defined by where you go, but by how thoughtfully you are taken there with the best technologies available to the storytellers.

Gamitronics and Evolution Publishing have announced that Darts VR2: Bullseye is coming soon to Meta Quest, PlayStation VR2, and PC VR via Steam. The sequel to Darts VR combines classic darts games with "high-octane" modes and arcade-style gameplay, perhaps best exemplified by the game's "Zombies" mode, described by the developers as a mode that "will test your aim under pressure as hordes of the undead come for a bite!"

A teaser trailer shows a highly stylized arcade look, with a green zombie's hand shattering the earth, rising up to grip a flaming dartboard. It's pretty intense.

The arcade flavor of Darts VR2: Bullseye is joined by more realistic game modes, such as 501, Around the World, and more. Online leaderboards, achievements, in-game pundit analysis, and customizable cosmetics round out the feature set.

A release date has not yet been announced, but you can wishlist Darts VR2: Bullseye now on the Meta Horizon Store, Steam, and PlayStation.

To say I like Rhythm games is a cosmic understatement.

I've poured thousands of hours into the genre. I helped localize the English release of the Dreamcast cult classic Cool Cool Toon, and spent nine months hounding Masaya Matsuura, creator of PaRappa the Rapper, for an interview. When I had the opportunity to speak with Shawn Layden, former President of Sony Interactive Entertainment America, all we talked about was Vib Ribbon.

There's no other way to say it. I am obsessed with rhythm games.

So when I say that Peak Rhythm is a very good musical rhythm game, you've simply got to trust me.

It's the Climb

As is typical of many rhythm games, the gameplay hook behind Peak Rhythm is somewhat hard to describe. Despite the developers' somewhat obtuse explanation that Peak Rhythm is "a VR rhythm-climbing game where music drives momentum," I wasn't really sure what to expect. Once I'd spent a few minutes in the game, however, it all began to make sense.

The simplest way to describe Peak Rhythm is to say it's a game in which you climb in time with the music. You begin each stage standing face to face with a bare climbing wall, upon which handholds appear at various times and in various places. These handholds are color-coded, and surrounded by a ring which closes in time with elements of the game's music. The goal of Peak Rhythm is to grab the various handholds with the appropriate hand at exactly the right time (when the ring finishes closing).

Pink handholds are meant to be grabbed with your pink (left) hand, while green handholds are meant to be grabbed with your green (right) hand. Handholds may appear above, below, or to your sides, and on more advanced stages, reaching them may require complicated crossovers, leaps, or drops. Blue handholds can be grabbed with either hand, and it's important to be mindful of what handhold is coming next, after the blue one, so that you have the appropriate hand available when needed.

Grabbing a handhold with the wrong hand or with criminally poor timing will cause you to fall off the climbing wall onto a platform that follows closely beneath (think of it as a rope that doesn't allow you to fall too far). When this happens, you have to scramble your way back up the wall and grab the next available handhold. The music never stops, so getting back into the groove as quickly as possible is important.

Special handholds also exist to spice things up. There's a twist mechanic, in which certain handholds require rotation in time with the music. It's an interesting wrinkle that feels much better in practice than I expected.

The goal of each stage is to grab the handholds at the right time with the correct hand, to scramble yourself along the wall in time with the music. The better you do, the higher you climb in both the game world and on the game's leaderboards.

More Than a Feeling

With music and rhythm games, especially in VR, it's all about feeling. How does the game make you feel? Does the action match with the rhythm? Do you feel like you're experiencing the music in a meaningful way, and does the gameplay support this?

When I saw Peak Rhythm's first gameplay trailer, I had doubts. I couldn't imagine how effectively what I was seeing would translate to a gameplay experience. To be honest, I thought it looked tiresome. By the end of my first climb, I realized I had been wrong.

Peak Rhythm's gameplay is tight and refined, distilled down to an essential core that feels perfect. The act of lifting and placing your hands to the beat of a song is intuitive and instantly rewarding. The songs are well-designed to complement the gameplay, which is intelligently balanced and consistently interesting. There's an intangible element here which exists in all of the best rhythm games, which allows you to ebb into and out of a sort of flow state, where the music and gameplay becomes so well-linked that playing the game feels the same as listening to a great album.

The built-in soundtrack features original tracks spanning several genres, including drum & bass, dubstep, and house, with tracks from FEISTLING, Killin' Void, Ion Diary, and funiel, and while I admittedly hadn't heard of these artists prior to my time with Peak Rhythm, their tunes are consistently great and the entire set list suits the game perfectly.

On top of all that, Peak Rhythm will get you moving. We're not talking about Beat Saber levels of activity, but you will burn a few calories, and that's at least a happy side-effect of playing a fun game.

In addition to the game's native tracks, Zeitlos Interactive has also developed a beatmap editor with which users can create their own custom stages using their own music files.

This feature immediately puts me in mind of Sony's Vib Ribbon, which I previously mentioned, a PlayStation game released in 1999 that invented and patented a method for creating custom levels based on the audio files from any CD that the player might insert into the system. While that now-ancient PlayStation game could automatically generate levels from any music file on its own, Peak Rhythm's custom song system relies on human users to do the work of creating a beatmap and custom stage.

Still, user-generated content hypothetically gives the game near-infinite replayability, plus a sort of custom soundtrack perfectly suited to each player's unique taste.

The developers have let me know that "the custom song feature works through a standalone desktop app." And while this hasn't been published during my pre-release play period, I'm told it should be available at launch, and that a "work-in-progress version is currently circulating within Impact Labs (QA and playtesting)."

Trouble

All that said, no game is perfect and Peak Rhythm is no exception. The visuals are uninspired. While this graphical simplicity makes the rhythm gameplay more legible, I can't help but be disappointed by the general lack of visual interest present in the immediate environment, in the backgrounds, in the central starting hub and menus... essentially, everywhere.

We're supposed to be climbing a skyscraper at night. This should be the coolest looking thing I've ever seen. But as it exists today, it's bland.

And while the soundtrack is great, as mentioned, it's still quite limited. This can be forgiven, perhaps, on account of the game's Early Access status and its allowance for custom songs. But I'm reaching. There simply needs to be more music in this musical rhythm game.

Lastly, there's no multiplayer. While a multiplayer mode is planned for an upcoming update "shortly after launch," I can't review features that don't yet exist, nor do I know what shape the game's multiplayer will take. For now, the omission is a notable strike.

It's the End of the Review As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

On balance, Peak Rhythm is a very good game, and with further development beyond its Early Access period, it could easily become a great one. The team's planned roadmap is ambitious. We'll just have to see how closely and quickly they stick to it.

After spending a few days scrambling up its skyscrapers, leaping, reaching, and scampering along with its eclectic (though limited) soundtrack thumping in my ears, Peak Rhythm feels like a favorite album, a game that I'll return to again and again.

Peak Rhythm is out now in Early Access on Quest for $12.99.

UploadVR uses a 5-Star rating system for our game reviews – you can read a breakdown of each star rating in our review guidelines.

Le Dino Labo is a mixed reality puzzle builder in which players reconstruct fossils of dinosaur skeletons bone by bone. The game uses full hand tracking interaction, allowing fragments of iconic dinosaurs to be examined, rotated, and assembled into complete creatures all within the player's real-world environment. When a dinosaur is completed, it springs to true life size, driving home the sheer enormity of these ancient creatures.

The base game is available now and includes five dinosaurs: Tyrannosaurus Rex, Spinosaurus, Parasaurolophus, Styracosaurus, and the airborne Pteranodon.

In addition to today's release, the game's developers have announced an upcoming DLC, "Jurassic Giants," which includes three species from the Jurassic era, and a roadmap for future updates that includes new themed packs, deeper skeletal manipulation, enhanced environmental integration, and more.

Le Dino Labo is available now on the Meta Horizon Store priced at $4.99.

Veteran developer nDreams has announced another mass restructuring that will result in two of its three studios shutting down and a staff reduction of up to seventy-eight employees at all levels, 'including senior leadership.' This is the troubled studio's third round of layoffs, following similar restructurings in 2024 and 2025. nDreams Compass and nDreams Near Light will be closed with nDreams Elevation remaining as the core business focus moving forward.

nDreams Closes Two Internal VR Studios But Opens A New One Called Compass

nDreams has closed two studios as part of its ongoing restructuring program, bringing 40 staff members into its new ‘Compass’ studio.

UploadVRHenry Stockdale

nDreams Compass was formed when two previous studios, nDreams Studio Orbital and nDreams Studio, were both shut down. Forty members from those two teams combined to form Compass, with the remaining staff being laid off. Compass's focus was the emerging market of younger VR users, powered by the success of free to play titles like Gorilla Tag. Compass's debut title, Wreckin' Raccoon, a chaotic sandbox experience in the vein of games like I Am Cat, released on Meta Quest in September 2025.

nDreams Near Light's most recent title was Frenzies, a free to play arena shooter that released in Early Access on Quest in October 2024. A planned PlayStation VR2 port was canceled in 2025. It also released Top Hat, a world in Meta's Horizon Worlds in March 2025.

nDreams Elevation, the remaining studio, was first formed in 2022 to focus on high fidelity, AAA-level VR games. Its most recent title was Reach, a cinematic action adventure game plagued by unfortunate PC VR compatibility issues and reports of players getting soft locked and unable to complete the game. The official statement says Elevation currently has around one hundred twenty staff working on various projects.

nDreams is owned by parent company Aonic, who purchased the company for $110 million in 2023.

We first reported back in 2022 that Affected: The Asylum was expected to release on all VR platforms in 2023. Then, in late 2023, the developer announced the game was delayed into 2024. Since then, there has been radio silence – until now.

Developer Dead Boss Games and publisher Evolution Publishing have released a new short teaser trailer and details about the anticipated horror sequel.

The official press release expands on what players can expect in the story.

A sanatorium with a long, dark history, many years ago, the line between medicine and madness was intentionally erased. Controlled by a secretive cult, they used the institution not to treat patients, but to experiment upon them.

Through a series of harrowing procedures, patients were subjected to "The Preparation", a systematic process of indoctrination and physical alteration. Through this process, the cult sought to merge biology with belief, creating a collective hive mind using a parasitic entity known as the "Holy Gift".

Step into the dilapidated remnants of Blackthorne Asylum to discover the cult’s crowning achievement and greatest failure: SUBJECT 357. An employee who was forcibly selected for the "Apex Experiment" after falling foul of the leader, the process broke them. However, what remained was something more than human. They now roam the asylum as an ever-present predator, a warped manifestation of the cult’s ambitions.

Another takeaway from the new press release is a pivot away from multiplayer. The Asylum was originally announced to have a competitive four player multiplayer mode titled 'The Assessment.' There is no mention of that in the new release and the game is now described as a 'single player psychological survival horror.'

Lastly, Dead Boss Games confirmed to me that it has taken over active development of the game 'with support from Evolution Publishing.' Affected: The Manor was developed and produced by Fallen Planet Studios.

Affected: The Asylum is coming soon to Meta Quest and PC VR in summer 2026.

Over the years, RUMBLE has cultivated an active and dedicated community as the developers have continued to evolve their game. Buckethead Entertainment have now brought the full version of RUMBLE to Quest, introducing its notoriously high skill-floor combat to standalone VR.

RUMBLE is a purely online competitive experience with no solo mode to speak of, outside of a training arena designed to help players learn the fundamentals. And trust me - you are absolutely going to need it.

 Let’s Get Ready To Rumble

At its core, RUMBLE is built entirely around gesture-based combat. Players manipulate earth-bending abilities through physical poses and movements, summoning rocks and launching attacks against opponents in one-on-one arena battles. The entire experience lives or dies on your ability to correctly perform these gestures, many of which resemble martial arts stances that can be chained together into increasingly complex combinations.

Gesture-based magic systems are among my favourite mechanics in VR, and I’ve played just about every title that experiments with them. That context is important, because when I say RUMBLE is incredibly difficult to learn, it isn’t coming from a place of inexperience. Difficulty here is intentional. The game demands precision, patience and repetition before it begins to reveal what makes it compelling.

 Between A Rock And A Hard place

My early encounters with RUMBLE were not especially positive. In fact, during the first hour I genuinely wondered if something was broken. Even when matching the on-screen ghost poses as closely as possible, abilities frequently failed to trigger. Movement also feels unusually slow and even activating the sprint gesture proved frustratingly inconsistent.

At that point, I would have been more than ready to walk away entirely. However, covering the game meant quitting that early wasn’t an option - and thankfully so. After watching several helpful tutorial videos and spending time with members of the community willing to demonstrate proper form, things eventually began to click.

Once gestures shifted from conscious effort to muscle memory, the experience transformed. Summoning rocks and launching attacks stopped feeling like a technical struggle and instead became a fluid expression of learned skill. This is the point where RUMBLE finally comes alive, and if you have the patience to get there, it’s definitely worth the time.

 Those Who Throw Stones

RUMBLE possesses an undeniably deep combat system. Moves can be chained into devastating combos and matches between equally skilled players quickly become tense, tactical duels. The game introduces mechanics gradually through a belt-based progression system which sees new moves unlocked over time.

Initially this restriction felt frustrating, but in hindsight it proves to be an effective way to prevent new players becoming overwhelmed. As experience is earned and new techniques unlock, players steadily expand their combat vocabulary and begin experimenting with more advanced strategies.

The core experience revolves around one-on-one arena battles, though social spaces such as the Park provide more relaxed environments to practice and interact. Through several play sessions at both peak and off-peak hours, matchmaking was consistently active. I was regularly paired with fellow beginners, alongside more experienced players who - encouragingly - often took time to help refine my technique.

There were occasional frustrations common to competitive online games, including players relying on spamming attacks or veterans who showed absolutely no mercy, but these moments were far from the norm.

That said, some of the game’s design choices remain divisive. The painfully unforgiving gesture detection often feels less like genuinely earning a skill and more like unnecessary gatekeeping that is likely to hurt the game's broader appeal. Combined with the slow default movement speed - particularly in the hub area - and the learning process can feel harsher than necessary and the ‘fun’ can take too long to present itself.

Mastering RUMBLE clearly requires dedication, but a slightly more lenient gesture controls would make that journey far more enjoyable without sacrificing any of the game’s depth.

Rock On!

After several hours with RUMBLE on Quest, one thing becomes abundantly clear: this is not a game interested in instant gratification. It is neither easy to learn nor casually approachable. In fact, it is hard to learn and even harder to master.

For players seeking a deep, progression-driven competitive experience - one that rewards patience, practice and genuine skill development - RUMBLE may well become an obsession. Its combat system offers depth once understood, supported by an active community and meaningful mastery curve.

However, those looking for fast-paced, immediately accessible earth-bending action may find the experience overly demanding. If your goal is simply to throw rocks around and have some fun, more arcade-style alternatives like Elements Divided may be more your speed.

Realities.io has announced that their VR jigsaw game, known for turning real-world locations into hand-crafted 3D puzzles, is coming to PC VR for the very first time on April 9 via Steam.

Puzzling Places has previously been available on Quest, PlayStation VR2, Pico and Apple Vision Pro, where it has been very popular and cumulatively amassed over 3,000 user reviews. The Steam release brings the game's intricate miniature puzzle scenes to a new audience, along with two game modes (Classic Mode or the guided Journey Mode), and adjustable difficulty levels.

The Steam release has naturally been optimized for VR, but will also be playable as a flat screen experience on desktop and Steam Deck. Cross-device play will allow users to jump from VR to flat screen devices at their leisure.

When Puzzling Places debuted on Meta Quest, our reviewer called it "a resounding success," and "[...] one of the best and most unique puzzle games on the platform."

Puzzling Places will launch on Steam on April 9th. It's available now on Quest, PlayStation VR2, Pico and Apple Vision Pro.

Developers Puzzle Dev and publisher Armor Games have announced that their extremely popular mobile puzzle game Interlocked: Puzzle Islands is coming to Meta Quest on March 24 with improved immersion and expanded gameplay.

Interlocked is a relaxing puzzle game in which players solve "burr puzzles," ingenious 3D puzzles made of interconnected blocks of wood, where the goal is to slide, spin, turn, and twist pieces to separate the variously complicated assemblies of blocks. Interlocked contains more than 30 puzzles, all set against a cozy backdrop and augmented by a chill atmospheric soundtrack.

You'll experience Interlocked's puzzling journey alongside a baby bird companion, who grows and experiences a "mini story arc" as you progress through the game's many puzzle islands.

Interlocked will be available on Quest on March 24, where you can now wishlist the game. It will also be coming to PC VR via Steam, though a release date for that platform has not yet been revealed.

Alliance Peacefighter, an X-Wing and Wing Commander inspired story-driven space sim, just arrived in mid 2025, so it was surprising to see another game in the universe pop up so soon. Developer Urban Logic Games clarified that Battle for the Frontier is more of a side story, a "standalone adventure" set in the same universe.

The Alliance universe games are hybrid titles, playable on flatscreen and in VR. I played this demo both ways and while the VR version requires a steeper learning curve, it is absolutely the more rewarding way to play. Battle for the Frontier supports full motion controls, so having spent hundreds of hours dogfighting in games like No Man's Sky and the Warplanes series, I mostly felt right at home. Using the flight stick, throttle, and two sensors on the dash to adjust power between speed, shields, and weapons all felt very natural.

Battle for the Frontier's controls are very sensitive out of the gate and the slightest twitch on your flight stick will send you spiraling. It took quite some time to fine tune the settings and train myself to make more subtle movements. This requires a lot of patience and trial and error. Thankfully, if killed in battle, the game has the option to respawn in the same place and continue the battle. There are also multiple difficulty settings, options to adjust how well your friendly AIs perform in combat, and even an invincible mode for anyone who wants to experience the story without dying at all.

Visually, this is not a feast for the eyes. It looks okay, but nothing mind-blowing. Up close, the ships (and nothing in the game, really) do not have a great amount of detail, but something has gone terribly wrong if you're spending a great deal of time right up on a ship to begin with. There are no stop and stare in awe moments here, disappointing for a space sim, but everything looks clean in the headset with no notable performance issues to speak of.

Without spoiling the story, the demo is very straightforward. There's the introductory conversation to explain the mission, then dogfight, conversation, repeat twice more, and done. It all ends on a cliffhanger that I think would have landed better had I played the original game, but the point of a good demo is to either garner a wishlist or an outright purchase. In that respect, mission accomplished. I wishlisted both Alliance games after finishing this demo. It's not perfect, but it's good enough to have earned that.

Alliance Battle for the Frontier can be wishlisted now on Steam and the demo is available for free. The original Alliance Peacefighter is out now on Steam for $23.99 and also has a free demo available.

