From enhancing comfort and convenience to improving audio quality or adding a touch of realism to your favorite games, this list is packed with accessories that will help you or your loved one get the most out of the Meta Quest 3/3S. Whether you’re shopping for yourself or hunting for the perfect gift, there’s something here for every type of VR enthusiast.

Let’s dive into the best Meta Quest 3 accessories we recommend you add to your VR setup!

1. BOBOVR S3 Pro Battery Strap

A premium head strap for the Meta Quest 3, designed for comfort and extended playtime.

This strap is a must-have for gamers who want to extend their play sessions without worrying about battery life. With its ergonomic design and built-in cooling system, it’s perfect for long VR sessions and ensures maximum comfort for casual and hardcore users alike.

Key Features:

• 10,000mAh hot-swappable battery.
• Integrated cooling system for extended sessions.
• Ergonomic design to reduce facial pressure.
• Adjustable auxiliary bracket.

Preview	Product	Price
	BOBOVR S3 Pro Battery Strap Accessories,Head Air Cooling System and 10000mah Hot-swappable Battery…	$89.99	Buy on Amazon

2. AMVR Controller Grips with Easy Battery Access

Enhanced controller grips for Meta Quest 3 controllers, offering comfort and quick battery replacement.

These grips are ideal for VR users who value convenience and security during play. The easy battery access makes them a practical choice for anyone who frequently swaps batteries, while the soft grip ensures hours of comfortable gaming.

Key Features:

• Easy battery compartment access.
• Soft silicone for secure grip.
• Adjustable knuckle straps for a snug fit.
• Protective design against scratches.

Preview	Product	Price
	AMVR Upgraded Controller Grips Cover Compatible with Meta/Oculus Quest 3S/Quest 3 Accessories, with…	$24.99	Buy on Amazon

3. VR Optician Prescription Lenses

Custom lens inserts tailored to your prescription for a better VR experience.

This accessory is a game-changer for anyone who wears glasses. Say goodbye to the discomfort of wearing frames under your headset and enjoy clear, sharp visuals tailored to your eyesight.

Key Features:

• Personalized prescription lenses.
• Anti-reflection and optional blue light filtering.
• Easy installation and secure fit.

Price: $69.00 (base price)
Buy on VR Optician

4. BOBOVR B100 Battery Pack

A hot-swappable 10,000mAh battery for the BOBOVR S3 Pro Battery Strap.

Perfect for anyone using the BOBOVR S3 Pro Strap, this battery pack ensures uninterrupted gameplay. Its hot-swappable design makes it easy to replace on the go, making it an essential for serious VR gamers.

Key Features:

• High-capacity battery for extended play.
• Magnetic connectors for easy use.
• Efficient battery management system.

Preview	Product	Price
	BOBOVR B100 Battery Pack for S3 Pro Replacement 10000mAh Hot-Swap Battery Accessories, Magnetic…	$39.99	Buy on Amazon

5. BOBOVR BD3 Charging Dock

A dedicated charging dock for BOBOVR B100 batteries.

This charging dock is perfect for organized VR setups, allowing you to keep multiple batteries ready for action. Great for VR enthusiasts with long gaming sessions or shared headsets.

Key Features:

• Simultaneous charging for up to three batteries.
• Digital display for real-time charging status.
• Compact and organized design.

Preview	Product	Price
	BOBOVR BD3 Charging Dock, Providing Fast Charging for 3*B100, 30W Power, 0-80% in Just 1 Hour	$39.99	Buy on Amazon

6. Cases for BOBOVR S3 Pro and Meta Quest 3

Protect your Meta Quest 3 and accessories with a range of durable cases.

Whether you’re traveling or just storing your gear, a sturdy case is essential. These options are tailored for Meta Quest 3 users who want convenience, organization, and peace of mind.

Options:

• BOBOVR C3 Carrying Case: $39.99
  Buy on Amazon
• Nargos Carrying Case: $35.99
  Buy on Amazon
• DEVASO Large Case: $42.99
  Buy on Amazon
• LXFEIFANTECH Case: $49.99
  Buy on Amazon

Preview	Product	Price
	BOBOVR C3 Carrying Case,Three Versatile Modes, Desktop Stand for Tidy Workspace, Compatible with…	$59.99	Buy on Amazon

7. AMVR Table Tennis Paddle Grip Handle

An accessory for a realistic table tennis experience in VR.

This grip handle is a fantastic choice for fans of table tennis games like Eleven Table Tennis. Its realistic design adds a tactile layer of immersion, making it feel like you’re playing the real sport.

Key Features:

• Realistic paddle design.
• Ambidextrous use.
• Secure fit and non-slip handle.

Preview	Product	Price
	AMVR Upgraded Controller Grips Cover and Table Tennis Paddle Compatible with Meta/Oculus Quest 3…		Buy on Amazon

8. YEZRO Golf Club Attachment

A weighted golf club accessory for Meta Quest 3.

If you’re a fan of VR golf games like Golf+, this attachment is a must-have. It offers the weight and feel of a real golf club, making every swing feel authentic.

Key Features:

• Adjustable weight for realistic feel.
• 90-degree adapter for better tracking.
• Genuine golf club grip.

Preview	Product	Price
	YEZRO Golf Club Attachment for Meta Quest 3S/3 – Adjustable Weighted Aluminum VR Golf Club Handle…	$59.99	Buy on Amazon

9. Soundcore VR P10 Wireless Gaming Earbuds

High-quality wireless earbuds with low latency for VR.

For those who want crystal-clear audio and ultra-low latency, these earbuds are a perfect fit. They’re great for immersive gaming and long sessions with pass-through charging.

Key Features:

• Ultra-low latency (under 30ms).
• Dual connection (dongle + Bluetooth).
• Pass-through charging.

Preview	Product	Price
	Soundcore VR P10 Gaming Earbuds-Low Latency, Meta Officially Co-branded, Dual Connection, 2.4GHz…	$79.99	Buy on Amazon

10. CYBVR Weighted Gun Stock Controller Grips

Enhance your VR shooting experience with weighted controller grips.

Ideal for fans of VR shooters like Onward or Pistol Whip, these grips add weight and realism to every shot, helping you aim better and immerse deeper.

Key Features:

• Realistic weight with customizable blocks.
• Durable ABS plastic build.
• Textured grips for steady aim.

Preview	Product	Price
	CYBVR Weighted Gun Stock Controller Grips for The Meta Quest 3 – VR Gun Accessories for The Meta…		Buy on Amazon

11. Razer Hammerhead HyperSpeed Earbuds

Premium earbuds with ultra-low latency audio for VR.

These earbuds are perfect for competitive gamers who need high-quality audio and no delays. With ANC and dual connectivity, they’re also great for multitasking between VR and other devices.

Key Features:

• 2.4GHz dongle for low-latency connection.
• Active noise cancellation.
• Up to 30 hours of battery life.

Preview	Product	Price
	Razer Hammerhead HyperSpeed Wireless Gaming Earbuds for VR: Meta Quest 2 & 3 Authorized – 2.4Ghz…	$134.20	Buy on Amazon

The Meta Quest 3 and 3S are incredible devices that opens the door to countless immersive experiences, but the right accessories can elevate your VR adventures even further. Whether you’re enhancing comfort, boosting performance, or adding a touch of realism to your favorite games, these accessories are designed to help you get the most out of your headset.

Whether you’re shopping for yourself or looking for the perfect gift for a VR enthusiast in your life, these additions offer something for everyone—from casual users to dedicated gamers. Take the time to consider what you or your loved one needs most, and make the Meta Quest 3 experience truly unforgettable.

Now, it’s time to gear up and dive into the world of virtual reality like never before!

HELL IS EMPTY

Zenith: The Last City is an MMORPG for VR. I’m not going to go into the specifics of the story or gameplay here because it would be a waste of my time and yours. In fact, I’m not going to give this a proper review at all yet, because it isn’t ready for release by a long shot – if they can’t be bothered, then neither can I. So, for now, consider this a warning to save you from going through the Oculus refund process. A lot of people are very hyped up about it, and that’s understandable, as it should represent worlds of wonder hitherto unexplored on the brave new reaches of VR. But what is here is unreviewable and not really fit for purpose yet. There isn’t a single thing about Zenith as it stands that seems fleshed out or well-realised, or really anything other than a placeholder. The setting, supposedly taking its cues from Japanese RPGs, is so utterly generic that you start to forget it the minute you take the headset off. Much has been made of the size of its world, but when it’s this bland, it’s impossible to care.

It’s becoming ever more a feature of the landscape in modern gaming that we’re asked to buy a game that isn’t finished. We’re then given a roadmap of promised content that will materialise later on as the months and years roll by. I’m not going to go into the pros and cons of that for now – although it’s an issue worthy of considerable debate. I will say that to release a game on a store for $30, rather than proclaim it as early access, is to promise a certain amount of quality or completeness for people who invest. But Zenith: The Last City is not ready for commercial release.

Sadly, VR is often treated as a venue for lowered expectations, playing host to titles with technical deficiencies that would be completely unacceptable except in alpha builds for traditional flat gaming.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE

From the get-go, Zenith presents itself badly.

Menus are horrible to navigate, and even signing up for an account is rendered harder than it needs to be by an unpleasant virtual keyboard. Character creation is perfunctory and surprisingly limited for an MMO. Usually, this wouldn’t matter so much for a single-player game in VR, but in a game built around social interaction with others, it’s important to dress for the occasion. On this subject, the animations for players running around and interacting with the world are laughable, with bandy-legged, exaggerated strides; I can imagine that, with highly populated servers, the effect will be quite extraordinary. Partying up doesn’t seem to work. We tried for half an hour before giving up on it. NPCs are barely there, with no conversation other than quest-givers. Even with them, the lack of animation and interaction is depressing. Character models don’t even blink, and mouths don’t move. They’re just there to provide avatars for text-box quests.

THE THRILL OF THE FIGHT

Combat is possibly the worst thing about the game. There’s no feel or feedback. Bad sods wait for you to run into them, then berserk towards you with canned attack loops. Use your special powers, or don’t. It just doesn’t really matter. Out in the overworld, sods just spawn in again after about thirty seconds, blipping into existence. The combat ‘events’ are trials not of dexterity or skill but patience with inanity. Fighting one generic enemy is dull; fighting endless waves is excruciating. The insanely, aggressively bland, awful soundtrack makes this even more stultifying.

The music is meant to channel JRPG whimsy, I suppose, but the endlessly upbeat, forgettable dirges just play on regardless of the onscreen action and actually become an oppressive, negative force in the game world, choking the atmosphere of the environment and what happens in it until it flatlines. The in-game chat is awfully degraded too, which doesn’t help.

THERE’S NOTHING FOR YOU, HERE

All in all, Zenith: The Last City has all the hallmarks of a title designed by AI, with lots of bullet points of features but without a single thing from setting to gameplay that isn’t painfully unfinished.

If you want a multiplayer RPG for the Quest, then there’s Orbus VR. It looks basic, but there’s lots to do in there, and it’s not nearly as offensively or poorly realised as Zenith. If you want a good-looking, well-polished experience in a relaxing world to play with friends, get Walkabout Mini Golf or Real VR Fishing. Or there’s questing in Rec Room, which is free and plays loads better than this. Or you could even just put on VR Chat.

We’ll check in again with Zenith in a few months and review it properly, but for now – don’t bother. Certainly don’t go spending money on the unfinished, joyless, sanity-sapping exercise in futility that it currently is.

