As a part of an all-new collection, Android Central senior editor Michael Hicks and Nick Sotrich are rounding up all of the cool {hardware} information, recreation bulletins, leaks, and updates associated to Meta Quest 3, Oculus Quest 2, and different VR headsets.
September is shaping as much as be one of many greatest months ever for VR, and all of it will depend on the Meta Join convention on the finish of the month. However till then, the regular stream of Quest 3 leaks continues and the Meta is lastly beginning to ship on its long-time guarantees.
Whereas final week’s VR information roundup targeted lots on the business generally, this week is concentrated virtually solely on new video games and new options for the Meta Quest headset. We have gotten a preview of one of many big-name video games popping out this November, and the builders of Moss Stealth have launched a model new recreation in early entry without cost for everybody to attempt now.
This is what’s occurring on the earth of VR as of the week of September 1, 2023.
legs and palms
I fired up my Meta Quest Professional this week to play some new VR video games, appeared within the mirror, and was shocked! And lo and behold, my regular floating avatar was now standing On his toes, together with pants that match my garments. Positive sufficient, the Meta is lastly beginning to put out the legs for Quest avatars as of firmware model 57.
Meta avatars will now have legs in Horizon Dwelling — the house atmosphere that hundreds if you put in your headset — in addition to the corporate’s social VR app, Horizon Worlds. This aligns with information this week that Horizon Worlds’ cellular beta has formally begun, launching the corporate’s digital social house on bigger platforms.
Along with the legs, the participant’s palms at the moment are extra responsive within the headset and work concurrently with the controllers. The v56 firmware has laid the groundwork for this characteristic and Meta has been progressively rolling it out to gamers over the previous week.
Briefly, hand monitoring is now as much as 75% quicker than earlier than and you will note your palms holding these controllers in apps and video games that permit this characteristic. On a system degree, this implies switching between hand and controller monitoring is now executed instantlyeradicating the ultimate barrier between pure hand interactions and extra exact management actions.
Quest headphone wearers trying to get extra productiveness out of their headphones can quickly begin utilizing their palms to kind on the keyboard that sits invisibly on their desk or desk.
As you’ll be able to see within the picture above (or in motion on Mark Zuckerberg’s Instagram publish), the Quest 2 shows a digital keyboard on a desk that enables customers to kind as in the event that they had been utilizing a bodily keyboard.
Zuckerberg and Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth declare they’ll kind over 100 phrases per minute utilizing this methodology, which implies the aforementioned hand monitoring enhancements ought to work. really Effectively for this particular form of implementation!
Style the brand new video games
This fall, there lots An upcoming Quest recreation to stay up for, however few names ring as loudly in players’ ears as Vampire: The Masquerade. The legendary collection is dropped at Quest by veteran VR builders Quick Journey Video games, and we received our palms on the sport this week.
Set within the metropolis of Venice, gamers will embark on a journey to get well an vital misplaced artifact, dispatching dangerous guys and consuming as a lot blood as they need alongside the way in which. It is a full-fledged RPG with branching dialogue bushes, nice voice performing, and the gameplay polish we have come to count on from Quick Journey Video games.
Talking of veteran VR builders, the builders of the Moss collection have stealthily launched a model new providing that is fully free. Accessible now on the App Lab, Glassbreakers: Champions of Moss is a singular 1v1 technique fight recreation that pits your crew in opposition to one other participant’s crew.
And the builders of Gorilla Tag confirmed off their particular demo of the favored Echo Enviornment for Discord followers this week. Do 11-second video As a result of “Mission A2” seems a bit like Echo Enviornment and Gorilla Tag simply had a child. Acquainted grab-and-shoot mechanics are blended with zero-gravity and weight ballistics, giving us very excessive hopes that Echo Enviornment will proceed in a brand new format.
New DLC for Walkabout Mini Golf, which can happen within the Land of Elves, has additionally been introduced. This new fantasy-themed course pack is bound to wow us once more when it arrives later this month, taking us to faraway lands to see how immortal elves suppose mini-golf ought to work.
However earlier than that, Quest+ subscribers now have entry to Crimson Matter and A Fisherman’s Story, two traditional VR titles that each have award-winning sequels should you liked the unique. As a reminder, Meta Quest+ is a subscription service that prices $8 monthly (or $60 per yr) and contains two free video games monthly. You may enroll right here.
Quest 3 leaks and the top of the Oculus Rift
Meta has been shutting down Oculus Rift {hardware} for a while now, and now it seems like the corporate has began turning off apps and video games within the Rift Retailer as effectively. Youtube Posted by Brad Lynch A notice from Amongst Us VR builders signifies that Amongst Us VR will not be supported on Rift headsets beginning October 4, 2023.
Rift customers who’re nonetheless utilizing the official Oculus Rift Retailer on PC may additionally discover that different titles lose help for older VR headsets across the identical date. Moreover, many titles that had been as soon as on the Rift Retailer seem to have disappeared, indicating that the Meta might shut down all the PC market eternally.
If this occurs, PCVR players will, in fact, nonetheless have the ability to entry SteamVR for all their VR wants.
The apparent motive for that is that Quest 3 and the upcoming Meta proceed to make their enterprise mannequin extra environment friendly. The corporate will not be supporting something older than Quest 2 after the top of this yr, so it solely is smart for a few of that to go away.
And talking of Quest 3, we’ll wrap this up with one other leak by Nya_VR_ on Threads who continues to interrupt down the newest Quest software program updates and discover the good things in Quest 3.
It seems just like the Meta is trying to let Quest gamers play offline in even higher methods than earlier than with the brand new airplane mode. As well as, the Quest 3 can have an “prolonged battery mode” that does precisely what’s written on the field. We haven’t any extra particulars except for the plain, so keep tuned for Meta Join later this month to see what occurs there.