Update 3/3/26: This article originally erroneously listed Star Wars Squadrons as being another game with VR motion controls and has been edited to fix that mistake.

March is chock full of existing games finding homes on new platforms, games we first got a look at during the first Steam Next Fest in 2026, and the VR return of one of the most popular sci-fi franchises ever.

These dates were sourced from a combination of developer posts, store listings, and press releases and are subject to change. We will update this article if and when any dates are changed.

Iron Guard Salvation - March 5 (PS VR2)

Iron Guard Salvation is the sci-fi RTS tower defense sequel to 2021's Iron Guard. Salvation continues the story from the first game of humanity's struggle against a sentient planet and its relentless waves of terraforming robots. Iron Guard Salvation is already available on Quest and PC and this month PlayStation VR2 players can join the battle.

Store links: PS VR2, Quest, Steam

Iron Guard: Salvation Review - Strong Foundations But Needs Shoring Up

Iron Guard: Salvation has good foundations for VR tower defense strategy, though awkward design and a lack of depth hold this back.

UploadVRRebecca Hills-Duty

Peak Rhythm - March 5 (Meta Quest)**

Rhythm games have always been a popular genre for VR, so much so that the concept has extended into other genres with shooters like Metal Hellsinger VR and the classic Pistol Whip and combat titles like Rager (see below). Peak Rhythm, releasing on Meta Quest in Early Access, combines rhythm based movement with climbing. Players power a giant platform up vertical structures by grabbing handholds in time to music.

Store links: Quest

Rager - March 5 (PS VR2)

Speaking of rhythm gameplay crossing into other genres, rhythm-combat game Rager slices its way onto PS VR2 after previous stops on Meta Quest and PC VR. This port will come with all of the additional content added to the other two platforms post release and will run at a native ninety frames per second with head haptics and eye tracked dynamic foveated rendering.

Store links: PS VR2, Quest, Steam

RAGER Hands-On: Slice And Dice Is Pretty Nice

RAGER presents an enjoyable cyberpunk rhythm fighting game, and it’s out now in early access on Quest 3 and SteamVR.

UploadVRK. Guillory

DrumBeats VR - March 6 (PS VR2)

Continuing with rhythm games, DrumBeats VR follows Rager on the move to PS VR2. Similar to Smash Drums, players take control of a full virtual drum set, rocking out to an eclectic soundtrack. DrumBeats is also available on Quest and PC VR.

Store links: PS VR2, Quest, Steam

Bootstrap Island - March 12 (PC VR)*

After a lengthy Early Access period packed with added content, features, and quality of life updates, survival thriller Bootstrap Island moves to a full 1.0 release. The 1.0 update will include the conclusion of the survivor's campaign, the introduction of a bartering system with a tribe native to the island, and a new boss encounter. Bootstrap Island has also been announced for PS VR2, but no release date is available at this time.

Store links: Steam

Bootstrap Island Promises The VR Survival Game Of My Dreams

Bootstrap Island is a VR survival game currently on Steam Early Access, and we went hands-on at Gamescom.

UploadVRIssy van der Velde

Parkour Labs - March 12 (PS VR2, Quest)

Parkour Labs, an '80s and '90s vaporwave-inspired parkour game, jumps from Steam to PS VR2 and Quest in mid March. This one is a hybrid title, with VR support on PS5 being listed as optional, no indication of VR support for its initial PC release, and it will also launch on Nintendo Switch and XBox Series.

Store links: PS VR2, Quest, Steam

Perikoto - March 13 (PC VR)

Perikoto is a short horror experience spent trekking through a snow covered landscape to discover the mysteries of a lighthouse, all with a hidden creature lurking in the nearby woods.

Store links: Steam

SkyLeap - March 15 (PC VR, Quest)

Skyleap is a non-stop parkour action game from Xocus, most recently known for ExoCars. It is available now for PS VR2 and expands to PC VR and Quest this month.

Store links: PS VR2, Quest, Steam

Orbital Overdrive - March 16 (PC VR)

Orbital Overdrive was recently featured in the first 2026 Steam Next Fest. This roguelite twin stick arena shooter has players rotating around a planet defeating waves of enemies to get weapon upgrades and carve out a space on the leaderboards.

Store links: Steam

Maid of Sker VR - March 17 (PC VR, PS VR2, Quest)

Maid of Sker VR was originally scheduled for release in November 2025 until developer Wales Interactive announced a delay to March. This survival horror based on Welsh folklore is a VR port of the 2020 flatscreen equivalent.

Store links: PS VR2, Quest, Steam

Prison Simulator VR - March 18 (PC VR, Quest)

Wacky slice-of-life simulators have exploded in popularity in the last few years. Playway and Driment Studio hope to continue that trend putting players in the role of a prison guard navigating the day to day rigors of a life spent in the company of incarcerated criminals. This was originally announced as coming to all VR platforms back in 2023.

Store links: Steam, Quest

GunX (Lock and Load) - March 20 (PC VR)

Another from the recent Steam Next Fest, GunX focuses on gun assembly with head to head PVP, shooting ranges, and of course, zombies. GunX originally released for Meta Quest headsets in May 2025.

Store links: Steam, Quest

Bloxer - March 24 (Quest)

Bloxer, from Incuvo (Green Hell VR, Tracked: Shoot To Survive), is a nine player party game that adds a physical twist to the standard match-4 formula. Players have to physically punch (jab, hook, uppercut) the bot in front of them to move their blocks and set up their combos.

Store links: Quest

Virtual Hunter - March 25 (PS VR2, Quest)

Virtual Hunter aims to bring its realistic hunting mechanics to PS VR2 and Meta Quest following its full release out of Early Access on PC VR in 2025.

Store links: PS VR2, Quest, Steam

VMX - March 26 (PC VR , Quest)**

VMX utilizes gesture-based movements to pull off tricks on motocross bikes, scooters, and mountain bikes in a multiplayer skatepark. Players will also be able to customize their vehicle and purchase clothing for their avatars from an in-game shop. It will start in Early Access on PC VR on March 26, with the Quest port to come later.

Store links: Quest, Steam

Beyond Sandbox - March 26 (PC VR)

Beyond Sandbox is a multiplayer sandbox experience built in Unreal Engine 5 with a heavy emphasis on community modding. Aside from the sandbox mode, it also has a competitive shooter and zombie horde modes available.

Store links: Steam

Shop & Stuff - March 27 (PSVR2)

Chaotic sandbox supermarket simulator Shop & Stuff drops on PS VR2 after a successful Early Access period on Quest.

The PS VR2 port will include the recent Boss update, adding a cantankerous manager to "encourage" better results and suggest tasks to complete.

Store links: PS VR2, Quest

Star Trek: Infection - March 31 (PC VR, Quest)

March closes out by boldly going where no VR Star Trek title has gone before: into the realm of horror. Another game that was originally scheduled for 2025, Played With Fire's Trekkian survival horror title comes to PC VR and Quest at the end of the month.

Store links: Quest, Steam

If You Can’t Handle Horror In VR, Star Trek: Infection Isn’t For You

Star Trek: Infection VR is a horror game through and through, and thus not for the faint of heart.

UploadVRHenry Stockdale

If there's a game we've missed that you'd like us to add or the information is incorrect/outdated, please email tips@uploadvr.com or use our Contact Us page to get in touch.

* denotes a game that either is currently available in early access on that platform, or a game that will have been released in early access by that time.

** denotes an early access launch.

UPDATE: March 4

This article has been updated to add Bloxer and Beyond Sandbox

ARTE France and German VR studio Curvature Games have confirmed that their VR narrative adventure, The Amusement, will be launched on April 16.

The game puts players in the shoes of Samantha Burkhart, a young woman who returns to her late father's derelict amusement park to solve puzzles, resurrect the park's broken rides, and work through the riddle of her family's troubled past.

We recently previewed a demo of The Amusement, which released as part of Steam Next Fest, and found it to be a captivating experience with just one simple flaw: its omission of smooth locomotion detracts from an otherwise wonderful puzzle game.

Still, our writer concluded, "If you enjoy story-based puzzle games and have been waiting for a new one after last year's stellar Ghost Town, this is one to watch."

The Amusement is coming to Meta Quest and Steam on April 16.

The thirty-ninth course for Walkabout Mini Golf has been confirmed to be Passport: Hollywood. This is the third Passport entry, following trips to Venice and Tokyo. This new DLC is scheduled for March 12 for $4.99.

Prior to VR development, the team at Mighty Coconut spent ten years working in animation and VFX for Hollywood features and series. Many of its current team members have film backgrounds, so Passport Hollywood doubles as a love letter to the company's cinematic roots.

March 12 is also three days before the annual Academy Awards, so the timing for this course lines up with an increased attention on the filmmaking industry.

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Walkabout Mini Golf follows Alice down the rabbit hole into Wonderland this week. We sat down with game director Lucas Martell for an in-depth Q&A.

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Passport Hollywood is the first DLC for Walkabout under its new pricing structure, which was announced as part of a restructuring within Mighty Coconut following a twenty-five percent staff layoff. There will also be a reduction in DLC courses in 2026, going from seven to six and development of the iOS version will sunset sometime in the near future.

We will have full coverage of the Passport Hollywood course when it releases next week.

Walkabout Mini Golf is available on Steam, PSVR2, Quest, Pico, Samsung Galaxy XR, and Apple App Store. The game is also available as part of Meta's Horizon+ subscription service.

Note: this article was updated on March 4, 2026 to add that Walkabout Mini Golf is also available on Samsung Galaxy XR.

March 2026 brings several new games to the Horizon+ Monthly Games Catalog, including the zombie slaughter-fest Arizona Sunshine Remake, and the swashbuckling adventure The Pirate: Republic of Nassau.

Beat Saber, GOLF+, Spatial Ops, and The 7th Guest VR also make their way to the catalog. Previously redeemed games will remain in your library while subscribed to the service.

Here's what you need to know about this March's offerings.

Arizona Sunshine Remake

Arizona Sunshine Remake is the definitive updated refresh of 2016's Arizona Sunshine, an award-winning VR shooter that debuted even before standalone VR. Arizona Sunshine Remake brings updated high-res textures, co-op multiplayer, delightfully gruesome gore, and includes all of the original game's DLC and updates in one package. Our review said it best. "It’s hard not to recommend grabbing Arizona Sunshine Remake."

The Pirate: Republic of Nassau

In The Pirate: Republic of Nassau, you'll command pirate ships and experience the early 18th century life as a true sea captain. Beginning in Nassau, the heart of pirate culture, you'll engage in naval battles, recruit legendary pirates, explore and expand Nassau, and build your privateering fleet. Our review called it "a worthwhile golden age of piracy fantasy."

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Now available in its 1.0 version, The Pirate: Republic of Nassau is greater than the sum of its parts, offering a myriad of options to fulfill the pirate fantasy.

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Horizon+ Games Catalog Games

Horizon+ continues offering a Games Catalog of Quest titles that any subscriber can access. Meta can add new games to and remove games from the catalog at any time. Here is the current Horizon+ Games Catalog in the US:

• Angry Birds VR: Isle of Pigs
• Asgard’s Wrath 2
• Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR
• Beat Saber
• Blacktop Hoops
• Cubism
• Deisim
• Demeo
• Demeo Battles
• Dungeons of Eternity
• Final Fury
• Fruit Ninja 2
• Ghosts of Tabor
• GOLF+
• Green Hell VR
• Grimlord
• Human Fall Flat VR
• I Expect You To Die 3
• iB Cricket
• In Death: Unchained
• Into Black
• Into the Radius
• Job Simulator
• Kingspray Graffiti
• Les Mills Bodycombat: Fitness Workouts
• Maestro
• Medieval Dynasty New Settlement
• Moss
• Onward
• Pets & Stuff
• Pistol Whip
• Premium Bowling
• Project Demigod
• Puzzling Places
• Racket Club
• Real VR Fishing
• Red Matter
• Red Matter 2
• Spatial Ops
• Starship Home
• Synth Riders
• The 7th Guest VR
• The Climb 2
• The Light Brigade
• The Thrill of the Fight
• Thief Simulator VR: Greenview Street
• Titans Clinic
• Townsmen VR
• Walkabout Mini Golf
• War of the Worlds
• Zero Caliber: Reloaded

Horizon+ Indie Catalog Games

Meta continues to add new games to the separate Indie Games Catalog, and you can see the entire list here.

• Alvo
• Apex Construct
• Arcade Paradise VR
• Battlenauts
• Bocce Time!
• Cactus Cowboy - Desert Warfare
• Chess Club
• Coffee Quest VR
• Crumbling
• Cybrix
• Darksword: Battle Eternity
• DIG VR
• Disc Frenzy
• Discovery 2
• Elysium Trials
• Espire 1: VR Operative
• Final Overs - VR Cricket
• Galaxy Kart
• Ghost Signal: A Stellaris Game
• Gravity League: Galactic Football
• Hide The Corpse
• I Am Hamster - Simulator
• Innkeeper VR
• Ironlights
• IRON GUARD
• Killer Frequency
• LAX VR
• Laser Thief
• Make It Stable - Kids & Family Fun!
• Motion Soccer PRO
• Mythic Realms
• Noun Town Language Learning
• Operation Serpens
• Retropolis 2: Never Say Goodbye
• Rogue Ascent VR
• Rogue Piñatas: VRmageddon
• RUNNER
• Shooty Fruity
• Slot Car VR
• Space Elevator
• Squingle
• Stupid Cars
• Sushi Ben
• Tactica
• Taiko Frenzy
• The Curious Tale of the Stolen Pets
• The Pirate Queen with Lucy Liu
• The Secret of Retropolis
• The Wizards
• Tiny Archers
• Towers and Powers
• ULTIMATE SWING GOLF by Clap Hanz
• Underworld Overseer
• Vibe Punch
• We Are One
• Windlands 2

Meta Horizon+ is a subscription service that gives players access to a monthly selection of games for $7.99 USD per month, or $59.99 USD a year. New users can give Meta Horizon+ a try for a month.

I sat down with Raceclub, which just released on Meta Quest in Early Access, intending to only play about two hours. This is first impressions, not a full blown review, so I just need to get a feel for the game. Two dead extra batteries and a fully drained Quest 3 later, Raceclub had pulled off the VR trick of making me forget I was sitting in a chair awkwardly holding my controllers in mid air.

Raceclub offers two types of vehicles: Formula V12 is a more traditional F1 style car and Formula Electric is inspired by Formula E with an electric engine. Past that, cars can be customized with multiple color options and decals and racing has multiple viewing angles. First person views included a traditional cockpit look, the 'snorkel' position just behind the driver, the nose of the car, and one seemingly on the track itself under the car. For those prone to motion sickness, there is a third person view behind the car.

There are two modes available to play. In the time attack mode, there are three ghost cars on the track: the car one space ahead on the global leaderboards, a replay of your personal best lap (after you complete one lap), and a replay of the best lap on the top of the leaderboard. I spent over two hours just in this mode, trying to shave milliseconds off my time to improve.

The other mode is a 1v1 'duel' vs an AI driver. If the AI's lap time is beaten, a new, faster opponent appears on the next lap, consistently ramping the challenge up as your skills improve. A third, eight-car race mode against AI, is currently unavailable.

One important note is Raceclub does not have vehicle collisions, a (missing) feature that may put some players off. It was odd to phase right through a translucent car instead of crashing, but I quickly stopped caring. I just needed a new personal best.

One feature I wrote off as immersion breaking when I first saw it, but then realized its purpose is the 'line' visualization. It is a visual marker that runs through the entire track of the perfect racing line to take. Trying to keep my car on that line was part of what kept me playing. Every time I messed up and got off that line, I ran another lap to try again. It is a simple, but remarkably effective mechanic.

This is still an Early Access game though, meaning there is room to grow. Half of the tracks are listed as coming soon along with the eight-car race mode. Visually, the game is decent. Admittedly, there is no time to stop and admire the surroundings when chasing ghosts, but while on straightaways I had a second or two to look around and everything looked fine, but nothing stood out. The most glaring feature missing though, is multiplayer.

There have been a lot of racing games on Quest, from kart racers like Dash Dash World and Galaxy Kart to more serious titles like EXOcars, Downtown Club, and Grid Legends. I've played them all, but nothing has quite pulled me in like Raceclub did. Without the horsepower to run the likes of Gran Turismo 7, Assetto Corsa, or EA's F1 series, this is already a top notch effort on Meta Quest with room to grow.

Raceclub is available now in Early Access on Meta Quest for $12.99.

Project Swan Headset

After years of rumors, ByteDance first officially teased a high-end Pico headset back in November, when its VP of Technology said during a talk in China that it would arrive in 2026 with micro-OLED panels with 4000 pixels per inch (PPI) and a dual-chip architecture with a self-developed coprocessor for computer vision and image processing.

Now, Pico has officially announced these details to the world, and also says that the main processor will have double the CPU and GPU performance of the Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 in today's Pico 4 Ultra and Meta Quest 3 headsets.

Pico says the "new generation" 4000 PPI micro-OLED panels will deliver an average angular resolution of 40 pixels per degree (PPD) and peak of 45 PPD, greater than that of Apple Vision Pro and good enough for text on virtual monitors.

Meanwhile, the custom chip that powers computer vision and image processing will deliver "approximately 12 milliseconds of latency", the company says, the same figure Apple gives for the R1 chip in Vision Pro headsets.

Other than these display and compute specs, and confirming that it will feature hand and eye tracking, Pico isn't yet revealing specific details about Project Swan, including who is providing the powerful new primary chipset. It's possible it could be a Snapdragon XR2 Gen 3 from Qualcomm, but there's no direct indication of this.

Last year, The Information reported that Pico was working on an ultralight headset a fraction of the weight of typical VR headsets, achieved via the use of a tethered compute puck. However, the company isn't yet confirming the form factor, and a graphic during the announcement depicted the primary and secondary chipsets positioned alongside each other, not one separated into a puck. It's possible that report referred to a different in-development Pico headset, or that the form factor changed during development.

Pico OS 6 & Pico Spatial Engine

While Project Swan is what will draw headlines, Pico's main focus with today's announcement is actually Pico OS 6, the revamped version of its XR operating system that the new headset will run.

We first learned of Pico OS 6 and some of its standout features last month via the listing for a talk the company is set to give next week at GDC 2026. The listing referred to Pico OS 6 supporting "a new paradigm for spatial experiences in which games and apps coexist, allowing a primary experience to run alongside companion applications in a shared environment", and today the company has explained what that means.

Like Apple's visionOS, Pico OS 6 features an advanced OS-level compositor with a unified rendering architecture that enables both 2D and 3D apps to run alongside each other, with either a virtual environment or physical reality as the background. The operating system handles rendering and interaction, enabling a cohesive experience where all system-level features are supported and consistent. That includes environmental lighting, dynamic occlusion, spatial audio, physics with real-world surface collisions, and scene understanding.