OVERALL: N/A – NADIR

Now, without further ado, here we go

10    Lucky’s Tale

If you’re looking for a Super Mario-style game in VR, this is is it. Lucky’s Tale has arrived on Quest a long time after its original PC iteration but has retained all its charm. With a lively world, great animations, cute characters, and flawless platforming, it’s an easy game to recommend for fans of the genre, and sure to please both children and adults.

Full review of Lucky’s Tale!

09     Real VR Fishing

Already a fantastic game at release, Real VR Fishing just gets better and better! The devs first added multiplayer, and then added tons of locations and more fish than you could ever hope for. It recently got its first US-based expansion and remains a wonderful game to play alone or with your buddies.

Full review of Real VR Fishing!

08     In Death: Unchained

In Death started strong and kept getting better. Offering the best archery on Quest in a great rogue-lite game with atmospheric graphics, friendship-threatening season-based leaderboards, and great gameplay. It remains one of the top titles on Quest and a unanimous favorite amongst the 6DOF Reviews team.

Full review of In Death: Unchained!

07     Walkabout Min-Golf

A family-friendly breath of fresh air. Walkabout Mini-Golf has doubled its free courses since it was first released and has only now started charging for even more courses. It features beautifully designed level and faultless multiplayer, and the new update even gives it better avatars. An incredibly easy game to recommend to casual gamers and fans of golf alike.

Full review of Walkabout Mini Golf!

06     Population: One

Hailed at launch as the Battle Royale game for Quest, Population: One has continued to offer more features and seasonal updates to its battleground. Slightly intimidating if you’re just starting off, but wonderful to play in a good squad. It’s easily one of the most polished shooters the Quest has seen yet.

Full review of Population: One!

05     Resist

This one came swinging onto Quest from nowhere. Binary Mill has amazed us with Resist. Offering the closest you’ll get to playing Spider-Man on Quest, it has a great story, great voice acting, and incredible swinging mechanics in a fully-realized modern city. It’s a powerhouse of a game, showcasing fantastic open-world action gameplay on an epic scale.

Full review of Resist!

04     The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners

TWD: S&S was, effectively, the first real full-fat single-player experience to come to Quest, and we couldn’t believe it made it in one piece. With tons of content and wonderful systems, it’s already received some post-launch love and remains a zombie-killing favorite.

Full review of The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners!

03     Beat Saber

Unseated from its top spot, Beat Saber is STILL one of the most popular games in VR, and still, the one anybody can understand in minutes, whether or not they’re gamers. It’s a supremely accessible VR game and will challenge you and give you a workout even as you think you’re mastering it. It’s been resting on its laurels for far too long, mind.

Full review of Beat Saber!

02     Pistol Whip

Pistol Whip is the gift that keeps on giving. Already excellent at launch, Cloudhead Games have been releasing regular updates, with great new mechanics, levels, and tracks, making it THE best rhythm shooter on Quest. Stylized, cool, and the closest you’ll get to feeling like John Wick.

Full review of Pistol Whip!

01     Resident Evil 4

When Resident Evil 4 was announced as coming to Quest, the whole VR world held its breath, wondering if it would rise to expectations! The classic game got ported over with flying colors and a whole bunch of undead. With great gameplay, great graphics, and a full campaign, RE4 has easily earned its place as our current favorite game on the platform.

Full review of Resident Evil 4!

Honorable Mentions That Didn’t Make The Cut

Medal of Honor: Above & Beyond

Retaining the fixes that were much needed after its initial PCVR launch, Medal of Honor is more impressive as a stand-alone title than a PCVR one, and for fans of the WW2 setting, offers a full campaign, as well as online multiplayer action.

Our preview of Medal of Honor on PCVR.

SuperHot VR

With its unique premise of time only moving when you do, SuperHot cemented its place as a VR classic. It offers a unique blend of action and puzzle gameplay, as your every move hastens the bullets coming your way. With stylized graphics and kinetic time, it feels a lot like you’re in the Matrix.

Full review of SuperHot VR!

Mini-Motor Racing X

By far the best racing game running native on Quest, and another great release from The Binary Mill, Mini-Motor Racing X offers great gameplay, great graphics and a plethora of tracks, a single-player campaign, and great multiplayer action. It also has more camera and control options than any other game we’ve seen. Impressive and fun.

Full review of Mini-Motor Racing X!

10 Spacefolk City

Spacefolk City came out of nowhere to offer the Quest its first city-building experience, lovingly wrapped together within an endearingly playful character. It is a subtle, nuanced, and enchanting experience that showcases the importance of getting the basics right. Full review of Spacefolk City!

09 SWARM

SWARM offers a non-stop thrill ride of arcade action. The core mechanics create a synergy between a unique, fluid movement system and relentless, almost overwhelming action-packed gameplay that is a joy to experience. With a skill curve that embodies an “easy to learn, hard to master” design and well-realized difficulty settings that allow anyone to enjoy it, SWARM has one thing at its core – fun. Full review of SWARM!

08 Crashland

Crashland offers the most well-conceived, well-delivered gameplay loop in the genre. That and the incredible enemy design make it the new gold standard for wave shooters and a fantastic game to boot! We strongly urge those put off by the fact that Crashland is, at heart, a wave shooter, to put their preconceptions aside and try it out. Full review of Crashland!

0 7 Clash of Chefs

Clash of Chefs offers the most intuitive and accessible iteration of the often-overlooked time management niche that the Quest library has seen. While it doesn’t push the genre’s boundaries, it delivers the basics in a fast, fun, and easy package that keeps you wanting to come back for more. Full review of Clash of Chefs!

06 Myst

Myst in VR is fantastic, a polished iteration of a classic title that has been thoughtfully and carefully realized. It’s by far the best way to play Myst, and if you like your games thinky and immersive, it’s a must-buy for mystery fans and a genuinely great puzzler. Full review of Myst!

05 Journey of the Gods

As close to a Zelda game as you’ll get on Quest and wonderfully rewarding from start to finish, Journey of the Gods might be one of the Quest’s greatest hidden treasures. It’s well-made, endearing, and eminently playable. It’ll grow on you as it builds towards an emotionally satisfying end. Full review of Journey of the Gods!

04 Tetris Effect

Tetris Effect is a flawless, technically incredible re-imagining of Tetris as a sensory dreamscape journey. It’s not only mechanically solid and a damn good game but one of the best examples of games as an entirely original art form. Full review of Tetris Effect!

03 Lies Beneath

A genuinely scary, technically impressive, solid, and thrilling Quest title that contains a surprising (and all too rare) level of polish for a VR game. It’s a horror game heavily influenced by comic books and stylized accordingly, and it’s an absolute thrill to experience. Full review of Lies Beneath!

02 Mare

As impressive as it is weird, Mare is a class act from start to finish. It’s a macabre and mysterious adventure that offers a haunting experience that long outlives its light puzzles and relatively brief playtime. More of an experience than a game, but still enormously rewarding. Full review of Mare!

01 The Under Presents

The Under Presents is one of the best things I’ve ever experienced while wearing a headset. Part game, part theatrical experience, part social world, The Under Presents provides Quest owners with a unique experience in virtual reality. It’s a title that can only disappoint gamers who demand that games conform to their expectations. Full review of The Under Presents!

Finally, a couple of honorable mentions!

Stride

Accomplishing most of what it sets out to do, Stride is an exhilarating parkour-driven action game that’ll have you traversing an abstract futuristic cityscape while sweating buckets. It rewards you with a well-earned flow-state when you do well. It will provide a unique and rewarding experience for those who get into it. Full review of Stride!

Cubism

Cubism is a tight, beautiful little game that’s easy to recommend to anybody who likes challenging spatial puzzles, clean aesthetics, and excellent music. As an added bonus, it now works in passthrough mode, so you can puzzle it out in your own space! Full review of Cubism!

We figured it was about time we had a Dev Talk with Diego Martin, Sumalab co-founder and Crisis VRigade developer!

Without further ado, here we go –

INFLUENCES

6DOF: In our review of Crisis VRigade 2, Pete Austin said the Crisis VRigade series reminded him mostly of Time Crisis, can you tell us what particular games inspired the games?

Diego: We’re a small studio and we’re making games similar to the ones we enjoyed playing. As 90’s arcade players we felt Time Crisis was a perfect title for a VR adaptation.

THE OCULUS STORE

6DOF: Have Oculus ever really explained why they wouldn’t accept CV1 or 2 onto the official store? What, in particular, did they have an issue with?

Diego: No explanation, we just got a generic email with nothing about how we can improve it to get into the store.

6DOF: Did the rejection of CV1 impact the development of CV2? If so, in what ways?

Diego: Our main market is PSVR so there was no real impact, but we tried to apply for the Oculus Start program to see if they can help us figure out the reasons for the rejection.

6DOF: How do you feel about the curation policy of the Official Oculus store?

Diego: We prefer the Sony approach: they have very high technical requirements and high curation standards, but as long as you make the upgrades or fixes required, your game makes it through. They don’t get too involved or reject your game because they don’t like the concept. If a game is well polished it gets published.

6DOF: What’s your impression of App Lab as a storefront, is it a good enough substitute for being on the official store?

Diego: As an indie studio, we don’t have a big budget to spend on advertising or marketing. Since Oculus keeps App Lab in the shadows, we don’t really get the same exposure that we get when releasing a game on other platforms, so that’s a big setback.

QUEST’S IMPACT ON VR

6DOF: What do you feel the impact of the Quest has been on the VR medium as whole?

Diego: Huge, in my opinion, that’s the way VR should advance. A comfortable device that you can have lying around on the couch in the living room and just grab it to play at any time without too much effort – like worrying about cables, or having to connect to a High-End PC or whatever…

6DOF: Any idea how the player base on Quest compares in size to that on PSVR?

Diego: I think players are moving towards Quest, at least until Sony releases the next-gen PSVR that I hope will be the next step forward in VR…though the latest news that I’ve heard doesn’t point in that direction.

6DOF: Some developers reported boosted sales when the Quest 2 was released. How did the release of the Quest 2 impact your downloads or sales?

Diego: We reported a download increase for Crisis VRigade, the sequel hasn’t been out long enough on Quest for us to have data to compare to.

GAME DEVELOPMENT

6DOF: What game engine are you using for the CV games? How big is your team and how long did development take for each?

Diego: We’re using Unity for development, and we’ve been a 5 person team developing both titles. With Crisis VRigade we were pretty new to developing VR titles and it was very much a learning project for us. We had other non-game projects while developing the 2 titles, so the one-year and two-year development cycles for the games weren’t on a full-time basis.

Diego: Now we’re completely focused on game development and hope to speed this up, or spend the time on more complex projects.

6DOF: What was the greatest technical challenge you faced, bringing the games to Quest?

Diego: Performance! We develop for PCVR, try to get the games working on PSVR, then we go down to the abyss of performance hell for Quest 1. We had to do a LOT of performance optimizations to make both Crisis VRigade titles work on the headset.

6DOF: What’s the best tip you could give to new game developers approaching Quest as their platform of choice?

Diego: Although it’s a great piece of hardware, be ready to lower you graphical and design expectations to make titles work.

6DOF: Are you bothered by the inherent limitations of the Quest? What would you hope for in a Quest 3?

Diego: As I mentioned, with the earlier Quest, it’s an “abyss of performance hell“, but as Oculus keeps boosting their hardware with higher specs, devs will be able to make greater experiences.

6DOF: What do you consider unique to your development process?

Diego: We’re a small team and everyone has to be aware of what the rest are doing and contribute their part accordingly. Now we are in a working-from-home situation, but I love the synergy that we have when we’re working together at the office.

COVID-19

6DOF: Did Covid-19 impact the release schedule of Crisis VRigade 2?