The company calls this system Pico Spatial Engine, and says it has spent the past two years building it.

This is in stark contrast to Meta's Horizon OS and Google's Android XR, which only support running a single 3D app at a time.

Pico OS 6 features a visionOS-like design language that the company calls Cloud Crystal, and developers will be able to use the Pico Spatial UI system to build interfaces that feel consistent with the OS and adapt to real-world lighting, leveraging Pico Spatial Engine.

Developers can build apps using Pico Spatial SDK, with support for Android Studio and Kotlin, or continue to use Unreal and Unity, with Pico Spatial Support for both engines providing the key features of the Pico Spatial Engine.

Pico says the OS continues to fully support OpenXR, and that all apps that run on Pico 4 Ultra today will be able to run on Project Swan.

The company also introduced an open-source WebXR framework called WebSpatial, which it calls an "open, minimal extension to HTML, CSS, and JS" that lets web developers easily build spatial experiences.

Global Early Access Program

Pico has opened applications for closed beta access to Pico OS 6 and the Project Swan headset.

The company says it will choose "a select few with deep expertise across XR platforms" to join the program, and wants "rigorous feedback" on the hardware and software before a wider release.

Interested developers and XR experts can apply using this ByteDance form.

With the latest updates to Horizon OS, Quest 3 and Quest 3S can now effectively double as portable computers. You can experience multiple giant screens without taking up any extra room, an awesome bonus if you live in an apartment or shared space.

As a portable virtual computer, your Quest headset gives you more screen space than a laptop, and vastly more than a phone. However, some setup is required to avoid unexpected issues when you’re away from your usual tech. If you test essential websites, verify logins, and settle on a comfortable typing method, your Quest 3 can feel less like a casual-use headset and more like a computer you can count on.

With the right setup, your Quest 3 could even become a primary device around the house, especially if you like working in short sessions, streaming video, and switching rooms. Think of this as turning your headset into a grab-and-go workstation for the web apps, messaging, and media you already use.

The Quest Pro and Quest 2 will work in a pinch, but they miss some newer features, including Meta’s touch-typing keyboard that projects onto a surface. It is not yet available on the Quest 3S, but datamining by Luna suggests it will be enabled eventually.

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With Horizon OS v85 PTC, Quest 3 can turn any surface into a virtual keyboard and touchpad, and Meta says you can remap the Quest 3S action button.

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Test The Horizon OS Browser

If you want your Quest 3 to function as a portable computer, the browser is its foundation. Productivity depends on web app and website compatibility, so testing matters.

Don’t just load a page and assume you’re good. Try the things you normally do on your computer. Sign into important accounts, create and edit documents in the web apps you use, and upload/download files if that’s part of your process. If something fails, try to find a simple solution or alternative.

I ran across a great example of unusual behavior using Google Docs in my Quest 3. Everything I type appears underlined. It actually isn't, and if I click elsewhere, it reverts to plain text. It works, but the glitch is visually disruptive.

Another easy workaround is to use a different online editor, such as Microsoft Word, StackEdit, or Lex. Even if your favorite web app works perfectly, it’s worth having a backup, because little quirks like this show up when you least expect them.

If a particular website doesn’t play nicely with Meta’s browser, you may need a different one. Choices are limited on Quest headsets, but there is at least one alternative.

The Fluid Browser

Fluid is my favorite third-party browser for Quest headsets. It’s based on Chromium, with an optional per-website mode that uses Gecko, the Firefox renderer. It behaves more like the browsers on your computer or phone, which can help with picky web apps.

Fluid’s interface is also more flexible than Meta’s. Hand gestures can trigger voice input, manipulate windows, and move you through virtual rooms. It also offers advanced features like adjustable passthrough range, multi-user window sharing, theater modes, and remote access to your computer.

There are other third-party browsers, but most suffer from weak app store ratings. Fluid averages 4.5 stars, backed by an active community and a responsive dev team.

Prepare Your Browser

You’ve been refining your computer’s bookmarks, logins, and settings for years. To get a smooth transition on Quest, you’ll want a little prep work. Some Horizon OS browser features may still be rolling out, so they might not appear on your headset yet.

Backup And File Access

Enable Cloud Backup in the Horizon OS browser, so you don’t have to start over if something goes wrong. You can find the toggle in browser settings. Cloud Backup can restore bookmarks, browsing history, and extensions.

If you need access to important files or photos, cloud storage is the easiest path. Upload what you want from your computer or phone, then open it on Quest through the web apps you already use.

Password Autofill

Logins matter, and modern security requirements can make access annoying from any device. The easiest solution is Meta’s password import feature in browser settings under Passwords. Meta includes instructions for exporting from Chrome, Safari, Edge, and others. You may also want a device PIN to keep accounts secure.

This isn’t the only option. Some third-party password managers offer web apps that work in any browser, and a few have extensions for the Horizon OS browser.

Browser Extensions

If security and privacy are crucial, you’ll want extensions for your password manager, a content blocker, and possibly a VPN. Meta’s extension ecosystem is growing, but the Horizon OS browser only supports about a dozen extensions so far.

You can find extensions by selecting the puzzle piece at the top right of a browser window. A new tab opens with installed extensions, toggles, and a list of available add-ons.

Test your password manager and VPN while your computer and phone are nearby. It’s easier to authenticate MFA, access email, and verify passkeys before you travel.

Building Bookmarks

Meta doesn’t have a bookmark import option, offering instead link sharing via the Horizon mobile app. Saving one bookmark at a time would become tiresome quickly. Fortunately, there are some good workarounds.

Proton Pass is a free password manager with a Horizon OS extension, and it can double as a website launcher if you pin it. Third-party browsers are a mixed bag. Fluid lacks bookmark import, but supports several password managers. Wolvic deserves credit as one of the few Quest browsers that can import bookmarks by syncing from Firefox.

Bookmarks shouldn’t be this hard, but it’s worth spending a few minutes to make your favorite websites accessible. With a working system, you’re one click away from the tools you actually use.

Explore Input Options

Quick, reliable text entry is the difference between casual browsing and real work. Quest 3 offers multiple ways to type, and you might use different ones depending on the situation.

The System Keyboard

Two-finger typing on the default pop-up keyboard is fine for quick searches, short messages, and the occasional form, but it isn’t ideal for drafting and editing. That’s why you should enable Swipe typing in Virtual keyboard settings and turn the mic on in Quick Settings.

The default keyboard includes a mic icon, and one click lets you dictate words, website addresses, or whole paragraphs. It’s fast, accurate, and you don’t need to speak loudly.

Swipe typing works just as well as it does on your phone, but with a larger keyboard. I like to bring the keyboard close and use a finger, but a controller works, too.

Bluetooth Keyboard And Mouse

Bluetooth accessories are still the most predictable way to make Quest feel like a computer. A compact keyboard is usually easy to pair, and a mouse makes selection and window control far easier.

If you want to pack light, a keyboard with an integrated trackpad can be ideal.

Meta’s Surface Keyboard Surprise

If you have access to Meta’s new Surface keyboard, it’s worth exploring in Experimental settings. A projected keyboard sounds like a novelty, but it’s genuinely useful if you touch type.

Since it aligns with your desk or table, you get tactile feedback. Meta added a trackpad and a hovering toolbar with cursor arrows, copy, cut, and paste. A preview window in the toolbar lets you see what you’re typing while looking down at the keys.

It can’t compete with the clackity, full-travel keyboard I use with my desktop. Physical keys still win for long sessions, but the Surface keyboard does a good job simulating a soft, laptop-style keyboard and trackpad.

The biggest benefit is portability. I’m not dragging a keyboard and mouse between rooms or packing them when I travel.

Explore Apps

A browser-first setup might be all you need, but the Quest 3 becomes more useful when you add apps that benefit from VR or mixed reality. For 3D work, VR-native tools can be a leap forward. Your model is in the room with you, and you can handle it like an object. Apps like Gravity Sketch and ShapesXR let you think and build in space, which is hard to replicate on a flat screen.

Meta’s Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger apps can be useful for messaging and keeping in touch while wearing your headset. Instagram offers a fun new feature that automatically converts photos and videos to 3D.

Streaming is a big win for most Quest owners. Whether you use native apps or browser tabs, having a giant screen anywhere makes casual viewing feel like a private cinema. Test the streaming services you use, both the app and the browser version, to find out which works best for you.

Portability Tips For Home And Travel

Your Quest 3 or Quest 3S might be all you need around your home or office, but a few accessories can make a big difference when traveling. I recommend a charger and USB-C cable, a battery pack for longer sessions, between charging, a microfiber cloth for lenses and sensors, and Bluetooth accessories if you prefer them.

If you want to use your headset on a plane, train, or other vehicle, your Quest 3 has a Travel mode that can help. When movement is detected, the option can appear automatically, and you can also switch it on manually in Quick Settings.

The least glamorous tip is also the most practical. Spatial computing is still fringe tech, so plan for glitches. Install a third-party browser in case something doesn’t work in the system browser. Keep your phone nearby for MFA requests. Make sure the Horizon mobile app is installed, so you can send links and photos to your Quest.

Your Quest 3 As A Spatial Computer

The Quest can be a great portable computer, but its processor and storage are closer to the hardware of a phone than a laptop. You shouldn’t expect it to handle a hundred tabs while streaming video and processing voice input. However, with a little self-restraint and tab management, you might be impressed with what’s possible on such an affordable VR headset.

The Quest is great when your workflow is browser-first, when you enjoy advanced tech, and when you want easy portability. It really shines when you lean into VR-native tools for spatial work, because a laptop can’t match the experience of stepping into a 3D workspace.

While a VR headset falls short for specialized desktop software, heavy multitasking, and some peripheral connectivity, remote access can fill the gap. Apps like Virtual Desktop make macOS and Windows connections easy and reliable.

The key is choosing the right tool for the job. As long as you don’t expect miracles, a Quest 3 or Quest 3S can serve as a low-cost, all-in-one system that creates a unique spatial computing experience that provides a taste of the future with virtual screens, intuitive gesture control, and projected mixed reality interfaces. All it takes is a little setup time and exploration.

The game now costs $29.99, a substantial discount from its original price of $39.99. The price drop carries across both Steam and PlayStation Store.

Developed by MoonHood, the studio formed by former Zoink (Lost in Random, Fe) developers Klaus Lyngeled and Olov Redmalm, The Midnight Walk is a gorgeous and unique game with a handcrafted clay stop-motion animated art style.

In The Midnight Walk, you'll play as The Burnt One, befriend a lost lantern creature named Potboy, and use his flame to light your way through a grim and beautiful hand-crafted world.

We reviewed The Midnight Walk in VR when it released last year, and found it to be "a memorable adventure that's enchanting and bleak in equal measure, one that feels like wandering into a twisted fairytale. It's a gripping tale with beautifully crafted claymation visuals, [...] a great example of hybrid design between flatscreen games and VR."

The Midnight Walk is available now on PC, PS5, SteamVR, and PlayStation VR2.

Blade and Sorcery: Nomad developer WarpFrog has announced that its Sentara update is available now. The free update is the second of four planned content drops known as the Byeth Updates. It adds a new Sentara-themed map to explore in Blade and Sorcery's sandbox and Crystal Hunt game modes, as well as several new weapons, armor, and new lore.

The Sentara map is a maritime-themed land, evoking Mediterranean sea nations from the Age of Sail. There are lighthouses and pirate ships, and weapons inspired by maritime history. There's also a new physics system to simulate buoyancy in water, meaning objects will float differently depending on their weight (including bodies).

New weapons and armor similarly evoke the real-world gear of the time. There are classic cutlasses, stiletto daggers, a harpoon, a dueling sword, and most notably, firearms (though these run on crystals, rather than gunpowder).

In addition to the Sentara map, another new map has been added for sandbox and Crystal Hunt modes. This map is themed around Rakta, the East Asian-inspired faction that had previously been added in the first Byeth Update.

WarpFrog promises that there's a whole lot more to discover in the Sentara Update (almost an understatement, when looking at the update's full notes).

Blade and Sorcery: Nomad is the Meta Quest and Pico release of the built-for-VR melee combat game, which originally launched as simply Blade and Sorcery on PC VR via Steam. The Sentara update has landed on that platform as well.

Blade and Sorcery: Nomad is now available on Meta Quest and Pico headsets. Blade and Sorcery is also available on Steam.

Zombie Army VR has had a bit of a rough go, to be kind. The VR entry to Rebellion's popular series was first announced for a 2024 release before being delayed to May 2025, followed by another delay to June 2025. In the course of that, Rebellion quietly switched developers from XR Games to Xtended Realities.

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Now, less than a year post release, the beleaguered FPS, is losing its cooperative game mode. Rebellion announced on a support post on its website that Zombie Army VR's co-op play servers would be shut down at the end of March "as a result of Unity's phased exit from the Multiplay Game Server Hosting Service."

Unity sent out communication to all developers using its multiplayer servers in December 2025, saying anyone on the service had until March 31, 2026 to transition to a new service. Unity also stated it was licensing its Multiplay Game Server Hosting Service to Rocket Science Group to ensure continuity for any live games.

Rebellion said it is investigating methods to save game progress for any co-op campaigns in progress, but at the time of this article, that solution has not been announced.

Zombie Army VR is available now on Meta Quest, Steam, and PlayStation VR2 for $29.99.

3R Games, also known for Cave Crave and Besiege VR, announced a new Thief Simulator title on a recent post on X.com, saying Heist Crew is being "built on the best mechanics of Thief Simulator VR: Greenview Street." From the description of the Meta Quest listing, crews will have a limited time to break into homes on procedurally generated maps, scoring points both as teammates and individuals.

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Due to the individual scoring system, 3R says betrayal will be a part of Heist Crew's gameloop, with teammates turning on each other to raise their own individual scores.

Thief Simulator was originally ported to PC VR by Playway, in partnership with Gameboom. 3R Games took over developmental duties for Greenview Street on Meta Quest with Playway listed as a publisher.

Thief Simulator: Heist Crew can be wishlisted now on Meta Quest. At the time of this article, there is no information on ports for other platforms, release date, or price. Greenview Street is available on PS VR2 for $24.99 and Meta Quest for $19.99.

Mixer Lab has announced that their made-for-VR racing game Raceclub has launched in Early Access today. The title is available now at an early-bird price via the Meta Horizon Store.

Built by "a seasoned team of racing enthusiasts," Raceclub's developers promise an authentic and exciting racing experience. The team says players may choose between two styles of racing: a 12-cylinder car inspired by real-world Formula 1 design, and a nimble electric-influenced model reminiscent of Formula E, where mastering regenerative braking and managing power modes is critical to winning.

Multiple race modes keep the gameplay varied, and planned updates intend to add multiplayer sometime after Early Access launch.

Raceclub is available starting today in Early Access via the Meta Horizon Store for $12.99. A limited-time early-bird offer brings the price down to $9.99.

Thomas Van Bouwel, the creator of Laser Dance and the critically acclaimed puzzle game Cubism, has announced the "Challenge Update" for Laser Dance is now live. The update introduces two new challenge modes designed to intensify the game's Mixed Reality laser obstacle courses.

The two optional unlockable game modifiers increase the game's difficulty and add replayability.

The first, called Grid Overlay, layers a dense mesh of lasers over existing levels, which demands heightened precision from players. The second, called Invisible Lasers, causes laser beams in the play area to fade as players approach, demanding more player spatial awareness. Audio cues and controller haptics become more critical in this mode.

Laser Dance turns your living space into a challenging maze full of lasers, where the goal of the game is to navigate the maze and reach certain places throughout the room. We reviewed the game when it debuted late last year, calling it "one of the easiest games to play ever made. [...] it belongs in most libraries and should be a go-to party game."

Laser Dance is available now on Quest 3 and 3S. 

Are you a fan of the I Expect You To Die trilogy, but always wish you could get up and walk around the room to figure out what to do? That's Fixer Undercover in a nutshell, an escape room spy thriller using handyman tools (a wrench, hammer, pliers, electric drill, and grinder) along with whatever happens to be in the room to get to the next room. Fixer Undercover adds full artificial locomotion to IEYTD's established formula and the ability to move around and get more hands-on with the environment is both a strength and a weakness.

Fixer Undercover stars a character codenamed, wait for it, The Fixer, a secret agent for an unnamed organization sent to a prison under the guise of a handyman. We're not alone though as a cute drone named Winston accompanies us for the duration of the game. Winston serves multiple functions: an extra set of holsters for tools, the source of the game's soundtrack via a radio it carries (with multiple stations to choose from), and the game's built-in hint system via a projector for a UI.

Fixer Undercover's story is told in media res, meaning most of the narrative has already happened and intermissions between chapters see Fixer and Winston recounting the mission and reading news articles written about it. It's an interesting choice because it removes virtually any sense of peril. For players who don't like to feel a time crunch or danger in their games, like a wall of lasers bearing down on them while trying to decipher a code on a keypad, this could be a good thing.

It's a narrative choice I've never really cared for, but it doesn't drag the game down at all. Fixer Undercover's tone is mostly light anyway, with Winston's stellar voice acting doing most of the tone setting. The story is perfunctory at best and I had already guessed the villain's true plan hours before it was revealed, but Fixer Undercover's gameplay is where it shines. Walking around a room looking for clues, places to use your tools (most of the time clearly marked yellow), or other random objects to get to hard-to-reach places is a genuine joy. The dopamine hit when finally exiting a room (even if a hint was used) was always there during my six hour playthrough.

The aforementioned weakness stems from something most VR players are used to: jank. Have you ever opened a drawer in VR and reached inside only to get a hand stuck and watch it violently vibrate and contort into inhuman angles before it snaps back to normal? There's a lot of that here. If two items are near each other, it's a coin toss on which one gets grabbed. More than once, I got a chair or a barrel or box stuck to my hand and had to move it completely across the room to avoid triggering it again.

If this is something you're used to from other games, it won't hinder your experience. This is the unintended side effect of allowing a VR player to be more hands-on with everything. It thankfully never prevents solving a puzzle, but getting a pair of jumper cables stuck on a chair one too many times can become a nuisance.

Graphically, Fixer Undercover is your average standalone VR game. Everything has that plastic looking sheen most Quest players will be accustomed to. I'm interested to see if the visuals get an uplift when the planned PC VR and PlayStation VR2 ports are released down the line. Ironically, that actually helps when solving puzzles. Items that cannot be touched are very easy to distinguish, which saves time that could be wasted trying to open or mess with anything non-interactable. Most of what can be touched, aside from all the food laying around, serves some sort of purpose.

Fixer Undercover, jank aside, is also a clean experience. No major bugs or performance issues to speak of and the game only hitched very briefly during scene loads. The only glitch I experienced was when I replayed the first room to record it. I moved a little too fast since I already knew what to do and one of Winston's lines ("you know you can open that flap, right?") got stuck on a loop for the rest of the room, repeating roughly every 30 seconds. There were times when lines of dialogue trampled one another, but that happens to me personally quite often because I move around a lot during chatty scenes and sometimes trigger a proximity based line.

Fixer Undercover Review - Final Verdict

VR has always had a penchant for great puzzle games and Fixer Undercover is no exception. The heavy emphasis on VR interactions and encouragement to think outside the box on solutions makes for a highly entertaining spy caper. The game is only held back by a healthy dose of grab jank, average graphics, and a fairly predictable story. None of those should be dealbreakers though. Fixer Undercover is a worthy addition to any puzzle lover's library.

UploadVR uses a 5-Star rating system for our game reviews – you can read a breakdown of each star rating in our review guidelines.

The popular 32-player Battlefield-inspired VR FPS Forefront, has received an update today, along with a price increase. The update (v0.23.141) brings a brand-new conquest map, a new APC vehicle, plus balancing tweaks and bug fixes.

The new map, Oasis, is desert themed. Players will battle on sand dunes, dodging bullets between lush riverside palm trees and derelict mining facilities. The new APC vehicle is made for transporting troops and for light assault actions.

Alongside this update comes a price hike. The previous price of $22.99 has risen to $24.99. Forefront is currently available on Meta Quest, Steam, and Pico.

Since launching in Early Access, Forefront has been well-supported by its makers, receiving several updates to add new maps and weapons, address balancing issues, provide graphics updates, and more.

In mid-February, Triangle Factory announced that Forefront will be coming to PlayStation VR2 sometime this year.

I previously covered Forefront and found it to be an exciting and tense take on the Battlefield formula. The game's combat is immersive, its VR gunplay is tactile and satisfying, and its dynamic environments are well-designed. While there were certainly a few small problems in that Early Access build, mostly due to weapon balance issues, on the whole, Forefront jumped ahead of every other multiplayer shooter I've played in VR. Its large-scale battlefields are hard to beat.

Forefront Hands-On: The Battlefield Multiplayer Experience In VR

Forefront in early access brings excitingly tense, large-scale multiplayer warfare reminiscent of Battlefield to VR.

UploadVRJames Tocchio

Forefront is out in Early Access on Quest, Steam, and Pico.

Last year, it was announced that Vortex 9 would be coming to virtual reality by way of Meta Quest headsets, complete with crossplay compatibility that would allow VR players to connect with fans of the original mobile version. Vortex 9 makes the transition to VR quite well, providing an even more intuitive control alternative to the old version's touchscreen controls.

Vortex 9 VR's controls are pretty simple: you use the left thumbstick to move around and aim your weapon by pointing at an enemy with the right hand controller. Firing is done with the right trigger, and switching and reloading weapons are done through button presses. By flicking the right thumbstick, you can jump, while holding down causes you to crouch.

Matches consist of team-based Deathmatches, where players are randomly grouped to see who can take out the opposition, Capture the Point, another team-oriented mode in which players battle to control certain points on the map, and Mayhem, a free-for-all skirmish between individual players.

Weapons are varied and include machine guns, revolver pistols, knives and other melee weapons, and grenades. Players can also use canned drinks to replenish their health, which is represented by a green meter in the upper-right corner of the screen.

One of the things that helps set Vortex 9 apart is the Pets that players can summon by hatching a certain number of parts. These parts come in eggs that players either buy or unlock as rewards. To hatch an egg, you can choose to wait an hour for it to hatch on its own or pay a small gold coin fee to hatch it immediately.

Once summoned, your Pet will follow you into battle and attack opponents automatically. The Pet also has its own health gauge, and once it is depleted, it will need to respawn after a brief waiting period. Certain Pets have special abilities; for example, Sharky can spit water bubbles to strike at opponents from a distance.

After booting up Vortex 9 for the first time, you choose between one of two customizable avatars, with more available to unlock by spending coins. There are a few basic customization options to start with, and you can buy more as you earn more currency and build up your experience level.

Players can earn gold and silver coins by either paying with real-world money or completing different tasks during matches. There are two types of tasks: set Main missions and Daily missions that alternate each day. These tasks can range from winning a certain number of matches to using a certain weapon a set number of times.

The game’s art style is simple and colorful, with a cell-shaded appearance that brings to mind titles like The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker. Level designs include a construction site, a sewer, and a large child’s bedroom that wouldn't be out of place in Toy Story.

Having tried Vortex 9 out on both mobile and VR, I find myself preferring the latter thanks to its more immersive setting and intuitive motion controls. Vortex 9 might not be the most groundbreaking virtual shooter around, but it's good for some quick, bite-sized action with plenty of charm to go around.

Hitman World of Assassination's Elusive Target missions, a series of limited-time events, date back to the 2016 Hitman game. Players get a limited time (sometimes as brief as 48 hours) to complete the mission. Past missions have starred known performers like actors Sean Bean and Jean-Claude Van Damme, rapper Eminem, and MMA fighter Conor McGregor.

The latest mission, titled The Harbinger, centers on Ether Corporation CEO Lilith Devereux, played by actress Milla Jovovich, best known from her starring role as Alice in the Resident Evil films. It revisits the Patient Zero storyline as part of the Patient Zero Requiem season, which also includes a paid cosmetic pack.

The new content is available to play now until March 24 as a free download. The Patient Zero Requiem season is also playable as part of the free demo for Hitman. Note that this new content is not available on Meta Quest's Hitman 3 VR: Reloaded.

Hitman World of Assassination is available in VR on Steam for $69.99 and PlayStation VR2 as a $9.99 add-on to the $69.99 PS5 game. IOI also announced the game is available on Mac via Steam and the App Store.

As part of Steam’s Next Fest, MoonMonster Studios has released a brief playable demo of their upcoming comedic job simulator, Space Control. The thirty-minute demo offers an early glimpse at a game that I found to be equal parts charming workplace parody and infantile shock comedy.

The demo opens with a short setup exposited by a corporate onboarding video delivered with impressive voice acting. You play as a human from Earth who’s been abducted by Glorpo Incorporated, an intergalactic megacorporation, to work off a debt that "you" owe the company. The only problem is that you don’t owe the company anything. They’ve abducted you accidentally, in place of the actual debtor. But since Glorpo “doesn’t do returns,” you’re pressed to work anyway.

Unfortunately, in this early build, the gameplay is not totally polished. There’s a feature in the game called “Force Grab” which allows you to pull distant objects toward you. This feature is in fact critical in the first two minutes of the game, since you’re trapped and must grab a heat gun to thaw your way out of cryo-sleep. I spent about ten minutes in my first playthrough simply trying to get this feature to work. I eventually managed to make it happen, but not in the way the developers intend.

For reference, I played this demo on a Quest 3S using Steam Link (the demo is only available on Steam for now, though the game will release on Quest alongside its PC VR release). I suspect the final game will not include these control issues.

After escaping your cryo-pod, you spend the next several minutes in your living quarters. Wandering around and picking up objects in these first moments is fun and silly. There are sentient dry-erase markers with distinct personalities (one screams in pain when using it to draw, while another seems to enjoy being used a little too much). There’s a Polaroid-style camera that incongruously ejects the same picture every time you use it (a photo of the space station’s supervisor stamped with the text “Back To Work”). There’s space goo to toss around, a rubber alien chicken to squeeze, fidget spinners, books with stupid titles, and so much more. The environment is simply brimming with distraction, a fun thing in VR.

Next, you’re introduced to a colorful cast of silly coworkers, each with exaggerated personalities. The tone in these first five minutes is instantly reminiscent of vintage Futurama (which I love). Your new friends are an offbeat, ragtag group of misfits dumped into the same metaphorical sinking ship. The characters’ designs are expressive and fun, their dialogue is snappy and delivered perfectly by their voice actors, and the space station environment brims with small gags and visual jokes.

At this point in the demo, I’m feeling great. Despite the technical speedbumps, we’re moving along and having fun, and I can see myself really bonding with my hapless crewmates. If the gameplay continues to build on the silliness and mechanical interest of the starting area, I think Space Control could be something special.

By the end of my time with the demo, I’m not so sure.

The early charm of the characters and presentation are quickly outbalanced by the game’s insistence on infantile humor. While I’m by no means a prude, and while I enjoy the stupidity of the cartoons from which this game takes inspiration, Space Control is far more interested in shock humor than actual wittiness.

For example, there’s a whole game mechanic that involves shoving various butt-plugs into abductees’ butts. While a fifteen-year-old version of myself might have found this and many more of the game’s intended punchlines funny (maybe), my adult self spent more time cringing and wishing the writers had done something (anything) else.

I accept that not all types of humor are made for me. What I find annoying might make someone else howl, and I love that. If you find posters of hairy privates and butt plugs to be funny, you’re gonna love this game. For me, most of the humor is a miss.

Which is a real shame, because the gameplay is great. The job simulator portion of the demo has us manning a handful of command stations, each more ridiculous than the last.

We must abduct new debtors and process them into the workforce. This involves stripping their clothes, taking care of any of their health needs, ensuring they look the part of the respectable worker, and sending them on their way.

The mechanics of this process are well-crafted, with all our tools and devices (yes, even the butt plugs) reacting well in VR. The tools that we use are silly, fun to use, and inventive, and the fully voice-acted abductees are highly varied and do their best to say stupid, fun, or funny things. Our coworkers are there as well, helping us in their own way, and throughout the process we’re learning more about them and the overarching story of Space Control.

It all comes together pretty well, in the end. But the biggest challenge for Space Control’s developers will likely center on the game’s tonal target.

The humor often feels too infantile, yet the language and themes clearly aim for an adult audience. Characters casually swear, and the script isn’t shy about using the most explicit language. As a parent, I wouldn’t feel comfortable letting my 11-year-old play it, but I could imagine Space Control being perfect for her if only they had cut the language and eliminated the overtly sexual jokes.

That said, I’m 42-years-old. I can imagine teens (whose parents aren’t such helicopters as me) gasping between laughs at the game’s absurd props and crude punchlines. Comedy is subjective, and jokes that make me cringe might be exactly what another player hopes for in a VR comedy game.

The demo ends abruptly enough that it feels more like a teaser than a vertical slice. As the screen fades out, I get the feeling that the real comedic escalation and narrative momentum lie beyond the cutoff point.

Based on this brief preview, Space Control shows genuine promise. Its interactive design is strong and its environments are lovingly crafted and richly detailed. Its cast has potential to become genuinely endearing over time. The biggest question mark, for me, is tonal balance. If the rest of the game leans closer to the clever absurdity of its premise and less into blunt, smack-you-in-the-face shock humor, the game will appeal to a massive audience (me included). If not, there’s still a lot to love, especially for fans of dumb comedy.

MoonMonster Studios plans to bring Space Control to Meta Quest and PC VR this April. You can wishlist the game at those storefronts, and sample the demo now as part of Steam Next Fest.

Firmware dataminers Luna and Samulia discovered a "hilariously" low resolution depiction of the headset from the rear side (see above), as well as a silhouette of the frontbox from behind. The pair were also able to activate and run the eye tracking calibration setup on a Quest Pro.

While the resolution is indeed comically low, it still clearly depicts a compact headset with glasses-style nose pads instead of a classic VR-style face pad. Discovered strings also reference adjusting the nose pads for comfort. What we don't see is the back of the device, so it's not yet clear whether it has glasses-like arms or a cradle for the back of your head.

Before this, the only real indication we had as to what Phoenix might look like came from The Information's 2024 report that first revealed the existence of the device, then called Puffin, where it was described as "a bulky pair of glasses" that weighs less than 110 grams with a tethered compute puck running Horizon OS, the operating system of Quest headsets.

That 2024 report also described the headset as having eye tracking, in order to copy the gaze-and-pinch input system of Apple Vision Pro.

Luna's past and current datamining corroborates this. Last year they found references to automatic IPD adjustment and iris unlock, features both driven by eye tracking.

Separately, XR influencer Brad Lynch claimed that one of the candidates for the headset uses 0.9-inch micro-OLED displays, slightly smaller than those used in Bigscreen Beyond headsets. Without knowing the pixel density, this doesn't tell us the resolution. But it does let us know that this candidate could offer OLED's signature infinite contrast, true black, and punchy colors. UploadVR has previously reported that Meta has explored multiple display system approaches at differing price points.

Meta Delays Ultralight Headset, Starts Work On Gaming-Focused Quest 4

Meta is delaying its ultralight headset with a tethered puck to the first half of 2027, and, separately, starting work on a gaming-focused Quest 4, leaked memos reveal.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

Leaked internal Meta memos from December revealed that the company is targeting the first half of 2027 for a launch of Phoenix.

Phoenix will be strongly focused on virtual screens for productivity and entertainment, and other seated mixed reality and VR use cases. Names that Meta has internally floated for the product have included "Quest Air", but it's far from certain what it will decide.

Keep in mind that Meta's hardware roadmap is constantly shifting, and the company frequently spins up and cancels devices before they ship. When a specific product gets close to shipping, we'll bring you any reliable rumors of its imminent arrival. Until then, be ready for anything planned to get canceled or delayed.

Roomscale VR games are becoming a rarity these days as the realities of limited play spaces and VR 'epic fail' videos may have softened developer interest in these types of experiences. That hasn't stopped recent efforts like Hotel Infinity, Laser Dance, and Eye of the Temple from offering up terrific gameplay. When done right, a roomscale game is some of the most immersive time spent in VR.

Enter The Amusement, a narrative adventure with environmental puzzles and the promise of a poignant family story. The Amusement utilizes roomscale movement with an optional teleportation system. It starts out well enough in a confined room with items to pick up, observe, and add to inventory. Then it quickly proceeds to the bulk of the demo, a zig-zag of a garden maze with thin paths that were painful to navigate with the movement system as currently designed.

I played The Amusement demo twice. First, in a limited play space with teleportation, a cumbersome exercise limited by a snap-only turning system without an option to change the size of the turn angle. This was not ideal by any stretch and made the garden maze section quite annoying to play through. I don't recommend it.

Then, I rearranged my room to get a completely open space and the maze still feels too constricted. Unlike the aforementioned Laser Dance & Eye of the Temple where you are constantly ducking, dodging, and otherwise navigating obstacles, in The Amusement I just walked a few steps, turned, walked a few more, wash, rinse, repeat until you reach a tube with a wheel to rotate into another part of the maze. If you accidentally walk into an object, the screen simply blacks out, telling you to reposition.

It is immersive. It's just not interesting and fails to capitalize on being roomscale in the same way the aforementioned games do. I hope that in the full release, there will be more open areas with environmental pieces to interact with that really take advantage of the 1:1 movement. The maze is roughly half of the demo's runtime, so in this short sample size, it sticks out more than it likely will in the full release.

It's a real shame too because the simple process of walking through the world is the only real flaw in an otherwise strong demo. The lead character, Samantha, has been sent by her mother to investigate her late father's amusement park. The story is delivered through a combination of cardboard cutout animations, shadows cast against the walls of the world, and voiceovers all befitting the cinematics of the 1920s, the setting for the game. This very effectively evokes the sense that Samantha is reliving her complex childhood memories as the story moves along.

The puzzles themselves make great use of VR. Navigating the garden maze to find an item that could be used as a makeshift ladder rung and using a yo-yo of all things to move between rooms is very creative and rewards thinking outside the box.

The more I played, the more I was reminded of both Eye of the Temple and The 7th Guest VR. The Amusement combines the physical movement (climbing and navigating) of the former with the environmental, sometimes tabletop-based puzzle solving of the latter.

Despite the roomscale movement not really adding anything to the experience, The Amusement demo is still well worth playing. If you enjoy story-based puzzle games and have been waiting for a new one after last year's stellar Ghost Town, this is one to watch.

The Amusement can be wishlisted now on Steam and Meta Quest and is slated for a Spring 2026 release.

One of the first ideas anyone with any interest in retro gaming has when they first try VR is a faithful recreation of a 1980s video game arcade. Earlier this month, Resolution Games released the best version of this idea we've seen yet, exclusively on Apple Vision Pro's $7/month aptly-named Apple Arcade game subscription service.

Retrocade was developed by Resolution Games, the veteran XR game studio behind dozens of top titles across all major headsets. Chances are, if you're a VR gamer, you've seen their logo pop up before a game you love. Apple contracted Resolution to build Game Room for Vision Pro's launch and the Gears & Goo tower defense game that released last year, both also on Apple Arcade. Resolution also ported its flagship cross-platform title Demeo to visionOS.

Retrocade is also available as a flatscreen game on iPhone and iPad, and if you're a mobile gamer I'm sure you'd have fun with it. But where it really shines is in its native visionOS version, with realistic true-scale cabinets placed in either your physical space or a nostalgic depiction of a typical 1989 American arcade.

In this virtual arcade you'll find the following 10 licensed games cabinets:

• Breakout (1976 - Atari)
• Space Invaders (1978 - Taito)
• Asteroids (1979 - Atari)
• Pac-Man (1980 - Namco)
• Centipede (1981 - Atari)
• Frogger (1981 - Konami)
• Track & Field (1983 - Konami)
• Galaga (1981 - Namco)
• Bubble Bobble (1986 - Taito)
• Haunted Castle (1988 - Konami)

While the virtual cabinets are impressively realistic, and the control elements like joysticks and buttons are animated, I should note that you don't actually directly interact with them using your hands. Instead, the game requires a Bluetooth gamepad, such as a PlayStation DualShock controller, the controls of which map to those of the cabinets.

Pressing the Select button on your controller inserts a virtual coin into the cabinet, and Start remotely presses its 1 Player mode button. From here, the action buttons (eg, AB/XY) map to the cabinet's action buttons and you can use either of the sticks, or the D-Pad, to move the joystick.

The virtual coins inserted into the cabinets are unlimited, by the way. There are no microtransactions in Retrocade, though that might be an interesting monetization option for people unwilling to pay the subscription fee for Apple Arcade.

When playing any of the games, you can switch between being inside the virtual arcade, with all the other cabinets visible around you, or to have only the cabinet you're playing in your physical space. Retrocade can be a VR or mixed reality game, whichever you prefer.