Diego: Sure. It’s hard, working from home, especially with kids! Getting anything done is much slower, but we managed pretty well with video calls and daily chats.

PIRACY

6DOF: We noticed people offering others the Crisis VRigade 2 Quest apk on Facebook groups, perhaps they felt justified because the first game was offered as a free download. How do you feel about such activity? How does piracy impact you as a developer?

Diego: Piracy is a part of the game industry. We want people to buy our games, obviously – but we were actually excited to see them on piracy portals! It feels like we make popular titles and that is always a good thing.

FUTURE PLANS

6DOF: When should we expect multiplayer (and new levels//modes) to land? Also, do you see Sumalab developing local co-op games like TritonVR or Space Pirate Arena?

Diego: We’re almost finishing with the co-op multiplayer as well as a new “Time Attack” game mode with 3 new levels. We hope to release it soon but the whole working-from-home situation is really turning our schedules upside down.

6DOF: What are your future plans? Crisis VRigade 3 or something completely different?

Diego: We have some prototypes in the oven. Crisis VRigade 3 will happen, for sure. An online competitive Crisis VRigade is another project and, yes, something completely different, a more “traditional” game (with VR support at least), is not off the menu.

No longer would studios be able to bring their games to the point of readiness and charge gamers for the chance to help get the game to its full potential. No longer would there be barely finished concepts, shilled under the pretence of early access only to be abandoned. In Oculus’ brave new world, newcomers to VR could rest assured that every purchase would meet a stringent level of quality testing, that all titles on the store have earned a rightful place in the Pantheon of the Quest. 

While these are indeed lofty ideals, and in fairness, probably in the best interest of this fledgeling attempt to bring VR into the mainstream, they do come at a price. Without that testing ground for indie experimentation and improvement, which had arguably been the bedrock of every advancement in VR over the last x years, the medium’s future development seemed to sit solely with those who already had the experience. That, or the correct funding and connections. While building a wall around your garden can seem safe, it can also cut it off from the very things that it needs to grow.

That situation lasted a matter of days.

A STAR IS BORN (INTO EARLY ACCESS)

Within a few days after Oculus launched the now revolutionary Quest, the SideQuest platform was born. Offering a way to upload games, apps and mods directly to the Quest and bypassing the Quest store itself, SideQuest provided the much-needed open-access platform that VR game development so sorely needs. Developers could upload games that needed testing and community feedback and hobbyists could share their passion projects. Even demos began to appear of games available on the official store.

In the beginning, it seemed that Facebook was happy to turn a blind eye to SideQuest, given that the games were free, and that users knew that they were leaving the gates of the garden. Oculus could not be held accountable for what was found out there. But in any pseudo-storefront, there will inevitably become a time where the boundaries get pushed. In the case of SideQuest, the release of To the Top for sale at $14.99 was just such a moment.

Developers Electric Hat Games had completed the Quest port of their successful PCVR title, To the Top, but were denied access to the official store. With nowhere else to go and a quality product on their hands, Electric Hat became the first developer to release a full-length game for sale on SideQuest. Fairly soon, others began to follow, and before long, the SideQuest ecosystem had started to evolve. Soon it offered not just a range of free titles (some of which, like Hyper Dash, are outstanding), but an increasing number of paid titles as well.

It was a risky move, especially given Facebook’s predilection for destroying anyone seeming to offer competition. But somehow, against the odds SideQuest has gone from humble beginnings to now being a widely recognised and almost officially sanctioned part of the Oculus Ecosystem. In fact, just recently SideQuest became part of the VR/AR Association, fair and timely recognition of their contribution to the medium.

MONEY TALKS

Back in when almost all SideQuest games were free, we probably wouldn’t have considered reviewing them. Generally, when a game is free, the risk is so low that it doesn’t warrant the time to write the review (unofficially I’ve already given Echo VR a much-deserved 9.5). There was also a sliding scale of expectation on the platform, with games being excused for a general lack of polish because they were “just” SideQuest games.

With the increase in paid titles appearing, however, the needle has shifted on that viewpoint. Many of the paid titles on SideQuest are now retailing at prices close to games found in the official store, albeit the cheaper ones. As a result, the theory that a game is “just” a SideQuest game no longer holds water. If you pay $15 for a game, your expectations will likely be uniform, regardless of whether you purchase your game from Steam, Oculus or SideQuest.

To that end, we’ve taken a look at some of the top-rated paid games available on the SideQuest platform to see if there is a reason that they didn’t make the cut and to see if they are worth your hard-earned money. 

Below are 5 mini-reviews, intended to give you a slightly clearer picture on these titles and where they sit in the ecosystem. There is also a poll at the bottom so that you can vote for which game you’d like to see a full review of.

Before reading the reviews, I would like to give the following caveat. Supporting indie devs is, without a doubt, an essential part of growing VR. Honest criticism is vital, especially for people with limited budgets for their gaming, but the ability to make some sales via SideQuest can be the thing that keeps smaller studios in the business. There would be no Half-Life: Alyx without the countless indie VR games that came before it. Those games were vital in shaping and moulding gameplay mechanics and laying the foundations of modern VR.

At the end of the day, though, a game should still be fun and engaging no matter the price, and there’s only one way to find that out. In the immortal words of Wayne Campbell…GAME ON!

TO THE TOP

To the Top is a first-person platformer which sees the player bounding, climbing and otherwise traversing impossibly vertical courses in a race to the finish line. Although it shares some broad similarities with games like The Climb and even Sprint Vector, there really isn’t anything else like it on the Quest. It can take a little while to get the hang of the movement system, but once you find that all-important “flow state” the game becomes frighteningly addictive.

Essentially, the movement system is a fancy VR version of leapfrog. Both hands are used to grab a surface, you look in the direction you wish to travel and propel yourself with both hands. Simple. With the exception that you can only use particular (blue) objects to propel yourself. Failing to make it to the next assigned piece of the level will either see you stopping in your tracks, or falling to your death and restarting from the last checkpoint. 

The real challenge of To The Top, the core loop that keeps you coming back, is in the games’ inherent rhythm; each consecutively well-timed leap will increase your acceleration and fling you further through the course. Add to this the fact that the levels are both abundant and ridiculously well designed, and you have a game which might not grab your attention in the first 30 minutes, but with a little perseverance will soon enough rob you of no small amount of your time.

Given that I generally found this to be an excellent game, is it completely shocking to me that it doesn’t have its place in the store? Perhaps part of me could see why there may have been some reason to doubt this game in the earliest iterations of the Quest storefront. For starters, based on the locomotion system alone, this is not one for beginners. Making games accessible for entry-level users was paramount, so I can see why this potentially nauseating title might have been a cause for alarm.

Also, even though I genuinely enjoyed TTT, it lacks a bit of polish around the graphics, UI and tutorial, all of which left me with a relatively underwhelming first impression. The graphics have a rather basic aesthetic which grows richer and more evocative as the game progresses. Still, initially, the backgrounds are relatively flat and dull. Overall, I’m glad that I played this for a review. Otherwise, I may not have persevered long enough to appreciate what a well-conceived and executed concept it had laying at its heart. 

GLADIUS

There are currently thousands of Quest owners out there all enviously looking at Blade & Sorcery and wondering when it will come to Quest. The answer is, sadly, probably never. But don’t let that worry you too much, because Virtual Age are working hard on bringing you Gladius, the Quest’s first physics-based melee hack and slasher. For fans of the genre, there is some good stuff to look forward to here.

From a narrative point of view, Gladius is a straightforward concept. The player is a captured soldier, now a slave who has been given a chance to earn freedom through glorious battle in the arena. Cue Russell Crowe’s hand moving gently over a wheat field. After a brief chat with your new coach/master, you are treated to a short tutorial that runs you through all the basics; holstering your weapons, dismembering your enemies, and slowing down time. After that, it’s off to the arena for a healthy portion of death and glory!

Make no mistake, Gladius is NOT Blade & Sorcery. It doesn’t manage the same level of ragdoll physics, it doesn’t have cool spells to throw around, and the arenas are far less involved. Other than that, Gladius is a perfectly acceptable combat sim with some nice touches and solid gameplay elements that will no doubt make it popular. That is, once they iron out the kinks.

As it stands now, Gladius is very much an early access title. In buying it, you are effectively investing in the game it will become rather than outright purchasing a finished product. There are some major graphical glitches, holstering weapons on your back in clunky, and a couple of crashes. Still, overall there is a lot of potential here. Given the excellent work here already, if you’re the type of person who enjoys a bit of casual stabby stabby, you will probably find plenty of fun. However, Gladius is still a few updates away from being ready for the big time.

Gladius is a game that most definitely belongs on the Oculus storefront, just not yet. It’s a virtual cake that once baked will make a lot of people happy, but at the moment it’s still a bit raw and doughy. Also, I want cake…

CRAZY KUNG FU

Crazy Kung Fu is essentially a martial arts training companion as much as it is a game. Having never mastered a martial art other than holding a yellow belt in Google-Fu, I can’t really speak to how well this game has prepared me as a kung fu master. What I can speak to is the fact that I had a lot of fun trying.

There is a very simple mechanic at play in Crazy Kung Fu. Essentially, there is a pole in front of you that holds an increasing amount of rings that see different objects come swinging out at you, alternating direction as you go. Depending on the item you either need to punch, dodge or block, aiming for the precision of form and good timing required to increase your score. And that is pretty much it. There is also a Wing Chun training dummy to play around with, but there is not much else going on from a pure gaming perspective.

Now that may sound like a criticism, but it’s not really meant to be. If this game were launched on the official store, it would be slated for its lack of content. It is, essentially, a mini-game that you would expect to form part of a more extensive gameplay experience. But as a fairly cheap experience on SideQuest, it is really, really fun. I spent a couple of hours on Crazy Kung Fu without even realising it, caught in a “just one more try” cycle that unconsciously ate my time.

My only real criticism is that the difficulty curve spiked too quickly. Either that or the tutorial didn’t focus enough on teaching the correct timing techniques needed to jackpot your score. In the end, I stopped playing when I got stuck on an early level because I was unable to reach the required score, despite hitting all the objects. The reality is, if I had been able to keep progressing through a gradual incline in difficulty, I would probably still be playing it right now.

In all honesty, Crazy Kung Fu isn’t really a game that I think should be on the Quest store. It doesn’t offer enough to fulfil Oculus’ requirements for polish and content. An official release would just result in disappointment and poor reviews. But that absolutely does not mean that you shouldn’t buy it. To me, this game to me is a brilliant example of where paid content on SideQuest has merit. It would have failed with an official launch, but as it is, Crazy Kung Fu offers a simple, engaging and enjoyable experience that is well worth taking the time to look at.

OPERATION SERPENS

Operation Serpens is a shooter. As far as games fitting squarely into a single genre go, Serpens is the prime example. There’s no tricky movement, no stealth elements or tactical manoeuvres, you just stand in place and, er….shoot. Enemies will come at you from down corridors, surround you in open spaces, or even charge at you from the back of trucks in some action movie style set pieces. Still, at the end of the day, all you have to do is shoot enough of them, and the level is done.

There are elements of games like Pistol Whip. Bullets come at you at a pace that you can easily dodge or sidestep. This could even tread close to the bullet hell genre as the amount of enemy fire increases. However, the damage is not nearly enough to motivate you to split your attention between shooting and dodging. If enemy bullets were more threatening, this would have added some much-needed tension to the gameplay.

There are currently seven levels in the campaign mode and a horde mode that oddly features zombies that can also use guns. Each level has its own unique setting and boss to defeat, but despite attempting to give each a different flavour, they all end up just a little vanilla. 