Oculus launches Arcade along with several new VR games

The launch today of pre-orders for the redesigned $100 Gear VR is accompanied by the availability of Arcade, offering “more than 20 classic games like Pac-Man, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Gauntlet” all playable in a virtual arcade. The app is available as a beta release from the Oculus Store. Prices

UploadVRIan Hamilton

There have been other official attempts in the past to bring a retro arcade to VR, such as the discontinued Oculus Arcade for the Samsung Gear VR phone-holder headset and Oculus Go. But both headsets were 3DoF, rotation tracking only, meaning you couldn't lean around and appreciate the cabinet as an object in space.

(There are also, we should note, unofficial offerings on SideQuest for standalone and Discord for PC VR, with questionable legality and highly manual setup processes.)

A decade later, Retrocade on Apple Vision Pro is the same idea but done right – mostly. The combination of the powerful M-series chipset, high-resolution micro-OLED displays, rock-solid positional tracking and hard work of Resolution Games delivers a feeling that the cabinet is truly there in front of you, and the virtual arcade environment induces a deep feeling of immersive nostalgia.

The smallest details of each cabinet are faithfully recreated in real-time, and the on-by-default CRT filter, to my eyes at least, looks identical to what you'd get from a real display of the era. Retrocade would be a delight to look at if it were just a non-interactive passive environment. And yet what you get here is 10 fully-playable, true-to-original games too – some of the most iconic of all time.

All this is not to say that Retrocade is perfect.

I understand why Resolution chose to require a controller, as it's far more precise and reliable than hand tracking input would have been. Though I do wish hand tracking input was an experimental option, or at least supported for pressing buttons. There's something a little jarring about having such a realistic cabinet not respond to poking at the buttons.

Another issue is that the mixed reality mode operates as a Full Space, so it doesn't support visionOS Shared Space multitasking. You can't put on a movie or YouTube video in the background, if that's your thing, and nor could you have an instant messaging or security camera app open. If you absolutely need multitasking, you can play Retrocade in a 2D window, where it essentially acts like the iPad app. But this entirely removes the magic of having a virtual cabinet.

The more pressing problem with Retrocade, though, is that you might feel lonely. The magic of the real arcade was not just the cabinets, but the people there beside you. The real Bubble Bobble and Track & Field supported simultaneous multiplayer, while the other games supported alternating turns. What I really want here is SharePlay – to see friends as Personas standing beside me, able to interact with the cabinet too. The only social layer in Retrocade is that the game sends your stats to Apple Game Center, so you can asynchronously compete with friends, but this just isn't the same thing as feeling together.

Retrocade - The Final Verdict

If you accept it as a singleplayer experience, Retrocade is a beautifully polished rendition of the virtual 1980s arcade VR gamers have dreamed of. It's a shame that it's exclusive to a $3500 headset, but it seems Apple paid for the development of the game. Hopefully other VR platforms get something similar, perhaps from another arcade game company like Sega, in the near future.

You can find Retrocade on the visionOS App Store via the Apple Arcade subscription.

UploadVR uses a 5-Star rating system for our game reviews – you can read a breakdown of each star rating in our review guidelines.

Today, Psytec Games has released their high-mobility action-adventure shooter Titan Isles on Sony's PlayStation VR2. The game lands just twelve days after Psytec announced its PS VR2 release date.

Designed to make the most of PS5's hardware, the PS VR2 port runs at a native 90fps on base PS5, boosted to 120fps on PS5 Pro. The devs also confirmed that both the base and Pro versions utilize native resolution and eye-tracked foveated rendering for maximum visual clarity. Psytec Games has also made the most of the PS5 controller's adaptive triggers, giving each weapon its own resistance, plus headset haptics and full bHaptics support.

We previously reviewed Titan Isles when it debuted on Meta Quest, and found it to be "a compelling action adventure that's equally enjoyable in co-op and single-player." Our reviewer went on enthusiastically, writing that Titan Isles was "the most fun I've personally had with a VR co-op experience since Dungeons of Eternity."

Titan Isles is available starting today on the PS VR2 store at a cost of $24.99. The game is also available on Steam and Quest.

No stranger to video game adaptations, Arthur Conan Doyle’s legendary detective has seen his fair share of reimaginings, from a young amateur grappling with the supernatural in Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened to the immersive theater online co-op seen in Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Hung Parliament. Each iteration hones in on a different aspect of the character that, done well, is interesting in its own right. Out now on Early Access, Sherlock Holmes: The Master Detective is an uneven portrayal of the character, even if there is an entertaining core gameplay at the heart of it.

Starting in the famous 221B Baker Street apartment, a woman bursts through the door clamoring for help: a man has died in mysterious circumstances. Before leaving, you are allowed to rummage through the place. Sherlockians will find his previous exploits scattered around the furniture. Picking up files from his old cases like The Hound of the Baskervilles makes the seasoned investigator mutter a few words about how it ended in such a tragic way. An out-of-place Meta Quest 3 box earns the description of being “a lens into countless realities,” signaling that the story is developing in the current era.

A modern-day Sherlock Holmes has been done before, most notably in the famous 2010 BBC series with Benedict Cumberbatch. This time around, he is brought up to speed with innovative tools to help with his sleuthing. This version of the character is armed with a magnifying glass, a chemical analyzer, and a fingerprint scanner. After finding and packing them in a slick toolbox, one last tutorial reveals itself as the focus. Much like classic point-and-click adventures, Sherlock Holmes: The Master Detective asks you to find hidden objects in a specific area.

Leaving the apartment only to find the crime scene is just down the street, it is relatively surprising that you are allowed to explore the short but shady alleyways of London. Graphically, it is your usual Quest 3 slightly cartoony look, but the music and attention to detail are appreciated. Walking by a record store, for instance, lets you listen to the sound of a vinyl emanating from a record player. A souvenir shop showing Holmes’ own escapades shudders amusingly when grabbed. Lastly, a red telephone box ringing close to the mansion where the crime happened whispers to Sherlock that there is more than meets the eye in this case.

There are currently only two cases available to play. One in a lavish residence, the other in some shadowy docks, the way they unfold is rather straightforward: question the suspects, find the correct items in determined areas, and accuse the guilty party of the murder. As mentioned, finding objects is the main course, such as keys, torn documents, or pieces to grander puzzles in a sea of everyday items.

Other than object finding, light puzzles like reconstructing torn photographs and moving pieces to fit a painting are a welcome change of pace. My personal favorite was using the modern tools at hand: carefully inspecting a corpse's markings and accessories worn with the magnifying glass or analyzing a cup with the fingerprint scanner felt more akin to detective work.

Of course, like any other respectable whodunit, there is an overarching plot of a secret society with paranormal overtones. Because there are only two episodes so far, it ends on a cliffhanger that still has no answer. At the time of writing, the developer has not given a concrete timeline of when new updates will drop, so I would recommend entering this mystery with caution. I would personally be devastated if they did not follow through with the enticing setup.

As an Early Access release, it is understandable when only certain options are offered or shortcuts are taken, but in this case they felt like they detracted from the experience. The only way to move is by teleporting and snap turning, with no smooth turning or walking to speak of. What stood out like a sore thumb, though, was the use of generative AI. The voice acting is wooden, and the sound quality is blown out. Sherlock’s accent itself, jumping from American to British as the chapters changed, was jarring to say the least. Using AI-generated images can be considered harmless, as the clue-finding is where it's at, but it is still there.

Sherlock Holmes: The Master Detective is a promising title with considerable drawbacks. The atmosphere is so well recreated that even in its modern setting, it feels attuned to the iconic tales from which it originated. Emphasizing object searching, it is a relaxing experience that fans of point-and-click mysteries will enjoy. While the lack of constant communication regarding future support from the developers is alarming, the current offering is a middling pastime.

Sherlock Holmes: The Master Detective is out now in Early Access for Meta Quest 3/3S.

After an early look into the sewer lair of the eponymous turtles, Cortopia Studios, recently known for Gorn 2 and Escaping Wonderland, have released a limited-time PC VR demo as part of Steam Next Fest. The new demo is roughly 15-20 minutes long and functions as an extended tutorial that introduces the combat and parkour mechanics.

The demo goes through each turtle in turn, starting with Leonardo, then Michelangelo, Donatello, and ending with Raphael before a final section where you can choose your preferred character. The four brothers are infiltrating a building while encountering numerous Foot clan soldiers. Each turtle has their signature weapon and most of the enemies can be put down without too much difficulty. Each successive hit or parry of an enemy's attack builds up a focus meter that, when maxed, activates a signature trait. Depending on which turtle is selected, this can be anything from increased focus gain to more damage landed per attack.

It should be noted that the combat is not physics based, more akin to something like Deadpool VR than Blade and Sorcery. Weapons do not have any weight and can be swung with the lightest flick of the wrist. This is not a complaint and it absolutely fits with the IP, but those who prefer more 'realistic' combat may bump into what's on offer here.

The demo breaks down into each character introducing a part of the gameplay. Leonardo gives movement and combat basics, Donatello has to hack locked doors by solving a couple of simple puzzles, Michelangelo parkours across the rooftops, and Raphael is forced to work on his parrying technique by the turtles' sensei, Master Splinter. Each section plays out in just a few minutes, long enough to get familiar with how to play the game, then this section of the demo ends with a boss fight I won't spoil, except to say I promptly lost.

Everything here just works. The combat and parkour is fluid and intuitive, the voice acting is spot on for each turtle, and though weapons have no weight, they still feel distinct from one another and coupled with the focus meter traits, offer a reason to try different turtles depending on playstyle. I could've stood on that roof twirling Michelangelo's nunchucks for hours.

After this, the demo moves to the aforementioned sewer lair. From what I can tell, this is the same as the earlier hands-on demo from months back. Seeing it for the first time, there's a clear attention to detail, with each room instantly recognizable as to its inhabitant. This is also the first time Master Splinter and April O'Neil are shown.

Aesthetically, Empire City utilizes a cel-shaded art style similar to Deadpool VR that fits the turtles' comic book origins. Everything is sharp and detailed with no visible performance issues to speak of.

Overall, this demo does exactly what a great demo is supposed to: make me want to play the full game. There's very little in the way of story to pick up on here other than the involvement of the Foot clan. It is simply an introduction to the world and masterfully serves its purpose.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City can be wishlisted on Steam, Meta Quest, and Pico now and is listed as coming in Spring 2026. The demo is playable as part of Steam Next Fest until March 2 at 10am PST.

MoonMonster Studios has just announced a playable demo of Space Control, a ridiculous and hilarious VR adventure inspired by animated comedies like Futurama and Rick & Morty.

In Space Control, you've been abducted by an intergalactic megacorporation, which has unceremoniously thrust upon you a massive debt. Over three unique episodes, you must take on a variety of unpleasant jobs set in the corporate space station.

Work off your debt with your alien crew, abduct new recruits, take care of alien babies, and cook up some highly questionable snacks. The game's key features include physics-based VR gameplay, an episodic narrative, a cast of outrageous companions, and a delightfully dystopian universe in which to toil away.

MoonMonster Studios plans to bring Space Control to Meta Quest and Steam VR this April. You can wishlist the game at those storefronts, and sample the demo now as part of Steam Next Fest.

Stay tuned for our full impressions piece on Space Control in the coming days.

Pixelity Inc., developers of Evangelion: Δ Cross Reflections, announced that a demo of the game will be playable throughout the year at live events all around the world.

The game has thus far only been playable to an extremely small segment of the public. In December, it was playable at a limited event spanning three days in Tokyo, then at a one-day event in California. In order to try the game, applicants needed to apply through Evangelion: Δ Cross Reflections' X account and be selected to participate. More recently, the demo was playable for lucky lottery winners who attended the Evangelion 30th Anniversary Event, which just wrapped up.

Supporting both VR and mixed reality gameplay, Evangelion: Δ Cross Reflections is the first installment in a planned trilogy that aims to cover all 26 episodes of the TV series. The game will tell a new story from the perspective of an original protagonist who dreams of becoming a pilot, making connections between the anime's “key episodes” and the game's new characters.

“Players will enjoy the story set in the locations from the anime from their own perspective. Battles between Evangelions and Angels, various interactive elements, and engaging captivating storylines with original characters are also planned,” Pixelity noted in a press release.

Originally created by the filmmaker Hideaki Anno, and first airing in 1995, Neon Genesis Evangelion is a critically-acclaimed post-apocalyptic anime mech series focusing on the fight between NERV, a paramilitary group, and the Angels, otherworldly antagonists seemingly bent on humanity's destruction.

The anime series has been massively influential within and outside of its native Japan, expanding to manga, merchandise, anime retellings, video games and more. While the franchise has dabbled in VR before with Bandai Namco's 2017 release, Evangelion VR: The Throne of Souls, that arcade VR experience was only playable on-site at VR Zone locations in Japan. Evangelion: Δ Cross Reflections is the first Evangelion VR/XR game designed for home use via consumer headsets.

News broke this week that a new Evangelion animated series is in production. The new series is being written by Yoko Taro, the unconventional video game creator most-known for Nier and Nier: Automata, in collaboration with Hideaki Anno's Studio Khara.

An Evangelion: Δ Cross Reflections public demo is scheduled to launch in the first half of 2026. Specific platforms and release dates remain unconfirmed, and while no dates or details have yet been revealed regarding the aforementioned live events, Pixelity encourages anyone interested in trying the game to watch their official X account for announcements.

This is the first chance for many players to try popular upcoming titles for the first time like Beyond Frames' Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City.

Some of the participating games released demos prior to the start of Next Fest, like Echoes of Mora, Alliance Tales: Battle For The Frontier, Birdseed VR, and How To God.

Please note that this list was provided two weeks ago by Valve and is subject to change. Developers can (and previously have) drop out of Next Fest if their demo is not ready or release a demo on short notice.

For now, here are the games we're aware of:

• Birdseed VR

• Alliance Tales: Battle For The Frontier

• Wingsuit: Romsdalen

• King Crab

• How To God

• Axiomatik

• Proton VR

• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City

• Project Louisiana - The BOUNDS VR Demo

• Detective VR

• Echoes of Mora

• Artemis VR

• Scared By Squares

• Just One Man

• Confined: Leaving OKB-134

• Combat Pilot: Carrier Qualification

• La Royale: Below Deck

• That's My Tofu

• Tammuz: Blood and Sand

• Annulus

• Get Out

• The Amusement

• Orbital Overdrive

• Marrow Marrow

• Diorama Maker

• Gun X

• Subliminal

• Dream Corps

• Quantum Eye

• Isle of Food

• Full Steam Undead

• Ironforged

• Versus One

• DJ Lusty Beats

• The Gallery: VR Secrets

• Plug Priority

• Space Control

• Road To Yvhalon

• Enigmo

Steam Next Fest runs until 10am Pacific Standard Time on March 2nd.

Neolithic Dawn, a survival game set in the neolithic era, started out in Early Access on Quest in June 2025 followed by PC VR in September. Both versions went to full release in December 2025.

The latest update from developer Neolithic LLC adds a fan-requested quick play 'Survival Mode' option. This new mode has every map unlocked and is free of any objectives and story-based missions to complete, designed for players looking for a more open, sandbox survival experience.

The update also expands the Saugeen Bluffs area, adds support for bHaptics vests, and improves the main menu interface and inventory system.

We went hands-on during the Early Access period and had a mostly positive experience despite the bugs and jank to be expected in Early Access titles. In our hands-on piece, we said "Exploring the world is wonderful. Environments are vast and varied. There are moments of pure wonder and true terror."

Neolithic Dawn Hands-On: Survival Of The Fittest

VR survival game Neolithic Dawn recently entered early access on Quest.

UploadVRJames Tocchio

Neolithic Dawn is available now on Steam and Meta Quest for $19.99.

Iron Guard: Salvation is a tower defense strategy game in which players must build and upgrade bases and weapons while managing resources and fending off waves of enemies in VR. A story-driven campaign mode offers a cinematic experience across 30 hand-crafted missions.

Iron Guard: Salvation is a direct sequel to Xlab Digital's Iron Guard, which first debuted in 2021 and was ported to PS VR2 last year.

We previously reviewed Iron Guard: Salvation when it released on Quest, where our reviewer found it to be a strong tower defense game that might have benefitted from heavier implementation of RTS mechanics and inclusion of a multiplayer mode.

Iron Guard: Salvation launches March 5th on PlayStation VR2. It's out now on Quest and PC VR.

Selkies Interactive announced at the recent Convergence Games Showcase that their debut title, Echoes of Mora, will launch April 29 on Steam. The announcement comes alongside a haunting story trailer and a 30-minute playable demo during Steam Next Fest, which begins today.

Echoes of Mora is described by its makers as an exploration-driven mystery with high emotional stakes, a fusion of Subnautica's atmospheric aquatic exploration and Everybody's Gone to the Rapture's melancholic storytelling. You follow and guide Mora. After her brother disappears near a cursed lake, Mora sets out to find him. As the lake's water rises, threatening the village, your help is crucial. You'll share clues you find in the underwater world, guide Mora in the past, and accompany her on a time-bending journey that could decide the fate of her family and village.

When we previously covered Echoes of Mora, our writer felt that "While [Echoes of Mora] is by no means a seamless swimming simulator, its compelling narrative beats and dreamy world design provide more than enough intrigue to earn it a place on my wishlist."

You can wishlist Echoes of Mora on Steam today in advance of its full release in April.

Fixer Undercover was first revealed as a demo on the now defunct Meta Quest App Lab in 2024 and officially announced at the UploadVR Summer Showcase last year, promising a return to the VR escape room style puzzles popularized by games like the I Expect You To Die series and The Room VR: A Dark Matter.

As a special agent codenamed 'The Fixer', players will infiltrate a prison under the guise of a maintenance worker. Alongside a witty drone named Winston, a set of basic handyman tools like a hammer, grinder, pliers, and pipe wrench are used to solve a series of environmental puzzles.

Per a post on developer Creativity AR's Discord, it expects a full playthrough to take roughly six to eight hours.

Fixer Undercover was originally planned as an Early Access release in late January, but Creativity changed course in a social media post, saying "To be completely honest: we looked at the project and realized it wasn't ready to open its doors yet... We want to release a complete game, not a broken one. We apologize for the delay."

Fixer Undercover releases this Thursday on Meta Quest 3, 3S, and Pro for $14.99. The game's official website states that versions for Steam and PlayStation VR2 are planned for "a later date." The game can be wishlisted on Steam now.

Apple Immersive Video is particularly well suited for narrative documentary content. It can give visitors virtual access to real, visually stunning moments in behind-the-scenes experiences and destinations that most of us will not be able to physically visit in our lifetime. The forced perspective of the 180-degree format also offers a familiar entry point for acclaimed directors accustomed to crafting video content for traditional flat screens.

Paired with Apple TV’s reputation for visually polished and compelling storytelling, I went into the two Top Dogs Apple Immersive episodes with high expectations. But narrative and compelling visuals were not enough to create quality immersion. My role in the world of Top Dogs remained undefined, and certain creative choices gave me reason to…paws. It did not fully consider how experiencing the benefits of immersion inside a headset should feel different from simply watching a story unfold on a screen.

Spectacular dogs and clear storytelling.

The behind-the-scenes access that gets you up close to some incredible dogs makes this worth stepping into. I found myself face to face with breeds I have only ever seen on screens or in photos, and others I had never encountered before, each impeccably groomed and styled for the spotlight. The sheer range of dogs and their personalities is striking. They are the undeniable stars, and the stereoscopic depth brought me closer to these dogs than a traditional screen ever could.

The narrative also worked well. In just a combined thirty three minutes, I walked away with a clear understanding of how this renowned competition works. I learned what judges evaluate and gained insight into different aspects of the events. Participants are introduced cleanly. Stakes are easy to follow. Despite the short runtime, nothing feels rushed.

In many ways, I felt closer to this world than I would through a traditional screen. But getting close is not the same as feeling fully present within it.

Proximity is not the same as presence

Across both episodes, I kept returning to one question: who am I supposed to be here? Given Apple TV’s storytelling pedigree and the immersive potential of Apple Vision Pro, I expected Top Dogs to place me unmistakably inside its world rather than remind me at times that I was still watching from constantly shifting camera positions that were often stationary and sometimes moving speedily. My sense of embodiment wavered as scale and perspective changed without explanation or logic. Quick cuts shifted me from floating down an aisle of Dalmatians at eye level with their handlers, to sitting close-up at eye level with dogs, to looking up at handlers.

As a visitor to the documentary, I also did not feel like my presence was intended to be acknowledged. Those being interviewed spoke to an off-camera interviewer and avoided glancing into the lens, a choice typical of traditional flat-screen content. The only characters that seemed to recognize my presence on occasion were some of the dogs who took momentary interest in the camera. Locking eyes with Australian Shepherd Viking, 2024 Best in Show winner, was memorable. I impulsively shifted back when another dog jumped to the camera for a kiss. More moments like this would have helped with the sense of presence.

Traditional film language can limit immersion.

Directed and narrated by BAFTA and Peabody winner John Dower in his first immersive documentary, Top Dogs reflects a filmmaker clearly comfortable with traditional documentary language. But immersive storytelling demands intention around experience, not just storytelling.

The flyball competition segment showed what worked. The camera remained steady and well positioned as if I was watching from the sidelines. It gave me enough time to take in the space and choose where to look. The more time I had to notice details within the scene, the more immersed I felt. As the dogs sprinted back and forth, I turned my head naturally to follow them. The action defined my movement in the world. In contrast to many other moments in Top Dogs, this moment allowed me to feel confident in my spectator perspective, and present.

Framing and editing choices, however, often reflected traditional documentary grammar in ways that weakened immersion. Action and even faces were occasionally partially cropped within the 180 degree frame. Extreme close ups that might feel intimate on a flat screen felt odd and uncomfortable in headset. Photos appeared floating in black backgrounds rather than integrated into the environment. On screen text reinforced the sense of watching a framed production rather than being there. The quick cuts also shifted me between locations and perspectives without spatial grounding or transition of any sort. I would have liked to see more movement from the dogs and less movement from the camera.

When traditional documentary grammar dominates, the headset begins to feel optional. At several points, I found myself toggling from full Immersive Video to the windowed view to avoid some creative choices that felt jarring when fully immersed. I also found myself wondering why this was not simultaneously released as Apple TV content for more people to see it outside headset, given how closely its film language already aligns with traditional screens.

Small Screens Without The Struggle

On a traditional screen, designers fill a rectangle, and a VR headset stretches the canvas to a full sphere. On display glasses, the usable area is much smaller and always competes with real life. That alone calls for apps with glanceable layouts and a simple menu system. We saw a demo of Google’s prototype smart glasses at last year’s I/O.

Google describes the display as a space you opt into with focus, not something you passively absorb. These glasses are essentially heads-up displays (HUDs), not screens you stare at for hours. For daily use, display smart glasses should use a small area that allows you to shift attention briefly, then return to the real world at a moment’s notice.

Since screen colors blend with the background, Google recommends maintaining intensity instead of maximizing saturation since darker colors fade away on transparent screens.

Resolution, Aspect Ratio, And Font Limits

Google also covered legibility, noting designers should base font size on what the eye can see clearly at arm’s length. Smart glasses displays often have tighter resolution limits and less forgiving optics, especially near edges. The predictable aspect ratios of mobile design no longer apply.

Apps shouldn’t display dense lists in tiny type, and even content should shift toward fewer words. Readability requires stronger contrast, heavier fonts, and clearer spacing. Google suggests its Sans Flex typeface as a good choice.

Power Is Part Of The Design

Battery life is another hard constraint for smart glasses, since weight is held to a minimum. Google calls for outlines instead of filled blocks to avoid halation (light bleed) and reduce power drain. Fewer lit pixels, transient messages, and optimizing motion are less taxing on the tiny thermal and battery envelope of smart glasses.

Google’s Glimmer is more than a style preference. It’s a plan to make the most of the limited display area, real-world backgrounds, legibility limits, and the challenges of daily use. To learn more, check Google’s guide on Jetpack Compose Glimmer.

UploadVR originally reviewed Jolly Roger on PC VR in 2025, so if you are curious about the actual game itself, you should read our review. Note, however, that the game has received significant updates since then that address some things pointed out in the review. For this article, I replayed the entire game on PC VR, followed by the Quest port, so I experienced the improvements firsthand.

Pirates VR: Jolly Roger Review - Colorful Adventure With Shallow Combat

Pirates VR: Jolly Roger presents an enjoyable lighthearted VR adventure, though it’s hampered by shallow combat.

UploadVRHenry Stockdale

The sardonic, oftentimes annoying parrot companion's dialogue can be toggled on or off. Frankly, this option alone is worth half a star back on the rating (I'm only half kidding). A new intro and notes scattered throughout the campaign flesh out the story a bit more by filling in the backstory of Davy Jones and a reason why the player character embarks on the quest to begin with. Motion controls have been implemented to the swimming sections, a welcome addition for immersion. Lastly, the enemy AI is stated to be improved.

The Quest version uses two common standalone VR optimization methods. The first is Application Spacewarp (ASW), an optimization technique where the game renders at 36 frames per second, then the system synthesizes the missing frames to output 72 frames per second to the display. This is most noticeable in the form of micro stutters when grabbing objects. The second is fixed foveated rendering, where pixels on the periphery of the field of view are rendered at a lower resolution than the center of the view. This is noticeable if you keep your head still and move your eyes in any direction.

The aforementioned new intro is a good place to start when comparing the graphics. This scene has a pirate, the brother of Davy Jones, sending you on a quest to find the infamous pirate and his treasure. On both versions, the lone candle on the table provides some dynamic lighting. Doing something as simple as picking up a wine bottle and watching the light of the candle dance around it would've been unheard of for standalone a few years ago. The lamp you acquire early in the game also behaves the same way. Most of this game takes place in dark caves and dungeons and the lamp lets the developers keep dark corners dark, instead of that sort-of-dark-but-really-just-gray darkness seen in previous standalone efforts. Having said that, there is a significant difference in the lighting. The lamp on PC illuminates and casts shadows against everything while the Quest lamp is more selective.

I expected the draw distance looking out to the ocean to be reduced by a heavy use of fog, but that's not the case. The entire area is intact with a surprising amount of detail preserved. Little things, like the dust particles when grabbing a vine add to the overall experience. However, looking out to the horizon caused a major frame drop I experienced in the game, going from 72 to the low 50s. There is quite a bit of texture pop-in, but that was there with the PC version as well (especially underwater) unless the PC graphics were highest setting and even then, the odd rock or bush would still pop into view as you approached it. The level of detail and texture quality on the environment items (rocks, ground, walls, plants) have clearly been reduced, but not to the point of breaking immersion. The skeletons you spend the entire game fighting are more detailed on PC than Quest, but this didn't really stand out until encountering the enemies wearing clothes later in the game.

Even the water (mostly) holds up. Water in general is a struggle for standalone headsets and Jolly Roger doesn't buck that trend, but it holds up better than most Quest games. There's an extensive stretch spent underwater about a third of the way through the game and Split Light Studio (in partnership with Incuvo) translate that well to standalone, albeit with an odd blue sheen in the distance I did not notice on PC.

Overall, this is a strong PC to standalone port. It feels more like playing a PC game on the lowest settings with reduced texture quality as opposed to past Quest ports where entire assets, like grass, benches, and trees are removed and draw distance is drastically reduced.

Pirates VR: Jolly Roger is available on Steam and PlayStation VR2 for $19.99, and Meta Quest 3/3S for $14.99.

Blackgate, heavily inspired by Dead By Daylight and Echo Arena, pits four engineers against one alien for survival. Engineers fly around the space station repairing systems and unlocking an armory full of weapons to incapacitate the alien before it gets to them all. The game is free to play for engineers with an additional $19.99 purchase required to play as the alien.

We played the game in Early Access, noting "it's a game attuned to and takes advantage of VR... Fully immersed in that world, the sense of dread you feel even when other people are nearby is wonderfully achieved." However, the limitations of its host-driven online play made it difficult to finish matches.

BlackGate Is A Tense VR Multiplayer Survival Horror With One Major Flaw

BlackGate has potential with its tense survival horror multiplayer, though its early access launch is difficult to currently recommend.

UploadVRAlicia Haddick

For the free to play weekend, starting right now and ending at 10am EST on Monday, the paywalled alien character is free for all players. Developer Megaverse, an original IP division of Fun Train, says it is running this event as a thank you for a recent influx of new players.

In a developer post about its other horror title, The Exorcist Legion VR, undergoing a name change, Fun Train noted a monthly active player base of seventy-five thousand players as of January.

Blackgate is available on Quest headsets. A PC VR version has been announced with no release date as of yet.

The new social fishing world from TrickForge Studios features four scenic islands full of unique inhabitants as well as upgradable rods, an array of purchasable boats, and over 20,000 fish to possibly catch.

Loading the map will welcome players to a main lobby where they can choose to go through a short tutorial to understand how fishing mechanics work. Pulling the trigger on a VR controller while holding a fishing rod will cast the line.

Once a fish bites, an exclamation point will appear above the bobber. Press the trigger button while the exclamation point is active and a fishing minigame will begin. Repeatedly pulling the trigger while keeping the fish icon within the goal area of your line will help to reel the fish in. If the fish falls outside of the goal area for too long, the minigame will fail and the fish will escape.

Once the fish is caught, it will remain in the player's inventory until it can be sold at the village's shop. Each island has a store for selling goods as well as offering new fishing rods and different types of boats (surfing board, rowboat, dinghy, racing boat, and yacht). Captured fish can contain various appearance and size traits that can affect sale value.

Along with catching fish among the islands is the possibility of obtaining special relic pieces that can be used to enchant fishing rods. Hidden along the nooks and crannies of each island are also scraps of metal that can be used to play a special prize machine for perks, experience, and game currency.

Although Fish! contains cozy design, it's also hiding plenty of secrets. On one island I found a villager inhabiting a dirt-laden shack who remarked that something terrible occurred to the house's previous inhabitant but wouldn't say what. A small distance away I spotted a headless ghost wandering along a path next to the swamp. A walk up that same path leads to a church where an ungodly eye shines atop the steeple.

Fish! is a standout experience both as a playable game and as an online "destination" to visit. Weather and day cycles affect the islands to provide different vistas throughout play. A sunny day can be overtaken by fog and moody rain, giving way to serene evenings. It truly feels like a fun-filled vacation.

Godfall, head of TrickForge Studios, spent almost 8 months with his team to bring the experience to life. The soundtrack and environmental modeling were handled by Godfall and Svenssko while coding and programming were completed by Kittehkun and Gamerexde.

"I think developing for immersive platforms might be in a really good state right now," Godfall explained in an interview with UploadVR. "The goal at TrickForge Studios currently is to keep making great VRChat games, and then expand into Steam and console games in the future."

Fish! is currently in beta with expectations to wipe player progress upon the release of 1.0 at the end of the month. Visitors can enjoy the preview with their friends as long as they understand progress must be reset due to the map needing a fresh upload to debut the full game. TrickForge Studios has announced new areas upon the 1.0 release along with secrets and additional content.

"We want to offer everyone a full game experience, with simple optional transactions," said Godfall. "We are very passionate about FISH! and we want to keep the integrity of it."

You can find Fish! on VRChat, available in VR on standalone and PC VR headsets.

Games are so often obsessed with spectacle, which is paradoxically one of the reasons I so dearly appreciate Birdseed. This gentle game about watching and photographing comically cute birds doesn't shout or overstimulate you. Instead, it invites you to relax, slow down, and simply enjoy a peaceful slice of nature filled with charming, delightfully curious birds.

After my first hands-on session with the Early Access release, I found myself returning over and over, not just to satisfy daily objectives and collect more in-game currency, but to simply exist, to listen to music or the sounds of nature, to hang out and shoot some photos of my hilarious birdbrained pals.

Serious Photography?

As someone who's been a photographer for over 20 years, and a writer covering the camera industry for more than a decade, I was especially interested in how Birdseed, a game about photographing birds, handles the art and craft of photography.

While I personally love mechanical cameras and the extreme nuance of making a picture with a dedicated camera, adjusting aperture and shutter speed, ISO, and reading all about the finer points of depth-of-field and circle of confusion and other photography nonsense that most of the humans on Earth have never heard about, I understand that highly technical simulations of making pictures don't always make for a good gaming experience. For most people, serious photography is obtuse and opaque and boring.

Birdseed sidesteps that by being incredibly simple. You can't move very far. In fact, you stand (or sit) in just a small central viewpoint from where the whole of your observation and photographing occur. You hold a camera, and that camera has just two controls: It can zoom in and out, and it can take a picture. That's it (for now). There are unlockable lenses of different focal lengths that can be interchanged, and future updates will likely bring art lenses and special effect filters and all of that good stuff. But for now, we're basically using a point-and-shoot, a type of camera that works as its name suggests. Point it at something, shoot, and a picture comes out.

The simplicity of gameplay is beautiful, and perfect for a game that's trying to do what Birdseed is trying to do. That is, put a camera in your hand, and give you something to point it at.

The environment is far from photorealistic, but it still manages to be lush and pretty, presented with artfully-crafted cartoonish simplicity. A pastel sun creeps low across a distant mountain range. Marshmallow clouds drift across the azure sky. Sparkling water dances down a falls while towering evergreens sway in the breeze. And within this beautiful nature scape flit birds of all sorts.

They dance among the branches, preen on the rocks, and soar high in the sky. And they look absolutely stupid (complimentary). They're goofy and silly, delightfully plump and bouncy. Their enormous eyes blink dumbly as they flutter and squawk and bounce. Even when diving on the wind, they look more like bowling pins than sleek products of a million years' evolution. I love these dumb birds.

The Decisive Moment

You have twelve pictures per day, as you're using a film camera, and these images are instantly ejected to be held, looked at, and then stored automatically in your photo album. Photos are rated for their content, as well as for the rarity of the bird, and the bird's poses or actions are marked as well. Capturing a rare bird or a bird in a rare action or pose will rate higher, and higher ratings or achieving certain challenges (for example, photographing a specific type of bird or making a three-star photo) will earn in-game currency which can be spent to buy new lenses and cosmetic items, such as new skins for your camera.

The scarcity of available photos per day is an interesting mechanic, and one that I appreciate. As happens in real life when we're shooting a film camera, the knowledge that we only have a limited number of shots tends to change the way we photograph. It forces me to pause for a moment, or to think deeper during the act of making an image. Do I really want to use a frame to make this photo? The result is that I either make better pictures, or sometimes I miss out. I found the same thing happening in Birdseed.

Exhausting your daily supply of film doesn't necessarily mean the play session is over. You can still hang out in the environment, watch birds, and enjoy the scenery. There's even a radio with which you can listen to some chill tunes.

If there's one major strike against Birdseed, it's that the game is not technically solid. During my play sessions, there were several instances of the game crashing. Restarting my Quest 3S smoothed things out temporarily, but a few more crashes led me to uninstall and reinstall Birdseed, which seemed to mostly solve the problem.

For now, and when it works without crashing, I'm enjoying every minute that I spend in Birdseed. Though those minutes amount to just about 30 per day, it's a nice half hour in VR. Birdseed has been a lovely experience that will surely only become more endearing, fully-fledged, and enjoyable when the game officially releases in March.

Birdseed VR is out now in Early Access on Quest 3 and 3S, with the full release coming in March on Quest and Steam.

Developed by Zeitlos Interactive, Peak Rhythm is a VR climbing game that challenges players to climb in sync to an exciting soundtrack. Players grab handholds in time with the beat, which is visually denoted by "Timing Rings" which tighten around the various handholds.

Multiple types of grips add variety. Twist grips ask that you twist your wrist like a volume knob, and Double grips demand you grab hold with both hands. Grip and climb at the right moment and you're propelled ever higher; miss the beat and you fall. The higher you climb, the higher your name lands on the leaderboard.

The game is launching in Early Access with original tracks spanning several genres, including Drum & Bass, Dubstep, House, and Disco, with tracks from FEISTLING, Killin' Void, Ion Diary, and funiel.

Also launching in Early Access is a fully functional Beatmap Editor, supporting custom maps and players' own music files. Multiplayer is planned as an Early Access update shortly after launch.

Peak Rhythm launches in Early Access on Quest on March 5, 2026 for $12.99.

If you're unaware, Horizon+ is Meta's $8/month game subscription service for Quest headset owners. Subscribers get access to a Games Catalog of around 50 major VR titles, as well as an Indie Catalog of around 50 smaller titles, for a total of around 100 games.

The Games Catalog has grown to include some of the biggest and best VR games of all time, including Asgard’s Wrath 2, Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR, Cubism, Demeo, Dungeons of Eternity, Eleven Table Tennis, Ghosts of Tabor, Into the Radius, Job Simulator, Kingspray Graffiti, Les Mills Bodycombat, Maestro, Moss, Pistol Whip, Puzzling Places, Real VR Fishing, Red Matter 1 & 2, Synth Riders, The Climb 2, and The Thrill of the Fight.

Subscribers are also offered two specific games each month, pre-selected by Meta. Redeeming them lets you play them while you remain subscribed, or when you resubscribe in future.

Glassbreakers: Champions of Moss & Clay Hunt VR Are Quest’s Horizon+ Monthly Games This February

Here are the Meta Horizon+ Monthly Games for February 2026, including one of the best strategy games on the market, Glassbreakers: Champions of Moss.