Similarly, the horde mode is fun but hardly ground-breaking. The necessity to dodge bullets while keeping an eye out for crawling zombies is a nice twist, but it’s not enough to keep you coming back.

Operation Serpens has gone for a blocky, cartoonish visual style which fits the gameplay nicely. The whole experience really feels like it’s a nod towards the idea of going inside the arcade machines of the ’90s, without getting bogged down in the specific pop culture references of games like Pixel Ripped. It’s not exceptional, but it works.

The sound design in Operation Serpens, however, is disappointing. It still needs a lot of work to round out the experience and ensure continuity of quality. The gunshots lack the “oomph” required to be satisfying to use, and the spatial cues are a bit muddy and get lost in the overall audio environment. The voice acting isn’t terrible, but the recording quality is pretty poor. Those of you familiar with my past reviews will realise that there’s a touch of cheekiness here, but it sounds like the voice work was recorded on a set up similar to the kit that I used for my Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge video review.

I hate saying it, but in terms of gameplay, this feels like a light gun game from the mid-’90s. It’s better because it’s in VR, but not by enough to justify its presence in the official store. Perhaps a better comparison would be that Operation Serpens is a game that would have been pretty cool in 2016, but in 2020 it just doesn’t offer enough depth and variety to beat out the vast array of arcade wave shooters (Space Pilot Trainer, Shooty Skies Overdrive, Shooty Fruity) that already exist on Quest. 

REFLEX UNIT 2

Of all the games I’ve reviewed for this piece, Reflex Unit 2 is easily the most polished product in its graphics and UI. Unlike some of the other games, Reflex Unit 2 looks like a “real” game when you launch it. This makes it easy to wade into the gameplay with confidence about the experience to come. My first thoughts were of disbelief that this wasn’t on the official store. That was, however, until I started to play it.

Reflex Unit 2 is the VR version of a popular mobile game. That fact is unavoidable as you progress through the campaign. Played from a top-down perspective, Reflex Unit 2 starts you out as a soldier. It then quickly puts you inside a range of futuristic armoured vehicles as you take out enemies and move towards each level’s objectives. The player stands at the “War Table” which shows you a limited amount of the level environment, with a set of large screens above the playfield which display the map and position of nearby enemies and objectives. One controller handles movement and special abilities. The other controller handles the constant stream of gunfire that will see you through combat, with the control system operating in the same way that games like this usually operate on mobile devices.

Initially, I found myself drawn in by the nice aesthetics and straightforward interface, and I enjoyed the first level, but I soon realised this is not a game that needs to be in VR. 

After about 30 minutes, I realised that I was playing the type of game that I might play for a few minutes on my phone to kill some time on my commute. However, reflex Unit 2 was not something that I would ever deliberately put my headset on to play. As I continued through the game, I grew painfully aware of this. 

I guess if this is a style of game that you enjoy, or if you’re looking for a “lazy” game that you can play on the Quest while sitting about on the couch then this could have some merit.

A WORTHY QUEST INDEED

While the above reviews are all focused on paid content, make no mistake – SideQuest has some outstanding and innovative titles available for you to try absolutely free. From my own experience, a lot of it is still quite rough around the edges but mixed in the copious games on offer are some real gems. For new initiates to the platform, I highly recommend checking out Hyper Dash, Tea for God, and Deisim, for example. 

There are also some fantastic technical experiences like Hand Physics Lab, which appears to be the work of a mad genius, advanced alien species, or both. SideQuest also functions as a springboard for some exceptionally talented individuals. The developer behind the popular Physics Playground was snapped up by StonePunk Studios to work on games such as the recently released Tarzan VR. The mind responsible for Sun Shard and Let’s Go Chopping has reportedly received support from Oculus to develop his popular SideQuest projects. 

I’m sure as time passes, we will see more stories of brilliant developers beginning their careers through projects published on SideQuest.

With over 1 million downloads in their first year and news of Facebook opening up to unofficial content, SideQuest has a bright future ahead of it as part of the mobile VR ecosystem. It delivers a simple solution to Oculus’ curation policy, allowing Quest users the opportunity to explore alternate content and providing an outlet for some excellent software. Whether you’re using it to add wireless PCVR capabilities to your Quest (with the SideQuest version of Virtual Desktop) or to bolster your game collection with indie projects, SideQuest has a lot to offer. If nothing else, SideQuest can provide valuable insight into the backstage work that goes into making your favourite games and is well worth taking the time to explore.

If you prefer a video version of this preview, you’ll find it on our YouTube channel right here.

Are We Sure It’s In VR?

Here’s the thing, though. Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond was not initially planned as a VR game, and, unfortunately, it shows. Right from the start, the interface elements are clearly designed for a flat-screen. It’s as though the developers only found out last week that this was all going to be happening in VR, or as though somebody decided that interface concerns will have to wait for post-release patches to be addressed. Title screens are two dimensional and far too big, looming like monoliths in front of the player, too big to be taken wholly by the viewer. At the top of the monolith, towering above you, you’ll see the number of your current mission, for example. You have to tilt your head towards the floor to see the name of that selfsame mission. It’s like somebody decided that VR players wanted to see oversized Instagram stories between missions. Am I spending too much time talking about loading screens? Perhaps, but they’re indicative of issues that keep popping up.

In contrast to the colossal loading images, some of the onscreen text is minuscule and pixelated. There are only three graphical settings, low, medium, high and a ‘dynamic’ option that seems to shift between them depending on the power of your PC. At high, the text is somewhat more legible, but still, clearly not designed to be viewed in VR, but rather on a high-resolution desktop monitor. There’s a faux VR feel to the GUI; you’ll find a book that acts as your menu, for example, but when you pick it up, you don’t click on the book. Instead, picking it up just opens up a two-dimensional menu with the aforementioned pixelated text. These kinds of design choices betray a very late transition to VR, and they give off a sloppy not entirely done feel to the whole thing.

We Haven’t Done Bananas Yet, ‘Ave we?

You want me to get to the bit where you shoot Nazis, right? Well, I’ll get there. I’m exercising your patience, not because I’m sadistic, but because patience is what you’ll need for this game.

Having attended the online press event before getting access to a review copy of the game, I found myself confused about how the game should be approached. The game director, Peter Hirschmann and all the people involved went out of their way to portray the game as some kind of homage to WW2 veterans. They used phrases such as ’emotional authenticity’. The game comes packaged with a virtual ‘Gallery’ mode, full of documentary interviews with veterans filmed at locations during which they experienced historical events. All the talk about the gallery and ’emotional authenticity’ conspires to make you expect a somewhat solemn game like the latest entries in the Battlefield franchise, another series published by Electronic Arts but developed by EA DICE. That’s not the case at all. Whereas the Battlefield story vignettes can be grim and gloomy, Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond attempts to strike a comedic tone almost reminiscent of shows like Hogan’s Heroes or ‘Allo ‘Allo. The comedy is somewhat juvenile and stands in stark contrast to the tone the game’s marketing would have you expect. Then again, I stopped expecting much in the way of emotional ‘authenticity’ when I saw the developers pivot to tell us how, despite everything, it was really fun to shoot Nazis.

The Questionable Joys of Shooting Nazis

I feel obliged to explain that I’m not against shooting fictional Nazis per se. In fact, within the context of a video game, and with the understanding that it’s a game, I’m happy to shoot Nazis, Americans, Martians, and anybody else that a plotline gives me a good enough reason to dismember, disembowel, or decapitate. The issue here is the disconnect I felt between being told I should take the game seriously, and the almost childish giddiness on display when talking about shooting Nazis.

So no, this is not a game that will try to show you the horror a soldier must feel at killing somebody, even if that somebody just happens to be a Nazi. If you’re looking for a more in-depth examination of human nature, look elsewhere. Battlefield might not try to portray the average Nazi as sympathetic figures, just as stuck in war as his allied counterparts might be. Still, at least that game manages to carry a more solemn tone.

Let’s Get Rolling, Then! 

All of which brings us to the actual game.

Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond has a single-player campaign and a variety of multiplayer modes. Like most games in the genre, players will likely spend the vast majority of their playtime in multiplayer after they’ve finished off the single-player campaign to learn the ropes.

Baby Steps. Itsy Bitsy Baby Steps…

The single-player campaign happens across what the developers like to refer to as ‘bite-sized’ scenes, and they’re not kidding. Here’s a sentence you’ll see me repeatedly use here; this is not Alyx. Whereas Half-Life: Alyx presented you with almost a dozen ambitious chapters, each one lasting nearly an hour and spanning a whole section of a map, Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond gives you tiny snacks. In the very first ‘scene’, for example, you find yourself lying on the ground in the aftermath of an attack, two friendlies are making sure you’re okay. As they do so, a Nazi soldier comes running at you from behind them. You’re tasked with picking up a gun and shooting him.

Scene done. Big VICTORY sign on the screen.

Click Continue. Watch monolithic loading screen.

The scenes do get longer and bigger in scale, and there are some Hollywood style set pieces, but the diminutive scale of some of the scenes, although apparently designed to ease people into VR, will be found ridiculous by VR veterans hoping for true immersion. If Alyx did things this way, each ‘chapter’ would’ve been made up of at least a dozen scenes.

Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond‘s campaign is made up of fifty-four scenes, divided across six missions. There’s also a prologue consisting of five small scenes, one of these, set in a hospital, is designed to help you configure the game settings and comfort options. It’s a cute idea, but far more tedious than a simple settings screen would’ve been.

Virtually Unreal

Oddly enough, Alyx was specially mentioned as being an inspiration to the team, a showcase for how Triple-A VR titles could be made. Yet, – it’s impossible to feel that the team behind Medal of Honor has had any appreciation for what Half-Life: Alyx truly brought to VR. In Alyx, objects were tactile and tangible, the graphics were superb, the level design was stellar, the gameplay mechanics were iterated to perfection. Alyx was not only designed for VR, but it was iterated and re-iterated until it became the showcase for how a VR shooter should feel. Medal of Honor‘s is a flat game shoehorned into VR because Facebook got involved and made it so, and it shows.

Everything goes through everything, nothing feels solid. The graphics are shoddy, as though the core team, that had previously worked on Medal of Honor: Allied Assault (released back in 2002) had not upped their graphical game since then. Am I exaggerating? Yes. I am. Fine. 

To be fair, Above and Beyond does indeed look better than Allied Assault, a game that’s 18 years old. But you know damn well what I’m about to say next because I’ve already warned you I’ll be saying it; this is not Alyx.

P..P…Per…formance

Performance-wise, I’m playing the game on a Razer Blade 15″ advanced model with an i7=9750H CPU and an RTX2080 GPU, my system runs Alyx (with far superior graphics across all settings) effortlessly, and yet Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond stutters and judders. The frame rates are all over the place. In moving sequences (where, for example, I had to shoot at enemies from the back of a moving truck), this choppiness led to some motion sickness. I haven’t felt motion sick in VR for a long time.

The recommended specifications for Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond, as sent to reviewers are as follows: i7-9700K (my i7-9750H scores around 20% lower than that on benchmarks), 16GB DDR4 (my memory is 32GB DDR4), RTX 2080 (my system is running an RTX 2080 Max-Q), and SSD storage (my system is running on a solid-state NVMe).

While my system is admittedly slightly below the ideal specifications, it performs wonderfully on the far prettier, and far more environmentally expansive Half-Life: Alyx, all of which leads me to believe that Medal of Honor is not highly optimized and that for a lot of players, the experience will be sub-optimal, forcing them to play at the lowest of the available settings.

Also, note that although the game will take up 170 GB on your drive, you’ll need around 350 GB of space to install it, half of which will free up again after installation.