UploadVRJames Tocchio

One million subscribers would represent just under $100 million revenue per year, assuming they stick around that long.

All new Quest 3 and Quest 3S purchases come with 3 months of Horizon+. While these new users presumably aren't included in Meta's 1 million figure, we've reached out to the company to explicitly ask.

On a purely financial basis, assuming you're not fundamentally against the idea of a subscription, Horizon+ offers excellent value, and so reaching 1 million subscribers isn't particularly surprising.

Back in October, Meta opened enrollment in the Horizon+ Games Catalog and Indie Catalog to any interested developer, providing they meet the strict requirements.

Horizon+ Now Has An Indie Catalog, And Quest Games Can Apply To Be Included

Quest developers can now apply to have their game be part of the Horizon+ subscription, and Meta is beta testing a new Indie Catalog for smaller titles.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

Horizon+ represents a gradual but significant shift in the way many VR headset owners access premium titles since the launch of the original Oculus Quest almost seven years ago. It could have significant upsides for developers enrolled in the program, while bringing reduced spending for those not.

Apple too takes a similar approach on Vision Pro with the $7/month Apple Arcade subscription, but goes further, not offering the ability to outright buy many of the platform's top games.

Neon-themed co-op roguelite ZIX was hitting performance ceilings, according to Hidden IO, limiting its abilities to increase enemy counts and the overall pace of the game. The new Foundation update upgrades the Unity engine, bringing "meaningfully better" performance and enabling higher enemy counts and more intense encounters on each run.

ZIX Review-In-Progress: Movement-Driven Mayhem In A Surreal Setting

Surreal roguelike ZIX shines with its unique combat and fluid movement, though the early access release on Quest 3 and PC VR has some rough edges.

UploadVRPete Austin

In the dev post, Hidden IO also confirmed it is working on Gogo Dojo, a new free-to-play title designed to showcase the best of ZIX's gameplay style in an easier, more accessible setting. Pre-alpha playtesting for Gogo Dojo is said to start 'soon' in Hidden IO's Discord.

Explaining why it is developing a free game, Hidden IO stated "ZIX lives or dies by how many people play it. We can’t sustain development without players, and the current VR landscape is tough. Many studios are struggling, and we’re not immune to that reality."

The Foundation update is said to set the stage to expand ZIX in the future, including a revamped progression system and expanded build variety.

ZIX is available now in Early Access on Quest 3 and Steam for $19.99.

Titled 'Our Renewed Focus in 2026' and written by the VP of Content at Meta Reality Labs, Samantha Ryan, much of the post repeats what CTO Andrew Bosworth has already said in a series of public interviews and Instagram "ask me anything" sessions in recent weeks.

Meta CTO Explains Layoffs & Strategy Shift: “VR Is Growing Less Quickly Than We Hoped”

In a series of interviews at Davos, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth explained why the company is reducing its investment in VR.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

The gist of Meta's new VR and metaverse strategy, according to its executives, is that Horizon Worlds will become "almost exclusively mobile", and the platform will no longer be pushed on Quest owners. Meanwhile, on the VR side, Meta will focus on funding and supporting the third-party developer ecosystem instead of putting out its own blockbuster VR games to compete with them.

Meta is removing individual Horizon Worlds destinations from the in-VR store on Quest, Ryan writes, and "separating worlds from the Store" in the smartphone app.

"We heard your feedback loud and clear, and after a year of collecting data and running experiments, we agree. We’re removing individual worlds from our store shelves in VR, and we’re separating worlds from the Store in our mobile app. This change should result in more impressions for apps on the store."

Last month, Meta also announced that Quest's new 'Navigator' UI will soon become the default and the Horizon Feed will be removed, meaning the headset will boot to a grid of your installed apps. Some Quest owners on the Public Test Channel (PTC) have also received a refreshed Navigator that lacks the 'Worlds' button.

Quest’s New ‘Navigator’ UI Becoming Default As Horizon Feed To Be Removed

“Starting” in Quest v85, the new ‘Navigator’ UI is becoming the default, and the Horizon Feed will be “gradually” removed from Horizon OS.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

The post also seems to take aim at the gloom and doom discourse around the future of the Quest platform that followed Meta's shutdown of three of its acquired VR game studios, significant layoffs at a fourth, cancelation of the Batman: Arkham Shadow sequel, and deprecation of Horizon Workrooms and Quest headsets for business offering.

As well as noting that Meta has "a robust roadmap of future VR headsets", echoing comments from the CFO and CTO, Ryan claims that VR "is still growing", and that Quest had "a tremendous holiday season that was on par with our 2024 results".

"Total payment volume on the platform remained similar year-over-year in 2025", Ryan writes, also noting that Quest headset sales remain "far ahead of all competitors" while Meta remains "the single biggest investor in the VR industry".

Quest 4 Is Still On The Roadmap, Meta CTO Seemingly Confirms

In an interview with Alex Heath, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth seemed to confirm the leak that a gaming-focused Quest 4 is still on the roadmap.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

In what seems to be an attempt to reassure developers, Ryan claims Meta is "focused on supporting the third-party developer community" through "strategic partnerships and targeted investments".

Last year multiple new VR games earned millions of dollars of revenue on the platform, Ryan claims, including UG, Hard Bullet and The Thrill of the Fight 2.

"While we’re proud of the world-class work from Oculus Studios over the years, among 1P and 3P apps, 86% of the effective time people spend in their VR headsets is with third-party apps", Ryan notes.

Ryan also claims that in 2025 Meta invested "nearly $150 million in VR developer programs".

Meta CTO: We’re Still Investing More In VR Content Than Anyone Else

Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth claims that even after the cuts, the company is still investing more in VR content than anyone else, and more than it was 4 years ago.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

Of course, words are cheap, and since acquiring Oculus almost twelve years ago, Meta's VR strategy has constantly shifted under developers' feet. Many will be weary of this instability, and UploadVR will keep a close eye on the Quest platform in the wake of Meta's latest change of direction.

We first heard that the owner of TikTok's VR platform Pico was working on a high-end headset over two years ago, when The Information reported that Pico 5 had been canceled in favor of a short-term Pico 4 refresh and a longer-term Apple Vision Pro competitor called Project Swan.

Now, Pico has listed a GDC 2026 talk titled 'Bring Your Apps and Games to General Spatial Computing with Project Swan', set to take place on March 12.

The listing says the talk will guide developers through building or porting games to its upcoming "flagship device for general spatial computing", running "Pico OS 6".

Notably, the listing mentions that Pico OS 6 supports "a new paradigm for spatial experiences in which games and apps coexist, allowing a primary experience to run alongside companion applications in a shared environment". Currently, only Apple Vision Pro's visionOS supports this concept of an XR shared space, with both 2D windows and 3D volumes, while Meta's Horizon OS and Google's Android XR are limited to running one spatial experience at a time.

While the listing describes Pico OS 6, it doesn't say anything about the upcoming headset itself, other than calling it a "flagship device". What exactly will it be?

Pico’s 2026 Headset To Have 4K Micro-OLED Displays & R1-Style Chip

Pico’s 2026 headset will have 4K micro-OLED displays and a dedicated R1-style passthrough chip, a ByteDance executive reportedly said.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

Back in July, The Information reported that Pico was working on an ultralight headset resembling a pair of goggles, with an onboard dedicated image coprocessor and a tethered compute puck, similar to Meta's next headset.

Then, in November, a Chinese news outlet reported that ByteDance's Vice President of Technology said that Pico's 2026 headset will have 4K micro-OLED displays and a dedicated R1-style passthrough chip.

UploadVR's Mike Johnson and Kyle Riesenbeck will be in attendance at GDC 2026, and we've reached out to ByteDance in hopes of going hands-on with Project Swan. We'll let you know if we get a response.

Fun Train announced that the license holders for The Exorcist IP chose not to renew the license for the well-regarded horror title. As a result, the game will continue to be available under its new name, Exorcism of the Legion (Last Rites), a name Fun Train fully owns.

This change will take effect when players update the game on their platform of choice. The Steam, Quest, and PlayStation VR2 store listings already show the new name, though the original PlayStation VR version is still listed for sale under the original name, both in a complete set and as individual chapters.

Fun Train's Tarzan VR was delisted from all VR storefronts at the end of January after Fun Train opted out of renewing the license. Additionally, The Twilight Zone VR has also been renamed 'Tales From the Zone' on the Quest and PS VR2 stores.

Tarzan VR Delisted: ‘Renewing The License For This IP Is Simply Not Commercially Viable’

Fun Train is pulling its Tarzan VR game from storefronts at the end of the month.

UploadVRIan Hamilton

The Exorcist: Legion VR first released episodically for Steam in 2017, Meta Quest 1 in May 2019, and PlayStation VR1 in 2018. The Quest version received multiple graphical updates, including a 90Hz update for Quest 2, and a full graphics overhaul on Quest 3. A free epilogue add-on was also released for Quest in October 2024. The original PlayStation VR edition also received a visual update.

A sequel, The Exorcist: Legion SIN (Safety In Numbers), with co-op gameplay was announced in late 2021. After an initial delay into 2023, Fun Train announced the game was shelved indefinitely due to the changing VR gaming landscape.

The Exorcist: Legion VR SIN Is ‘On Hold’ Indefinitely

The Exorcist: Legion VR SIN, a multiplayer sequel to the early episodic VR horror hit, is “on hold indefinitely.”

UploadVRHenry Stockdale

Exorcism of the Legion (Last Rites) is available on Meta Quest and Steam for $24.99, and on PS VR2 and PS VR1, the latter under its original name, for $29.99.

Developed by iWorlds, the VR port of Vortex 9 will launch on Meta Quest on February 26. The shooter has previously been released as a free-to-play game on iOS and Google's Play Store, where it has cumulatively amassed more than 10 million players. The VR port will be Crossplay compatible, which could help the game's transition to VR.

Vortex 9 hangs its hat on absurdity. Players customize a variety of stylish heroes and jump into colorful arenas wielding over-the-top weapons, such as battle lollipops and bubble miniguns. Players can also create and play with cute battle pets across several multiplayer modes, including Team Battle, Solo Deathmatch, and Capture Point.

Vortex 9 is available on the Apple App Store and Google Play. The Meta Quest release drops February 26, and can be wishlisted now.

3R Games has announced that the next real-world cave to appear in their virtual reality spelunking game Cave Crave will be Thailand's Tham Luang. The cave gained international attention in 2018 when a youth football team became trapped in the cave by rising flood waters.

To ensure accuracy and appropriate context, the studio is collaborating with diver Vern Unsworth, who directly participated in the rescue, and 3D cave-scanning expert Roo Walters. The new cave will appear in Cave Crave's Tourist Mode, a non-gamified virtual recreation of real-world locations.

This addition to the game's "real cave" experiences follows an earlier update that added Utah's Nutty Putty Cave, another real-world cave that closed in 2009 after the death of John Edward Jones. 3R Games is careful to note that their real cave recreations aim to offer a way to explore dangerous or permanently closed sites that's both respectful and authentic, and not gamified experiences.

In Cave Crave, you'll explore tight tunnels and caves, spelunk your way through the darkness, mark walls with chalk and use various other caving tools to plumb the depths and escape to the safety of the open air.

Previous updates have added an Arcade Mode, which turns the game into a competitive race against time, where you aim for the quickest run on the online leaderboards.

Cave Crave is out now on PlayStation VR2, Quest, and Steam.

Rager drops players into a stylized arena for intense, timing-based combat in tune to a dubstep-glitchy-rock soundtrack. We first tried the game as a demo on Steam and said "With a full pace of strikes, blocks, and ducks, RAGER makes me feel like I'm engaging with an immersive fitness routine that's straight out of a movie."

RAGER Hands-On: Slice And Dice Is Pretty Nice

RAGER presents an enjoyable cyberpunk rhythm fighting game, and it’s out now in early access on Quest 3 and SteamVR.

UploadVRK. Guillory

Rager first debuted on Steam and Quest in Early Access in October 2025. A November 2025 update added a new 'freestyle mode' with four new levels. At the time of this article, it remains in Early Access on both platforms with no date for a full release.

The PS VR2 version will launch with a full campaign comprised of twelve levels and three boss fights along with the aforementioned freestyle mode. The game runs at a native ninety frames per second, features headset haptics, and utilizes eye-tracked dynamic foveated rendering for better visuals and performance.

Rager is out now in Early Access on Steam and Meta Quest 3/3S for $14.99.

The current Meta Ray-Ban Display, exclusively available in the US for just under five months now, is a monocular device. It has a small display in the right lens, while your left eye sees nothing. In our review, we described how this "just feels wrong", inducing a constant minor feeling of eyestrain when the display is active for more than a few seconds.

The reason that Meta Ray-Ban Display is monocular is that, as Meta's CTO pointed out in the weeks before the device's launch, the components for a binocular device would cost more than twice as much, since it also requires implementing disparity correction. It would also drive up the bulk and weight, harming social acceptability even further than it already is.

But the cost of in-lens waveguides and miniature light engines should decrease with scale, and Meta executives have described the demand for Meta Ray-Ban Display as significantly higher than expected, leading to the delay of the plan to launch the product internationally.

Meta Ray-Ban Display Review: First Generation Heads-Up Mobile Computing

Meta Ray-Ban Display is an early glimpse of a future where mobile computing doesn’t mean looking down and taking something out of your pocket.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

During development, Meta Ray-Ban Display was internally codenamed Hypernova. Last year, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reported that Meta plans to release a successor, codenamed Hypernova 2, in 2027. Hypernova 2 would include a display in both eyes, he wrote at the time.

This timeline was corroborated by supply-chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who also said Meta would replace the first-generation product with a successor in 2027.

Now, though, The Information's Jyoti Mann reports that Hypernova 2 will launch this year, not in 2027. While the report doesn't go into much detail, Mann describes Meta executives as being "concerned that launching too many devices in quick succession could confuse customers".

Given that Meta plans to launch its ultralight Horizon OS headset in early 2027, and that multiple sources point towards the company aiming to launch its first true AR glasses in the second half of 2027, shipping binocular HUD glasses this year may make for a less confusing release sequence.

Mann's report says Meta has also revived plans to launch a smartwatch, hoping to release that later this year too.

With the binocular HUD glasses, Meta could be hoping to get ahead of Apple's upcoming smart glasses, widely believed to be launching in early 2027. With Apple's first glasses lacking a display at all, Mark Zuckerberg could be hoping to present Meta as the technology leader in the smart glasses space.

Apple Glasses Could Have 2 Cameras & Launch In 2027

Apple’s smart glasses will have two cameras, one for capture and the other for computer vision, and launch in early 2027, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

Keep in mind that Meta's hardware roadmap is constantly shifting, and the company frequently spins up and cancels headsets and glasses before they ship.

It's possible that Meta no longer plans for Hypernova 2 to be binocular, or that the sources previously suggesting that it would be binocular were mistaken.

Last month, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth was asked on Instagram whether decreasing size and weight or adding another display is the company's priority for the next-generation device.

Bosworth didn't give an answer, but instead posted a poll asking the community for their preference. In the poll, he labeled the options as
"Binocular (>$ + weight)" and "Design (smaller, <$)". The wording choices there may hint at Meta's thinking, and thus it's just as possible that later this year we see a sleeker, lighter Meta Ray-Ban Display Gen 2 without the anticipated left-lens display.

Before you continue reading, note that foveated streaming is not the same as foveated rendering, though the two techniques can be used alongside each other. As the names suggest, while foveated rendering involves the host device actually rendering the area of each frame you're currently looking at with higher resolution, foveated streaming refers to sending that area to the headset with higher image quality than the rest of the frame.

It's a term you may have heard in the context of Valve's Steam Frame, where it's a fundamental always-on feature of its PC VR streaming offering, delivered via the USB PC wireless adapter by default.

Given that the video decoders in headsets have a limited maximum resolution and bitrate, foveated streaming helps prioritize resolution and compression quality where you're currently looking.

Apple Vision Pro: visionOS 26.4

visionOS 26.4 will bring foveated streaming to Apple Vision Pro, enabling higher-quality wireless VR remote rendering from a local or cloud PC.

Unlike the macOS Spatial Rendering introduced in the main visionOS 26 release last year, which is a relatively high-level system that only supports a local Mac as a host, Apple's developer documentation describes the new Foveated Streaming as a low-level host-agnostic framework.

The documentation highlights Nvidia's CloudXR SDK as an example host, while noting that it should also work with local PCs. Apple even has a Windows OpenXR sample available on GitHub, which to our knowledge is the first and only time the company has even mentioned the industry-standard XR API, never mind actually using it.

ALVR For Apple Vision Pro Brings PS VR2 Controllers To SteamVR

ALVR for Apple Vision Pro, the open-source wireless SteamVR tool, now supports the PS VR2 Sense controllers in its TestFlight build for visionOS 26.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

The lead developer of the visionOS port of the PC VR streaming app ALVR, Max Thomas, tells UploadVR that he's currently looking into adding support for foveated streaming, but that it will likely be "a lot of work".

Because of how the feature works, Apple's foveated streaming might even enable foveated rendering for tools like ALVR.

Normally, visionOS does not provide developers with any information about where the user is looking – Apple says this is in order to preserve privacy. Instead, developers only receive events, such as which element the user was looking at as they performed the pinch gesture. But crucial to foveated streaming working, the API tells the developer the "rough" region of the frame the user is looking at.

This should allow the host to render at higher resolution in this region too, not just stream it in higher resolution. As always, this will require the specific VR game to support foveated rendering, or to support tools that inject foveated rendering.

Interestingly, Apple's documentation also states that visionOS supports displaying both rendered-on-device and remote content simultaneously. The company gives the example of rendering the interior of a car or aircraft on the headset while streaming the highly detailed external world on a powerful cloud PC, which would be preferable from a perceived latency and stability perspective to rendering everything in the cloud.

We'll keep an eye on the visionOS developer community in the coming months, especially the enterprise space, for any interesting uses of Apple's foveated streaming framework in practice.

Samsung Galaxy XR: Virtual Desktop

Meanwhile, Samsung Galaxy XR is getting foveated streaming via Guy Godin's Virtual Desktop, a $25 third-party app available on Google Play.

Virtual Desktop's latest update also brings foveated streaming to Meta Quest Pro and Play For Dream MR, though this is less notable as those headsets could already achieve foveated streaming through Valve's Steam Link.

The feature should also work on any future eye-tracked headset where Virtual Desktop is available, Guy Godin tells UploadVR.

Here's the full changelog for Virtual Desktop 1.34.16:

• Added Foveated streaming with eye tracked headsets (Quest Pro, PFD & Galaxy XR)
• This uses eye tracking to improve the quality of the image where you are looking.

• Improved color gradients and color accuracy with all codecs by using the full RGB color range instead of limited range (for desktop and PCVR)

• Added 96 fps and 100 fps support on Quest 2, 3/3S (only available on Quest v85 PTC)

• Added Gamepad vibration support (also for controllers when emulating gamepad)

• Added adaptive quantization support with AMD GPUs using H.264/H.264+

• Improved initial connection reliability (for real this time)

• Added 21:9 resolutions for virtual monitor on macOS

• Improved thumbstick scroll on macOS and now it respects the natural scrolling option

• Fixed distorted image with some laptop monitor resolutions
• Fixed rare black flash issue when playing some PCVR games
• Fixed hand joints offsets and interference with other drivers in SteamVR
• Fixed compatibility with Roblox anti-cheat
• Fixed more issues with AndroidXR invalid controller poses
• Fixed button support for some recent UE5 games
• Fixed reprojection stutters with some Unity (OVRPlugin) games

We previously reviewed Flat Head Studio's Deadly Delivery, finding it to be a "clever, effective, and genuinely funny VR co-op that nails the feel of physical play in a spooky, comic world." Flat Head has already updated the game with new content several times since its December launch, adding a new Ice Caves location and several quality of life features.

Deadly Delivery Review: Hilarious Horror Best Played With Friends

Deadly Delivery is a fun and funny horror co-op game that makes the most of VR.

UploadVRJames Tocchio

The Mystery Room adds a new room to the Bloodmoon and Ice Cave levels with more doors for players to explore. Some doors now have a microphone where players have to declare themselves before proceeding with the drop-off. A new item called the Door Reuser is available to purchase from the in-game shop as well, allowing players to deliver an extra package to a door.

The update also includes general bug fixes, an ammo increase for the Roulette Gun, and wider passages in certain areas to allow multiple players to move around easier.

Deadly Delivery is available on Meta Quest and Steam for $9.99.

Gurman, who has a strong track record of reporting on Apple products in advance of an official reveal, has been tracking the company's plans to launch a Ray-Ban Meta competitor for well over a year now.

His previous reports described the company's first glasses as lacking a display, having cameras, microphones and speakers, and being powered by a new Apple-designed chipset, based on the highly efficient S-series chips used in Apple Watch. The product would be used for phone calls, music playback, live translations, turn-by-turn directions, and multimodal AI, which Apple calls Visual Intelligence.

His new report explains how Apple plans to distinguish its hardware from Meta's: "build quality and camera technology".

According to Gurman, the device will use "high-end materials" including acrylic elements and have two cameras, one for high-quality image and video capture, and the other for computer vision.

UploadVR's take on that is that a dedicated computer vision sensor could draw significantly less power than a sensor designed for imaging, and thus be sampled continually for advanced use cases like spatially-aware pedestrian navigation. "Turn left just past that red Honda", instead of "In 200 meters, turn left". It might also enable hand gestures without the need for a wristband – though you would need to raise your arm.

Apple is targeting December for mass production of the glasses, Gurman writes, for a launch in early 2027.

Unlike Meta and Google, which are working with established fashionable glasses brands, Apple will be designing its own frames, Gurman claims, with a variety of colors and sizes set to be offered.

His report also claims Apple is working on AirPods with cameras, and a wearable pendant, as part of a suite of AI-focused hardware.

Next-Gen Ray-Ban Meta Glasses Could Recognize Faces In 2026

Next-gen Ray-Ban Meta glasses set for 2026 could recognize faces and run continuous AI sessions for “hours”, The Information reports.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

The competition won't be standing still, though. Last year The Information reported that Meta and EssilorLuxottica plan to launch next-generation Ray-Ban Meta glasses with a facial recognition feature and the ability to run continuous AI sessions for "hours".

Meanwhile, Google is set to launch its Gemini-powered smart glasses platform this year, partnering with eyewear companies Gentle Monster and Warby Parker, as well as Samsung, to bring it to market.

The industry is set to see a fierce three-way battle between Meta, Apple, and Google to own the software platform on the glasses the companies hope you'll wear all day. Is there room for three players, or will it narrow to a two-horse race over time?

A futuristic, dystopian society where AI and cybernetic technology have transformed society into a militarized, oppressive surveillance state where the border between humanity and machine is blurred. The title, even, refers to the idea that a soul (‘the ghost’) could be uploaded and transferred into a mechanical shell, or flesh could be fused to transform the human. It’s an idea that has been used to comment on humanity’s relationship with technology, and, to mark thirty years since the first anime adaptation of the 1989 manga, a new art exhibition celebrating the franchise in its entirety has hit Tokyo.

But this isn’t any normal exhibition. It makes sense that a franchise speculating about the future of technology would implement the cutting-edge aspects of this technology into even a showcase of the human artistry that went into its creation, but this Ghost in the Shell Exhibition has implemented AR technology using Xreal Air 2 Ultra to enhance the experience of exploring and understanding the artwork on display.

The series in every iteration follows members of Public Security Section 9, professionals separate to the police that work at solving and preventing crime, typically with a cybercrime and counter-terrorist purpose. The crimes they encounter, and the personal stories that reverberate into the broader world, touch on corruption, surveillance, technological overreach and abuse and more. The Puppet Master, the antagonist of the original manga and first film, can hack and overtake cybernetic bodies, whereas the Laughing Man circumvents surveillance through hacked video feeds.

Conceptually, this is the first deep dive into the history of the entire franchise in a single exhibition, showcasing materials used in the production of not just early works but every series and film from the 1995 original all the way until the more recent Netflix-produced CG works, Arise, and an all-new preview for the all-new series from Science Saru premiering later this year. As such, original cels, storyboards, sketches and production materials from every series were on display, alongside newly produced artworks from a range of creatives that explore questions on humanity, AI, technology and the human body posed by the franchise. An analog look at a technological world, as original paper sketches are framed on walls and in glass panels.

In an opening room, you also have tall PCs with a digital interface to witness lines of dialogue, sketches, hear music, and more from across the franchise. In the main gallery featuring art from every series also sits a PC with digitized assets from every series to flick through at your leisure, a hard drive with a treasure trove of materials from the dense work of the series. Then you have the Xreal Air 2 Ultra AR device.

Their implementation at this exhibition is certainly unusual, one of the first examples in the world of AR glasses being used at an art exhibition in such a manner. While you could simplify their use as a more thematically fitting audio guide like the listening devices available to rent at museums around the world, their use here was a bit more involved and interesting than such a simplistic summation. For a cost of 1500 yen ($10) on top of your ticket, you will be given a pair of Xreal Air 2 Ultra glasses and a smartphone in a case to hold around your neck. After plugging the glasses into the phone, selecting your language between Japanese and English, and being instructed on how to use the device for the first time, you enter the exhibition.

Dotted around the floor of every room of the exhibition are special marks featuring Tachikoma, the cute blue robot from the series. Scanning these marks will trigger an AR scene superimposed over that room or area of the exhibition. The first marker, serving as an introduction to this enhanced walkthrough of the space, places Tachikoma inside the open-plan first room of the showcase in order to explain the franchise and the exhibition, featuring the machine voiced by its original voice actor, Sakiko Tamagawa.

These AR markings are primarily found in the next room, the main gallery space and centerpiece of the exhibition featuring original production sketches, cels and more each broken up by series or film. At the beginning of each entry in the franchise's space within the showcase sits a large Tachikoma mark that you scan with the Xreal glasses, letting them know where you are in the space and triggering the enhancements related to that entry. Each begins with an introduction to that work by Tachikoma enhanced by video clips and audio from that movie or series, before light paths appear on the floor guiding you to specific sketches and cels on display on the show floor.

Scanning these will not only work as a story-driven run-through of the story of that particular production, but provide production background and context to the work you’re seeing.

While functionally similar to an audio guide, the format using this technology allows this guide to go further in expanding upon what visitors can understand about each piece on display. Highlighting specific works and providing overlaid video places these sketches within the context of the finished work for those less familiar with the animation production process, which can be eye-opening for anyone unaware of everything that goes into taking a work from page to screen.

Of course, it doesn’t do this for every sketch, but it’s easily possible to wander the floor and look at these assets at your own pace, then scan these enhanced works at any moment. Newly produced artworks are placed alongside these original production materials that each lean into the themes of the series, leaving you with fresh perspectives to ponder as you bask in the world of Ghost in the Shell. One that particularly stood out to me was a human-sized doll in a box with a mirror for a face, reflecting the viewer as they stared at the piece. When humanity can be moved into a new shell to the point the flesh is unimportant, what is a body? What is human?

Considering the warnings the franchise has made about the convergence of technology and humanity in the wake of the potentially ruinous consequences of AI or technological overabundance, all while still recognizing the potential of these advancements, these artworks and even the use of Xreal glasses felt fitting. Innocence, the second film by Mamoru Oshii, specifically dives into the AI question at some depth, which coincidentally is where this doll artwork was positioned in the event space.

Not all of these art pieces and technology-infused additions to the showcase felt fitting - moving from the warnings of Innocence regarding AI to the uncritical embrace of the technology via distorted generative AI artwork was disappointing to witness in an exhibition celebrating human creativity. But most of these artworks and technological experiments enhanced the experience overall.

After viewing every series and film in order, the Xreal experience ends with an exclusive preview of Science Saru’s new series, alongside a brief original 30-second animation featuring Motoko evoking the imagery of the original film. Beyond the glasses implementation, the merchandise area featured collaborations with numerous artists and companies that also merged traditional methods with technological innovation. STYLY, an AR company, handled the AR implementation for the glasses, while TechnoByobu produced a fascinating traditional Japanese folding screen that, when scanned with your phone’s camera, would render an animation of Motoko.

An embrace of technology to enhance the artistic display of 30 years of adaptations for this seminal manga series felt befitting of this unique exhibition, but the technological potential of this work goes far beyond Ghost in the Shell. The use of Xreal glasses here wasn’t perfect, but any issues spoke more to the current limits of the technology than their implementation here. The field of view is still relatively limited with notable edges, and they’re difficult to use when also wearing glasses. They could occasionally desync, especially if you removed them from your face for any reason, and if this occurs the resync process is far from simple due to how locked-down these devices are for security reasons during this exhibition.

Still, I could imagine this technology finding great use in other showcases in future, even beyond ones where it’s thematically apt to use them like seen here. Classic museums have already embraced technology to provide context to artworks in the past: the Louvre used 3DS devices for a decade, and phone apps are commonplace. AR glasses give a visual enhancement not possible with a phone, however, making it an enhancing use-case for the technology which genuinely benefits the experience.

Regardless of if you do choose to rent the glasses, however, the Ghost in the Shell exhibition is more than worth your time if you care for the series. If you live in or visit Tokyo, the rare opportunity to see original sketches and cels from the franchise history is a real treat. The exhibition runs at Tokyo Node until April 5th.

Metalcat Interactive's community manager confirmed the action RPG's pending release on Discord, but did not specify a date.

The team behind Grimlord confirmed several months ago that they were working on a PSVR2 port in its Discord. In response to a question about a release date, Metalcat community manager 'KUPOkinz' stated "yup that is set to release very soon actually, its in final stages... I would say less than a month."

Another developer followed up, saying "Yes, despite the many difficulties, it is nearing completion. We had to upgrade the engine to version 5.6 because versions 5.3 and 5.5 had some bugs. Very few teams are making VR games with UE5. Sony and Epic could offer very limited assistance."

Neither specified a release date, but less than a month from now puts the estimated date in early to mid March.

The dark fantasy soulslike action RPG originally started in Early Access on Steam in June of 2023. A Quest port followed on App Lab in January 2024 with the final 1.0 release for both platforms dropping in December 2024. It promises a ten-hour single-player campaign and also added an arena mode in its Sands of Glory update in May 2025. A multiplayer mode is also in development.

Grimlord is available now on Meta Quest and Steam for $29.99.

Unfortunately there are many factors that push against this trend. Most notably the soft cloth head straps that ship with the Quest 3 and 3S (and the Quest 2 previously) are not comfortable for many people, especially for longer sessions.

The dream of a personal theater to view movies and other entertainment is not new, born out of the Oculus revolution. But early VR was developed mainly for gaming, with head straps prioritizing stability on the head for movement rather than comfort lying down.

The lying down use case is now being served by many more consumer choices than ever before. I've been testing these options to bring them to light for others like me, who are seeking a comfortable solution.

Apexinno A3 Ultra-Light Head Strap

Apexinno has introduced a new lightweight head strap that uses a silicone accordion rear strap, reminiscent of the Apple knit straps for Vision Pro. The top strap is a fabric and Velcro piece that sits front-to-back to provide lift on the headset to reduce pressure on the face and cheekbones.

The A3 successfully replicates much of the satisfying gathering, cupping sensation that the Apple knit straps provide on the back of the head. It makes for a comfortable and lightweight solution that essentially disappears once you're lying down. There is a scroll wheel on the right hand side that tightens the rear strap. To loosen you pull outward on the knob and the rear strap relaxes.

For someone looking for a solution similar to the Apple Vision Pro Knit strap but for far less money, and without having to go with 3rd party adapters, the Apexinno A3 is a compelling choice. You can find the A3 available for $29.99 on the Apexinno website or Amazon.com

Editor’s Note: Apexinno provided a review unit of the A3 head strap for this article.

Kiwi Design K4 Flex Comfort Elite Head Strap

Kiwi Design’s K4 Flex takes a different approach. It combines a rigid yet flexible rear pad and elastic side straps to create a secure yet very comfortable experience for the user. The rear is well cushioned with a synthetic leather pad and a front-to-rear top strap is also present to provide lift for the headset off the face. Also noticeable is the high level of fit and finish and attention to detail in the design and construction of the K4 Flex. It feels and behaves like a high-quality product.

In practice this is one of the most comfortable head straps I've used on my Quest. During lying down sessions the rear pad is more apparent than the Apexinno, and some people might find it not as suited to full horizontal VR. However, it is well padded and flexible enough that it was never uncomfortable for me, just noticeable.

My impression of the K4 Flex is that it neatly falls between a true lying down solution and a capable elite-style head strap, with some valuable qualities of both types. And in the end might be the most compelling for all-around use.

The K4 Flex is available on the Kiwi Design website for $34.99 or Amazon.com.

Meta Quest 3 Stock Head Strap With 3rd Party Head Pad

A low cost solution I found that greatly improved the comfort of the stock Meta Quest head strap is the addition of a rear head pad. This spreads the pressure of the strap more widely and evenly across the back of the head and reduces the “hot spots” where I would get sore using the stock strap alone.

These are commonly available on Amazon and other online marketplaces. Apexinno features one on their website. I purchased mine from AliExpress for less than $10.

Apple Vision Pro Dual Knit Band With 3rd Party Adapters

I previously wrote about my experience adapting an Apple Dual Knit band to my Meta Quest 3, using 3rd party adapters from an Etsy vendor. While this is easily the most expensive solution here, it also has some unique advantages.

The Dual Knit strap is exceptionally well made and designed, no surprise given its Apple design and lofty price tag. The woven material is soft and luxurious to the touch. The adjustment knob serves a dual function, and does so with a feeling of quality and precision. The tungsten weights built into the rear strap and the cross-head design instead of a front-to-back design means that weight is managed differently. Given the Quest 3’s lighter weight than the Vision Pro, this makes for a very balanced and comfortable solution that offers terrific adjustability.

The comfort of Apple's design demonstrates that the Vision Pro was designed with the reclined or lying down use case in mind. Quest owners can now experience Apple's design choices for themselves.

Thoughts On Comfort & Convenience

One added benefit of these soft straps is the convenience afforded when traveling with your Quest. I was able to simply roll the entire thing up, headset and strap, into a sweatshirt and stick it in my bag – no special travel case required. As someone who travels for work frequently, it's not a small thing to have that option. Convenience is king when making decisions about what to bring along.

What all of these options really highlight is an acknowledgment of the broader spectrum of how many people actually use VR. For years, head strap design decisions were built around the assumption that users would be standing, moving, and playing. But a lot of us also want to lean back, watch a movie, or spend some quiet time in a headset. Comfort for those moments looks different than it does for active gaming, and the industry is finally starting to recognize that.

The lore of Wizherd goes that in ancient times, the world was protected by a magical group called "the herd." Life was once peaceful, but now zombies and other evil forces threaten the world. As a result, players now take on the role of wizards as they embark on missions to hold off the forces of darkness.

As a fan of magic and fantasy games, I was curious to see Wizherd in action, especially after seeing the game's blocky art style that calls back to the old Final Fantasy games from the original PlayStation era. Unfortunately, new players are greeted to a steep and confusing learning curve that could sour the experience for most.

When you first boot up Wizherd, you are instantly thrust into a magical hub with little in the way of an introduction to the world you and your fellow would-be sorcerers must explore. There are tutorial missions posted to a bulletin board, but they amount to little more than grinding the player's experience level by venturing off into the wilderness to battle undead monsters. The bulletin board also features daily and weekly quests that any player can perform. Once you complete a mission, you can claim your reward by opening a treasure chest beside the board.

Players can move their character in one of two ways in Wizherd, by either moving the right joystick or physically swinging their arms at the ground to propel forward. The former doesn't always work, and the latter takes some getting used to. Once the player gets a handle on moving around, the world outside the hub consists of sunny hillsides, castle-like structures, and underground caverns flooded with lava.

Wizherd's magic system is simple enough: the player chooses between three different elemental spells at the start of the game and equips their selection to their hands. By holding down the trigger and releasing it in the middle of a tossing motion, the player can throw a ball of fire or ice at an enemy, though this action can be somewhat clunky and frustrating in the middle of a frantic battle. Melee-based spells like fire swords, on the other hand, are quite fun to swing around once you have them unlocked.

Spells can be upgraded at certain parts of the hub by spending coins and crystals. You can also customize your wizard avatar's look by purchasing cosmetic items like robes, hats, and even animal faces you can equip at a vanity. There is even a color slider you can use to adjust your character's skin tone.

Wizherd is free-to-play, though there are two different types of in-game currency. Coins are earned by defeating enemies, while crystals can be obtained by completing tasks or spending real-world money. The rewards for completing quests can be quite small at first, so you might have to either grind for a while or bust out your wallet.

The overall presentation can be hit or miss. As mentioned before, there is a sort of retro charm to Wizherd's blocky graphics, but the music and sound isn't anything you haven't heard before in Minecraft. Most of the time you'll be hearing the chatter of other players who are just as confused as you.

So far, Wizherd has some potential, but getting started can be tedious if you don't want to spend due to the grind needed to get a decent loadout. There is some potential here, but only time will tell if the game has enough staying power to keep players coming back.