Update: Installation process has been optimized and now the game only requires 180GB to install and will finally take up 173GB of space.

Into the Arena

All these issues aside, the multiplayer gameplay looks like it’ll be a blast. The game offers five multiplayer modes; the standard Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and Domination modes are there. In addition, it also includes a Mad Bomber mode, that’s all about placing bombs, finding bombs, defusing bombs, and trying to catch your enemies unaware, as well as a Blast Radius mode which is similar to the King of the Hill modes seen in other games. It’s easy to get into a game, and up to twelve players can play together online.

At the time of writing, I’ve completed about a third of the single-player campaign, but haven’t spent much time in multiplayer because my time zone conflicted quite badly with the two online sessions that were hosted for preview purposes. So my time in multiplayer was mostly spent playing bot matches. Despite that, I can already tell that this will, by far, be the mode where Medal of Honor will satisfy most players. Whereas the single-player mode so far seems to fall short of my expectations, the multiplayer mode feels solid. It provides just what you’d expect along with a couple of extra mode and a few surprises, offers a good variety of levels and customization, and will provide far more longevity than the bite-sized scenes offered by the primary campaign.

We’ll have a full review for you by the release!

Last month, I wrote about how the Oculus Quest was a novel way to keep fit, especially when your space and money may be somewhat limited. This month, I was asked to evaluate a new app on the horizon: Supernatural. Supernatural bills itself “an immersive, virtual reality fitness experience that combines the best music, coaches, destinations, and movements into an incredible home workout.” It also promised a new routine each day. 

Supernatural is offering the first month free for all new users so they can evaluate the “fitness system.” After that, they charge your credit card $19 per month. That’s a pretty hefty fee, but Supernatural also makes some pretty hefty promises. The developer claims this fee is due to the nature of the personalized workout, as well as updates that include new content, including new music for at least one new daily workout. 

Over the next month, I’ll be reviewing Supernatural to see if it’s delivery matches up with their promises. Because they are charging $228.00 per year for the privilege of using their program, I’ll also be evaluating whether the value of the workout you receive is worth that kind of money. I’ll be doing so both from a fitness and an entertainment perspective (after all, if you aren’t entertained, you’re probably not going to keep it up). 

Calibration and Training

When I first arrive in Supernatural, I am greeted by an enthusiastic woman who assures me that she’ll be with me every step of the way. The surroundings are gorgeous. My first setting appears to be rocky mountains in the UK. The trainer walks me through a simple calibration process to assess my height, lunge, and squat. Once that’s done, I’m taken through a short training that explains the basic workout, and then another trainer steps in to introduce me to some advanced 360 functionality for a total body workout. 

The Basics

You’re given a white baseball bat for your right hand and a black bat for your left. You watch the screen for the balls with the corresponding color. On each ball is a transparent cone that indicates the direction in which you’re supposed to hit the ball. The balls are virtual, but they kind of remind me of kickballs from gym class. If you miss, they sound like kickballs too. Some balls have special features. If the ball has a tail, you’re supposed to follow through them differently. If the ball has several arrows emanating from it, that’s an indication that you’re going to want to turn. Golden triangles occasionally appear to indicate that you’re supposed to squat. If the triangle leans to the right or left, you’re supposed to lunge. If several triangles appear in quick succession, you’re supposed to hold the position. You do this on repeat to upbeat music, with a trainer giving encouragement and advice. After each song in the workout, your scenery switches. The scenes in each workout routine are themed to match something in nature. 

So far, there is a small list of workout routines to choose from, most of them last between 20-30 minutes. They all seem to rely on the same basic game mechanics. The trainer usually appears beforehand to tell you about the scenery and how it relates to the theme, give you some encouragement, and maybe a quick stretch. 

Glitchy and Slow

I have to be honest, so far, I’m not too impressed. The scenes are all exotic nature photos, absolutely stunning high def, full-motion scenes. But the time to load each song and backdrop within a routine can be more than 5 minutes. During that time, you have the privilege of looking at a yellow loading bar on a black screen, which I have already nicknamed the “yellow bar of death.” That’s 5 minutes of me standing still doing nothing. I’m not a patient person, and standing still in VR is plain uncomfortable, not to mention awkward. At least when my computer is taking forever to load, I can abandon it and make myself something to eat while I wait. I would be much happier with a slightly lower res-version of these backdrops if I could get going sooner. Right now, I have plenty of time to be patient and wait for a game to load, but when life is normal, and I’m working out, I’m usually fitting it in before breakfast when I’m on a time crunch to get out the door on time for work or class. Even two or three minutes between each song can mean the difference between me being on time and late. Frankly, I don’t want to have to wake up earlier just because I’m going to have to factor in 15 minutes of slow loading. 

The game also has crashed on me multiple times, usually several times before I’ve even worked out, leading me to get frustrated and want to abandon it for a game that won’t crash. Of course, I don’t. I’m literally sticking to this game like it’s my job. You can thank me later. 

[Editor’s Note: I didn’t experience such long load durations myself, nor any crashes. My average download time per level was no more than 30-45 seconds at most. After checking with Lori, we came to the conclusion that internet connection speeds were the likely culprit. My connection speed is 500 Mbps, whereas Lori’s (we tested) was around 100 Mbps. The average internet connection speed in the USA (according to Ookla) is about 132 Mbps, so most American users might very well experience the same issues that Lori did. It might also explain why she experiences lots of crashes, whereas I experienced almost none. Having said that, I often experienced a stuttering performance at the start of workouts.]

[UPDATE 5/4/2020: The rate at which the routines and workouts download have increased to the point where it now only takes a few seconds to move from one workout to the next. I have observed that the resolution of the background is very slightly lower as a consequence]

Good Workout, Iffy Design

Once I finally got going, it is a pretty decent workout, though I found I did not enjoy the gameplay as much as I could have due to a few design choices. Now a solid Expert+ at Beat Saber, I know that the key to success with these types of “hit the target” music-and-rhythm games is…do not overthink it! Let your body react to what you see. Beat Saber did a great job of keeping the background minimalist and using only a few different, brightly colored, and contrasting indicators, making it very easy to follow. 

Here, the game developers have made some conscious design choices that make it impossible to simply react. The directional indicators of the targets are transparent. From an aesthetic perspective, I get this: It looks very sleek and modern – and allows you to see the pretty scenery they’ve placed all around you. From a performance perspective, however, I hate it. My unconscious brain can’t process an almost entirely transparent image fast enough to react without my conscious intervention. 

I have the same problem with the light tails, which appear as little shimmers against the backdrop. You’re supposed to use your bat to follow these tails to the next ball, but you can’t really see them very well as they blend into the background — and there is no indication, haptically or visually, that you’re actually performing the motion correctly. There is some verbal feedback from the trainer, but it’s of the generic kind and doesn’t seem to adapt to your performance. 

I was grateful for the squats and lunges because lower bodywork is essential, but I had a hard time distinguishing the squat triangles from the lunge triangles. The lean of the lunge triangles weren’t so distinct as to make the corresponding action evident. I kind of wish they just made them different colors or exaggerated the angles of the triangles just a little more so I wouldn’t have to guess. 

I also was a little annoyed, and a bit worried about my future with this app when the routine had me rapidly turning only to perform a squat right away. I often didn’t have enough time to turn before the triangles came at me. My form was off, and proper form is pretty crucial when you’re squatting because there is a risk of injury to the knees or back if it’s performed incorrectly. I found the 360 nature of Supernatural didn’t add too much but did result in me doing a lot of inadvertent traveling, which led to my guardian lighting up a little more than usual, as well as me bumping into my couch a few times. 

Minor Wish List

Whenever I try out a new app, I always think to myself: what could the developers do to make this a better experience? A lot of the time, my answers are the same: let me choose. 

The Ever-changing Backdrops

Don’t get me wrong: those scenes are stunning. Especially right now, in the middle of a pandemic where half the world is in some form of self-imposed or government-mandated house arrest, seeing lush, beautiful nature pictures in high resolution is a gift. But… I mean, this is VR. There are tons of ways to see the world without leaving your living room, many of which are free (YouTube VR, for example). When I’m trying to get in a solid workout might not be the best time for nature backdrops…especially since all that beauty, while theoretically enhancing and stress-reducing, can also be distracting. Frankly, I kind of resented the developers needs to change the scene between each song, without making it an option to just let me stay put so I didn’t have to wait 5 minutes for the next part of my workout to load. Truthfully, I’d like the ability to pick and choose my scenes, choose if I want to change them between songs or, just stick with one scene if I really like it. I think it would be awesome to have a backdrop gallery. 

Set Workout Routines – Fit Someone Else’s Music Taste

Right now, there are only a few workouts to choose from plus the original daily workout. One thing that is glaringly missing, probably because it is an option in basically every other fitness-type game available so far, is the ability to choose the music I play to. A few games let you upload your own tracks, but most at least have a preset list of songs for you to choose from. BoxVR sorts their music choices by genre and lets you create and save your own playlists, which makes up for a lot of the game’s other shortfalls. 

Here, Supernatural only has workout routines. You can’t choose your own music or make a routine from a list, so once you’ve selected a workout, you’re stuck with whatever music that trainer has decided on to go along with their routines. So far, the music is ok, though not really my favorite kind: I’d definitely prefer to control my playlist. 

Also, I’d love to change around the colors of the balls and bats. I’d like to make them contrast more with the scenery. I’d love to be able to at least control the opacity of the directional cones for the same reason. Black and white is a very tempting choice when developing an app that relies on color, as you’re less likely to have an issue with colorblind players, and the color coordination has a sleek, modern look. But, it’s not just the lack of contrast: black and white get boring pretty fast. 

You can change the volume of the music, sound effects, and coach, but I’d like to be able to turn the coach off completely during gameplay. I found them unhelpful. 

The Missing Basic Elements

Fitbit Compatibility

I’m not sure why one of the country’s most popular fitness trackers was omitted from their list of compatible heart rate monitors, but Supernatural doesn’t (yet?) work with Fitbit. Apple watch, oddly, was not excluded, which given that the Oculus Quest doesn’t work all that well with apple, is a pretty odd choice. If this is going to be my main fitness app, I want it to come loaded with my personalized information. 

Restart

So there are a couple of basics that need to be in this game. First, You can’t restart a workout from the beginning unless you cancel out and go back to the main menu. I had a couple of adjustment issues with my headset and wanted to reset because I didn’t pause in time to get the dust off my lenses. You can pause, you can quit. You can’t restart. 

Keep Score and Streaks

After each workout, you’re scored on a graph that displays your accuracy and some other metrics. I think it would be good to see how what you’re doing affects your score real lime during the game. I’d also love to see a combo score and maybe a points multiplier. None of those elements are currently present.

Where’s The Party?

When I went digging into the app between workouts to see what social elements there were, there weren’t many. The companion phone app allows you to see your scores and friend’s scores, but I couldn’t find any way to challenge my friends in real-time to a battle. In fact, I don’t see a way to socialize with anyone. Also, since the platform is calibrated to my body measurements, sharing the platform with my husband doesn’t seem possible. There is a sort of demo mode my husband can use…but just like Oculus, it appears to be one account per person, not per household. So if my husband wanted to play too, he’d have to have his own account. This instantly means the price of the platform rises to $456 per year for our household, which…well, I could buy another quest for that scratch. That’s a full month of grocery money, or one toilet paper run, these days. 

Finally, this game assumes a lot about my social life. It thinks I have friends (I mean, of course, I have friends…ahem….) who I’ll want to share my workouts with, who also have a Quest, have Supernatural, and are also willing to pay the subscription fee. I actually doubt all of those things. I have a few online acquaintances though Oculus specific message boards, and the staff of 6DOF Reviews (who all live in different time zones), but few who I necessarily want to share my fitness stats with. I’d also be very reluctant to push an app on them that comes with such a heavy price tag. It would have to be some app to cost twice as much as a Netflix subscription! But I would want to make new friends and add them to a permanent friend list without also having to make them Facebook friends. I want to compete in real-time in the same (virtual) place. Maybe have the option to talk a little smack (and be able to mute)? And I’d love to see my scores on each workout and song on a global leader board. 

I’m also not entirely sure what value is added from the companion app. So far, after using it, I haven’t had any desire to check into it. 

The Fees Raised My Expectations…They Remain Unmet

So, I’ll be honest, when I saw the 19 dollars per month price tag on Supernatural, I thought: “no other Oculus game really does this, so it must be something extraordinary.” 

Given the price tag and the hype offering different workouts each day, I expected a suite of varying gameplay experiences, not just one type of music and rhythm game. Something akin to Sports Scramble where you pay a little extra upfront and then get tennis, bowling, and baseball, all with multiple levels, multiplayer capability, and full campaigns. So far, this just feels like Beat Saber— overlaid on top of super high def National Geographic/Nature Trek/Google Earth, but with less customization. Other than a little bit of extra lower bodywork, it hasn’t been that much better of a workout. When I exercise, I usually don’t spend 100% of my time in any one game. I will often switch between three or four games to both keep entertained and work my whole body. 

I don’t mind paying upfront for a good fitness game, particularly one I’d use a lot. Ultimately, I play each of the fitness games I’ve purchased at least a few times per week, so I’ve gotten good value for my dollar — as each time I play the cost-per-usage decreases. 

If it were a one time cost, I know I wouldn’t be so harsh, but I’m a student, and my income is limited. If I’m going to put most of my monthly game budget into one game, that game had better give me those things that I crave from gaming. If it’s my fitness budget Supernatural is taking from, it had better give me results I couldn’t have gotten spending that money elsewhere. 

Since the cost of Supernatural renews each month and is the equivalent of a new game each month, I’m not really sure what this game/app is giving me that I can’t get from the pretty crowded fitness game market I already paid for in full. I’d better want to play it every day. I’d expect Supernatural to be the entirety of my workout. At the moment, I’m having a hard time seeing how I could justify this cost. 

Even the claim that Supernatural workouts get harder along with my skill level isn’t all that impressive: almost every game on the market gives you the ability to choose what skill level to play at. Even though this is only my trial month and I’m not expected to pay anything yet, I can already feel myself thinking along the lines of: “I’d better use this to its full potential each day. Otherwise, I’m throwing money out the window.”

This point of view may evolve as the month goes on…and actually, I hope it does. I have a pretty good track record sticking with my workouts, and I don’t want that to shift. I’d love to add something new to my fitness regime. I’d also like to see if the results are worth the cost. They might be. Expect a full review with scores next month!

Stay tuned. 

• Why Don’t We Just Do What’s Good For Us?
• VR Fitness with the Quest: The Pros
• VR Fitness with the Quest: The Cons
• VR Fitness: Bring on the Games: Beat Saber, BoxVR, Synth Riders, Dance Central, Sports Scramble, Ninja Legends, The Thrill of the Fight, Pistol Whip, Guided Tai Chi.

Fifty percent of Americans resolve to exercise more every new year. You may have been one of them – I’ve definitely been one of them. So if we all know how good exercise is for us, why aren’t we all already exercising for at least 30 minutes a day 5 days per week?

The Oculus Quest is a fun way to get in shape, whether you’re traveling or stuck inside. 

Well, I can’t speak for you. I don’t know you. But I know me, and I’ll tell you what has always stood in my way: 

Why Don’t We Just Do What’s Good for Us?

For me, the pattern has always been the same: I’d resolve to exercise more. I’d then take steps to make it happen: join a gym, download an app, create a YouTube playlist, or join a class. I’d buy gym clothes, sneakers, yoga mats, etc… I’d go for 2 weeks, a month or even a few months…then, one day I’d be too tired or just not feel like it. So I wouldn’t go. One day would turn into two, and then a week. Finally, I’d face reality: I wasn’t going to start up again. 

Truthfully, these new healthy habits were hard to stick to because I was trying to talk myself into doing something I didn’t actually enjoy. I could lie to myself all I wanted, but deep down, I knew the truth. I just didn’t want to work out. It was boring. Because I didn’t enjoy what I was doing, I just didn’t want to do it again. You can only force yourself to do something for so long before your willpower runs out and you find better ways to spend your time. 

That’s not to say there weren’t some fun ways to workout, like dance or kickboxing classes, but they presented problems of their own. First, there wasn’t any guarantee that the classes I wanted to take were anywhere close to me, geographically. These classes were expensive, ranging from 10-50 dollars per class, and even if I could find a class I wanted to take in my area, they often didn’t fit around my schedule.

Another obstacle that really got in my way: my own shyness. The gym and group exercise environments can be intimidating, especially when you’re just getting started. I felt exposed and self-conscious. I was intimidated by the people who’s skill levels were so far above my own. They didn’t seem to get winded as quickly and didn’t make my mistakes. Knowing that no one was judging me and that most people were probably just as self-conscious as I am, didn’t change how I felt when I went.

VR Fitness with the Quest: The Pros

I didn’t buy the Oculus Quest as a piece of fitness equipment. I bought it because it was a standalone VR headset…and I thought it was cool as hell. It didn’t take long for me to see that when I bought the Quest, I was also buying myself one of the best pieces of fitness equipment available. Here’s why:

1. It removes excuses. Too cold to go outside? You don’t have to. Get home too late to go to the gym? It’s available 24 hours per day. Snow on the ground? Too cold? Too hot? Just don’t feel like going anywhere? Stuck inside because of a government-mandated quarantine? No travel required. You don’t even need to leave your bedroom. Feeling under the weather and not up to your usual workout? Play for a short while in beginner mode just to move around a little — and when you’re done, you can just take the headset off and go right back to bed (as long as this is cool with your doctor). You don’t need to find a babysitter. You don’t need sneakers. You don’t even really need gym clothes. There have been a few times that I’ve worked out in my pajamas because I was too lazy to put my workout clothes on. Those pajamas went right in the laundry basket after, but I’ve done it. 
   
   
2. You don’t need a ton of space. As long as you have enough space to keep your legs shoulder length apart and enough space to swing your arms in a wide arc, that’s enough room to play 95% of the games that include fitness benefits.
   
   
3. It’s portable. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been chugging along with a daily exercise routine, only to have a trip come up and completely de-rail me. Hotel gyms are the worst. Since I’ve had my Quest, I’ve had to go on a few trips that included hotel rooms of varying sizes. Each time, I was able to get in my regular work out, without setting foot in the hotel’s gym. I did buy an Oculus Quest Travel Case for this purpose. This turned out to be a serious advantage. Being able to stick to my routine when I was away made it a lot easier to continue my routines when I got back home. 
   
   
4. It’s versatile. Sometimes, when you’re working out, that’s your whole purpose: exercise for the sake of it. When you’re feeling very motivated, that’s enough. Personally, my motivation to keep fit waxes and wanes. I make myself a little deal every morning: I put that headset on for a preset amount of time: usually, 30 minutes working out and 5 minutes for a cool down. During that time, I can play any game I want to, as long as it involves moving around. Some days, I spend 30 minutes playing one game –but that’s not usually how it goes. Today, for example, I did some rhythm boxing, played 2 games of tennis, danced to 2 songs in a nightclub, and cooled down with a session of Tai Chi. The day before, I spent 20 minutes killing Ninjas and 10 minutes playing Beat Sabers. Compare that to when I used to go to the gym: 35 minutes on the elliptical while watching Netflix on my phone, followed by 10 minutes of stretching. Sometimes I’d venture into the weight lifting section and pretend to know how to use the machines.
   
   
5. It’s as challenging as you need it to be. Most of the “fitness genre” games on the Quest have skill levels to choose from or have progressive campaigns where you can slowly progress through a storyline or set of challenges. Beat Saber, for example, has 5 solo play levels: Easy, Normal, Hard, Expert, and Expert+. This may not seem, at first, like a huge advantage unless you put this in perspective. I remember walking into a Zumba class for the first (and last) time. I love dancing, but having never done a Zumba class before, trying to follow along was exhausting. By the end, I was a sweaty, dehydrated, embarrassed mess of a girl. Maybe I would have improved as time went on, but because my very first class was so far above my skill level (extreme beginner), the immense challenge of catching up felt insurmountable. The potential feelings of embarrassment outweighed my desire to return. So I didn’t. When you’re playing games in VR, those games can meet you wherever your skill presently is. You might start out as a beginner, but as you get more advanced, you can choose to adjust the difficulty and intensity of your work out. Advancing through the various levels at your own pace might also encourage you to keep going. An actual judgment-free zone.
   
   
6. It’s fun. The Oculus Quest is, first and foremost, a gaming system. The apps you can use to exercise, with only a few exceptions, were designed not as workout routines, but as games. If games aren’t fun, you won’t play, or at least you won’t play for very long. Games are designed to be enjoyable. Games are designed to be rewarding. Most of all, games are designed to give you non-judgmental feedback to help you improve based on your experience and keep you coming back for more. When you’re “working out” with the Oculus Quest, you’re not exercising for the sake of it anymore. While you might get fit while playing, that’s not the designer’s objective, but a side bonus, to them at least. To you, it’s a huge advantage. If your brain doesn’t consider an action rewarding, it’s not going to want to do that action again. If you’re bored while doing math or feel self-conscious for making mistakes, how often are you going to want to do math?  If you’re bored on the elliptical machine, how motivated are you going to be the next day to get on the elliptical? You might do it anyway because you want the eventual results, but it gets harder and harder to force yourself to do something you don’t enjoy that doesn’t have an immediate benefit. If you feel like working out is something you HAVE to do, it’s a chore. If working out is a chore, you’ll have a hard time making it a regular habit. If you log onto your Quest to have fun, you’re going to do it again and again. It’s a lot easier to stick to something when it’s fun. 
   
   
7. It’s Effective. None of the advantages above mean anything if working out on the Oculus Quest doesn’t actually confer any real fitness benefit. But it does. I have been planning on writing a fitness feature for 6DOF Reviews for several months. During that time, I committed to using the Oculus quest as my primary workout equipment. Since I made that commitment, I have also been careful to track my calorie burn and my progress. I wasn’t disappointed. According to my Fitbit, depending on my level of intensity, in 30 minutes, I could expect to burn about 200-300 calories. Running, by the way, burns about 270 calories in a half-hour (per 10-minute mile). All the benefits of running without having to actually run? Sign me up. What were my results you ask? Within 16 weeks of using the Quest as my primary exercising equipment, I lost 30lbs and 6 inches off my waist.

“Wow, all that sounds awesome. But it sounds too good to be true. What’s the catch?”

VR Fitness with the Quest: The Cons

You caught me. There are some downsides:

1. You’re unlikely to get a strength workout. I have yet to find a game that makes sit-ups fun. You can get some muscle tone, but the muscle tone is the same as you would get pumping your arms during a run, shadow boxing, performing squats, or lunges. Still, so far, I have yet to see any VR workouts involving your abdominal core. Before I log in each day, I do three sets of planks at one minute each. That seems to do the trick for a full-body workout. 
   
   
2. The design flaws of the Quest hardware are more prominent when you’re doing vigorous activity. The Oculus Quest is the first of its generation of standalone virtual reality headsets. The device was groundbreaking…unfortunately, it’s also a heavy load to wear on your face. Almost as soon as the headset went on sale, third-party sellers started selling hardware mods to get around the discomfort caused by the headset. In the first month that I owned the Oculus Quest, I felt like my cheeks were going to bruise from wearing it. I also found that the face pad irritated my skin, and I started to get pimples. The longer you wear the headset, the heavier and more irritating it feels. Don’t click away yet! Both issues are easily solved. The weight of the headset simply needs to be better distributed. I’m not one for modding hardware, but I made an exception. The first issue of weight distribution can be solved with a head strap or cushion – both of which are available for less than 30 dollars. As for the skin irritation of the face pad, VRcover makes a breathable, machine-washable cotton interface cover, that comes in sets of two and are under 20 dollars. Each solution takes about a minute to install on your hardware and won’t void the warranty. This article isn’t sponsored. But if you have discomfort when using your headset, I found these inexpensive workarounds solved those issues.  
   
   
3. This can get expensive, fast. Over several months, I purchased most of the games on the Quest that looked fun and involved physical activity. The games ranged in price from 9.99 to about 30 dollars. All in all, I spent around almost 200 dollars just on fitness games. I didn’t buy them all at once, but over several months – so I didn’t really feel that pain. I don’t feel as though I wasted my money since I use almost all of the games I purchased at least once per week…But the headset itself isn’t exactly cheap. So if you haven’t purchased the Quest yet, do your research. Make sure it’s an investment you’re willing to make. Would I suggest buying the Quest just for fitness? No, probably not. But the Quest isn’t just a piece of exercise equipment. It’s a full entertainment system and, in my opinion, well worth the purchase price. But I still suggest buying it from a retailer with a solid return policy in case you buy it, try it, and don’t like it. As for the games: The Oculus quest store has a few demo versions of games for free. Sports Scramble, Beat Saber, and Creed all have free demos. I suggest you download those and try them out before you purchase the full versions of those games. I’m going to quickly review some of the games below from a fitness perspective. We’ve reviewed most of them, and the reviews can help you decide which ones you want to try out.
   
   Still, you know yourself better than I ever could. The Oculus store has a good return policy: You can return a game within two weeks if you have played it for less than two hours (cumulatively). Once you’ve tried the demos, buy one game. Evaluate it. Decide if that is a game you will use: Is it fun? Is it challenging enough? Does it fit your personality? If not, return it and get your money back. You can always repurchase it later if you change your mind. 
   
   
4. It’s a little isolating. Playing games on the Quest is fun. Most of the fitness games include a “party mode” that lets you take turns with your real-world friends. Many have an online multiplayer/versus mode that allows you to challenge a stranger on the network or a friend from your friends’ list. Having said that, the Quest requires you to put on a headset that essentially blinds you to the real world for however long you choose to stay. Even if you have a friend or family member sitting right next to you, watching your progress on their phones or TV, you’re still alone in the world it creates for you. Non-VR systems have multiple controllers and multiple participants within one system. In contrast, the Quest is tied to only one user account and only allows one player at a time. This isn’t a feature I mind so much, but it is a limitation. 
   
   
5. If you want to see the benefits, you still have to stick with it, just like any other workout routine. I worked out today on my Quest, and I know I’ll use it tomorrow. I worked out when I was on the road. I worked out when I needed stress relief. I am calling it a “workout”– but really, I was playing games. I was trying to beat my top scores or trying to advance to the next level. I’m usually disappointed when my Fitbit timer vibrates and tells me I need to stop working out. Yes, I know it’s time to move on with my morning routine, or I’ll be late for work or my first class! I lost 30 lbs when the Quest was my ONLY form of exercise…But for me to actually see those benefits, I had to stick with it for a few months. I had to keep working out even after I got down to my goal weight to keep from regaining the weight or getting soft. The fact that I look forward to my daily workout routine doesn’t change the truth: If I didn’t exercise a few times each week, I wouldn’t achieve my fitness goals. To see the benefits of any workout routine, you’ll need to build yourself up to at least 30 minutes of exercise per day and as many days a week as you can. Your workout does not need to be all at one time, though! If you can only do 15-30 minutes in the morning and another 15-30 minutes in the evening, it still counts. One more thing to keep in mind: I was reviewing the Quest as a piece of fitness equipment, so I used it exclusively, but that’s not how you have to play it. If it’s nice out and you want to take a walk instead? Take a walk! Want to play on your Quest for 10 minutes, take a walk for 10 minutes, and then do 10 minutes of yoga? Go for it. The best workout routine is the one you can stick to.
   
   
6. You’ll have to stretch before and after. Just because your workout is virtual doesn’t mean you won’t get real sore muscles… I find that I need to stretch my forearms, my calves, and roll my shoulders, or they will tighten up. Be kind to your body: stretch it before any physical activity.
   
   
7. If losing weight is your goal, you’ll need to eat fewer calories than your body burns. There’s a saying(and I hate it): “You can’t outrun your fork.” Remember, most fitness tracking devices can be a little deceptive: fitness watches track total calories burnt during a workout but don’t take into account the calories you would have burned during that time if you hadn’t moved at all. Truthfully, I don’t believe that the body is a straightforward machine where if you eat less, you’ll always lose weight. Our bodies are incredibly complex systems, and there are many factors involved in weight loss, some of which have nothing to do with what you eat or how much you workout. These factors can make losing weight complicated, inconsistent, and slow. If you’re affected by one of these factors or think you might be, it’s a good idea to talk to a doctor and get a personalized assessment. Once you’re ready to do so, find a healthy eating plan that works for you. I personally chose WW. I liked their plan’s flexibility, reliance on scientific research, and peer support. Also, if you hit your weight loss goal and maintain your weight loss for six weeks, you can keep using their resources (for free!) to maintain your weight-loss.

VR Fitness: Bring On The Games!

Let’s get to the games! Note: this isn’t an exhaustive list. These mini fitness-game reviews are just the games that I personally enjoyed and gave me a consistent workout. 

Beat Saber 

Calorie Burn: 40-60 Cal / 10 mins

Why I Love It

Beat Saber is one of the few games on the Quest that has a free demo. When I first got my Quest, I was reluctant to spend too much money and was really happy to take advantage of any free content. Beat Saber has a great tutorial in their demo. The full version features a campaign mode and a solo play mode that allows you to practice individual songs with five difficulty levels for each. It also comes with some multiplayer and party mode features.

Recently, Beat Saber introduced the ability to personalize your experience by letting you choose custom colors and environments. They’ve also started to add a 360 gameplay experience to a bunch of songs, finally taking advantage of the Quest’s untethered nature. Outside community developers have also created downloadable, open-source, mods that allow the savvy player to upload their own music and create their own levels. For various reasons, I haven’t done this — and even so, I find Beat Saber a delight. 

Beat Saber is also a great way to uplift your mood and motivate you. Almost all of the music choices are up-beat, and whether we like it or not, music affects our emotions. Upbeat music will usually improve your mood. If you’re not in the mood for a workout, Beat Saber will usually get you in the mood to move. You’ll also be happier afterward, thanks to the endorphins your body produces in response to the physical activity.

Beat Saber has 5 levels for solo gameplay: easy, normal, hard, expert, and expert+. When I first started playing back in May of 2019, it took me about a half-hour to progress from easy to medium. It took me about a week to progress from medium to hard, and it took me two months to progress from hard to expert. Now, I’m finally playing at the expert+ level, and it is incredibly challenging. You’ll know you’re ready to progress to the next level of difficulty when you’ve started getting perfect scores on the songs you play. If the song seems to be too easy or you find your mind wandering while you’re in the middle of gameplay, that is a signal to move on to the next difficulty level. 

Why You May Not Love It

If you have a back injury or are prone to seizures, this game just isn’t for you. There is a lot of arm-waving, twisting and ducking and weaving. I mentioned the music is upbeat, and this is very true. But, except for the music packs that cost extra, you’ve probably never heard any of the songs, and the music may not be to your taste. There is a limited library (assuming you didn’t install the mods), so even if you did buy all the music packs — and this can make the game repetitive after a while. Beat Saber is also a bit on the pricy side (at around $30). This doesn’t include most of the DLC music packs from artists whose names you might actually recognize. The music packs range in price from 6-10 dollars each. They include artists like Panic at the Disco!, Monster Cat, Imagine Dragons, Green Day, and (coming next week) Timbaland.

BoxVR

Calorie Burn: 60-80 Cal / 10 mins

Why I Love it

Box VR does precisely what it’s designed to do: it provides an effective workout. If you choose to, it will display your calorie burn on the screen as you work out(though the calorie burn is wildly inaccurate). As much as I hate the warehouse environments, I will say that the fact that there aren’t lights flashing everywhere does actually allow me to focus. Box VR does have some good qualities that most of the other fitness games don’t have. You can program your own playlists and pick from a pretty long list of included songs separated by genre. The game developers have only added to the available music list and have not charged once for access to new songs. I’ve never heard of any of these titles before, but some of the tunes are pretty catchy.  

As much as I don’t really like the design of this game, I frequently turn to it for my workouts. There’s an excellent reason for this: as much fun as working out in the Quest is, sometimes, in the morning, all I want to do is go back to sleep because I’m on autopilot and don’t want to think. Box VR allows you to set up and save your own playlists. The fewer steps I have to take to work out, the more likely I am to follow through. Also, because the playlists are set up to play one song right after the other, I don’t need to pause my workout to choose a new song- so I’m more likely to work out for the entire playlist. Frankly, I wish more of the music and rhythm games would add this feature.

I usually choose a 10-minute workout from one of my own playlists, or I try one of the day’s featured playlists. By the time I’m finished, I’m warmed up and ready to move on to a more entertaining game. There have been many days where I just wanted a guaranteed burn and did my entire work out in BoxVR, but with all the fun ways to work out in Quest, this one is only a part of my diet. 

Why You May Not Love It

So, I’m actually not a huge fan of this game. It’s as expensive as Beat Saber, but nowhere near as creative or well designed. You only have a choice of 3 scenes: a day warehouse, a twilight warehouse, and an environment vaguely reminiscent of generic 80s sci-fi movies or a Windows 95 screensaver. The game advertises itself as having trainer designed programs, but you never interact with the “trainers” at all. All you see are portraits of people in gym clothes next to one of the pre-programmed playlists. Presumably, that trainer “designed” that playlist. I don’t actually see much of a difference between those and the playlists I made up based on my own music taste. Seriously, how hard would it have been for the makers of this game to incorporate some kind of player interaction with the trainers they advertise? Even if it was just a voice-over or even some short videos demonstrating the proper form. I find the lack of variety in this game lazy. The low-res environments are lacking. As is the inability to modify the colors of your targets (you can choose between two color sets). The poor tutorial and the lack of safety information also feel a little lazy.

There is a “survivor” mode that hoped would add some additional challenge or feeling of gameplay. I was wrong. When you choose to play in survivor mode, you get ten “lives”. Whenever you make a mistake, you lose a life. You can regain your lost lives by consistently hitting your targets without missing any. You play until you lose all ten lives. Supposedly, the longer you play, the more challenging it becomes. This does sound fun, but it’s not. There is only one non-lyrical house music type soundtrack in survivor mode, and it loops….over…and over…and over. The gameplay doesn’t get more challenging every time the music restarts, though. Instead, the targets just accelerate until no human could possibly move fast enough to hit them. This also means that no matter how good you are, you will eventually fail, which also means there is no way to win.

Tip: the game NEVER tells you this for some reason, but when you’re punching, 99% of your body weight should go on your front foot. Your back foot should be used to pivot. This information is available on the Game Developers website, buried in a youtube tutorial by one of the trainers.

My other tip: you are bobbing, weaving and squatting a lot with this game, just make sure that when you bend your knees, you’re not letting your knees go out past your toes. 

Synth Riders

Calorie Burn: 40-60 Cal / 10 mins

Why I Love It

This is another music and rhythm game “hit the target” type game. Synth Riders has such an 80’s futuristic vibe to it that almost always puts me in a good mood. The primary reason I decided to make this a regular part of my work out was that each song provides at least some much needed lower bodywork. You do a lot of squatting in this game.

There are a bunch of environments to choose from, including the ability to have a random environment, and you can customize the colors of your targets. Again, I haven’t heard of any of the music’s artists — they all sound like 80’s synth-pop to me. Lucky for me: I love 80’s synth-pop.

Why You May Not Love It

Synth Riders can be a little bit …much. Unlike Beat Saber and Box VR, there is a risk with motion sickness here. In Synth riders, you’re on a moving platform. If you’re like me, the sensation of feeling like your moving in VR, without actually moving IRL, can lead to motion sickness. Synth Riders does, however, have a setting that allows you to change your scenery to a stationary one. This, however, makes the game a little less fun…I can’t quite figure out why. I’ll also point out that, even though I am prone to VR motion sickness, I never have actually gotten motion sickness playing this game…or even felt queasy (to my absolute delight).

Dance Central 

Calorie Burn: 40-60 Cal / 10 mins

Why I Love It 

Dance Central is a dancing game (duh), rather than a “hit the target” game. It also happens to be one of the few games that can give you a whole-body workout. Dance Central was designed by Harmonix (creators of Guitar Hero and Rockband), so there are songs by several artists you’ll recognize…across several different genres.

You can completely customize your avatar from how you look to the clothes you wear. There are also a few game-like elements present in Dance Central that are absent from most of the other fitness type games I discuss here. There are 6 different characters you can choose to interact with and a storyline that progresses the more you play. There is also an adorable way to interact with the characters, and with the game using an in-game smartphone that you can customize with cases you earn in-game.

Why You May Not Love It

There are 6 scenes in Dance Central: the main entrance, the bar, the dance floor, the VIP room, the dressing room, and the practice room. For some reason, they have a balcony you can go on to, but it’s never been used in gameplay. In other words, it’s all modern style dance club — and by modern style, I mean mid 90’s. Frankly, when I go out, I prefer a hole in the wall with dim lighting, sticky floors, and independent musicians with ironic band names. If I ever went to a club like this IRL, it was because I was dragged by well-meaning friends who thought I needed to get out more. So the scenes here were a bit of a turn-off, at least for me. Also, the music, while mostly upbeat, which isn’t sooooooo bad, but can be a little on the grating side.

Unlike many of the games I’ve listed, this one actually does require a little bit of actual space to play, BoxVR and Beat Saber can be played in the Quest’s stationary mode pretty easily, but Dance Central requires some, though not a ton of, lateral movement. If you have the room, it’s great — if not, this isn’t the game for you. 

Ok, so I’ve gone through a lot of music and rhythm games– and these types of games aren’t for everyone. If you’re one of the people who doesn’t like them, I’ve got you covered:

Sports Scramble

Calorie Burn: 40-60 Cal / 10 mins

Why I Love It

So full disclosure, the only game that actually gives you an effective workout in Sports Scramble is the tennis game. If you have the room in your house, you can actually participate in a full-on tennis match complete with running and overhand serves. You can set it up to move around within a visual boundary (in the world). You’re also cheered on by a stadium full of adorable cartoons. I occasionally find myself waving to the crowd, pretending I’m Serena Williams.

Sports scramble has a demo mode, a challenge mode, a quickplay mode, and a party mode that allows you to challenge friends and strangers on the internet. You can customize your avatar and earn new gear. You can also turn off the “scramble” features, which constantly randomize elements of gameplay, turning your racket into a baseball bat, tennis balls into beach balls, etc. Now, when I first bought Sports Scramble, I went through its tutorial and “challenges”(which is like their campaign mode). I found that the best and most enjoyable workout for me was a traditional-rule tennis quick match (3 games) with scramble features toggled completely off. That being said, it’s pretty cool to buy one game and get a free bowling alley of your very own. The included baseball game was fun too, though not much of a workout.

Why You May Not Love It

So truthfully, as much as I love the sports part of this game, I HATE the scramble part of the game. Do you honestly think hitting a beach ball with a fish is going to somehow enhance your playing experience? Neither do I. This game is at the higher end of the cost spectrum and may not be worth it to you since only one sport out of three confers any physical benefits. Also, it’s on the campy side to the point of childishness. I don’t mind that so much, but you might. 

Racket: NX

Calorie burn: 40-60 Cal / 10 mins

Why I Love It

Racket: NX is a combination of Racquetball and pinball. You stand in the center of a giant geodesic dome and hit a ball of light with a racket. Racket NX has a long (and very challenging) campaign mode, consisting of several 5-7 minute rounds.

They’re all designed to help you improve your skills and keep gameplay interesting. If you’re feeling adventurous, you can challenge a friend or stranger to a game of racket tug-of-war. Racket: NX is a game that couldn’t exist in reality, has a great soundtrack built-in, and best of all, YOU CAN UPLOAD YOUR OWN MUSIC. 

Why You May Not Love It 

Unless you’re playing a multiplayer round, you’re completely isolated in the center of a geodesic dome. I found this game a little lonely, and after I progressed to a certain point, the rounds were so challenging that I got really discouraged after losing over and over and over…and because the environment didn’t really change, the gameplay didn’t change all that much either, and I found I couldn’t really play it for very long without getting bored. 

Ninja Legends

Calorie Burn: 40-60 Cal / 10 mins

Why I Love It

So, I’m 99% sure that Ninja Legends was not designed to be a fitness game. That doesn’t mean it isn’t one, though. Ninja legends is an adrenaline-filled game where you are constantly attacked by…you guessed it…ninjas. Lots and lots of ninjas who come at you from all sides. You start out with two katanas, but as you progress through the levels, you unlock more weapons. After just one level, you are panting from the exertion. Ninja Legends is a solid work out and a great way to take out your aggression in a novel setting.

Why You May Not Love It

Ninja Legends borders on the campy side. The gameplay doesn’t change, even as the levels get more challenging to beat. You’re placed in a slightly different scene at every level, and you have to kill ninjas that don’t vary much in physique or design. No cut scenes. Just a barebones storyline, written as a level description, to give you minimal context, and a BONG! Sound to let you know you’re about to be attacked. The intensity might annoy you more than it thrills you after a while. 

The Thrill of the Fight

Calorie burn: 80-100 Cal / 10 mins

Why I Love It

First off, it’s cheap: only 10 dollars. But you get a lot for that 10 bucks. Like Rocky, you start at a crappy boxing gym, sparring and then working your way through progressively more difficult opponents in higher stakes matches. You fight each opponent for 3 rounds. Each boxing round lasts 3 minutes, with a minute in between for resting and recovery. I will tell you: I get VERY into this. I never thought of myself as a particularly aggressive person. I also admit that I never enjoyed 2D computer games where the only objective was to beat your opponent to a pulp by button mashing. However, when you’re doing the same thing with your own fists — suddenly you’re floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee. I found myself dodging, weaving, guarding my body, and doing that weird fight dance that boxers do on TV….and loving every minute of it. When my 3 rounds are over, I know that I burned a ton of calories.

This is probably the only game on the quest I actually need to pause for a short water break between rounds. Also, by boxing with a fictional opponent, I’m sublimating some aggression I didn’t even know I had! Surprisingly, this has helped me control my stress levels during the day. When you hit someone that doesn’t exist, they can’t actually injure you. You can’t get arrested for assault. The Thrill of the Fight provides all the fun of hitting someone, and none of the consequences. 

Why You May Not Love It

For one thing, you DO need a large play area for this game. The developers of Thrill of the Fight really took advantage of the 6 degrees of freedom and 6.5×6.5 square foot play area recommendation. I BARELY have this. I live in a relatively small apartment, and there is one space in it that has juuuuuust that amount of space to move around without bumping into furniture. You can’t stay in one place when playing The Thrill of The fight. You move when your opponent moves. You lunge to punch — you back up when they come for you. The Oculus Guardian (the blue cage that appears to warn you when you are about to bump into a real-life boundary), doesn’t seem to be very sensitive when playing this game.

I remember once I was playing a particularly intense round when I felt a sharp tap on my shoulder. I lifted my visor (never a pleasant experience to be jarred back into the real world), to see my husband’s horrified face. I had been so into my match that I was about to slam into my kitchen sink. One more step and I would have had the wind knocked out of me by my own kitchen counter. Would the Quest’s guardian have caught me before I made contact? I honestly don’t know. The guardian didn’t light up to warn me where I was —but I wouldn’t be too surprised if I accidentally ended up punching a wall. I have heard of this happening to others. From that point on, I was more cautious about where I was stepping. I won’t lie: having to force myself to be aware of my external real-world surroundings, did take me out of it a little.

So, if you don’t actually have 6.5×6.5 feet to move around in your play area, I wouldn’t even bother buying The Thrill of the Fight. One more thing: the NPC spectators in the early rounds are downright creepy. They don’t have eyes. 

Pistol Whip

Calorie Burn: 60-80 Cal / 10 mins

I wasn’t planning on including Pistol Whip in this feature. Pistol Whip is a first-person shooter, a genre I don’t prefer. I also couldn’t have guessed that Pistol Whip could even be used as a workout. My editor suggested I review Pistol Whip from a fitness perspective as a part of this feature, as this is a game he uses for a lower body workout. I couldn’t imagine how a first-person shooter could be a consistent workout. After trying it, I hereby and humbly stand corrected on all counts. Pistol Whip is an excellent full-body workout. Even for someone like me, who doesn’t usually enjoy first-person shooters, Pistol Whip is a lot of fun. It’s a game I now intend to make a part of my regular workout routine each week. 

Why I Love It:

• Customizable Gear: You get a gun (or 2 guns!), choose a song from a small (but growing) list of EDM songs. Your job is simply to shoot or pistol whip (thus the title) the pixelated bad guys while dodging bullets and obstacles. I mostly chose to use two of the larger guns, and I dyed them pink! Using two guns did reduce my score somewhat but was preferable to having an idle arm at my side. I could have used it to cradle my shooting hand, which is proper form IRL, but with controllers that made little sense. You can choose from a variety of different guns, unlock new weapons, and customize your pistol’s design and color. Customization seems like this small thing, but to me, I find it helps make any game feel more personal.
  
  
• Discovering my Inner Lara: The combination of high-intensity music, combined with targeting, shooting, and dodging makes for an insane mood booster. If I had to compare it to anything, I’d say it’s a less frustrating, faster-moving version of Superhot with a soundtrack. Playing through a song in Pistol Whip activated my deeply buried survival instinct as I dodged every bullet! As in The Thrill of the Fight, this workout also helped me work through some deeply suppressed aggression. After playing, I felt better and, ironically, more peaceful, in the real world. When Doc Neale reviewed Pistol Whip for 6DOF Reviews, he said he felt like Keanu Reeves in the Matrix. Personally, with my double guns, I felt more like Lara Croft.
  
  
• The Sneaky Burn at any Level: Pistol Whip is a sneaky workout. When I first started playing, I couldn’t help sort of bopping to the music as I assassinated bad guys and dodged bullets. Unconsciously, I ended up shooting and dodging with the beat of the music. Without intending to, I found myself picking song after song until I realized that I’d run through all of them in about 45 minutes. It was only after I took off my headset that I realized that I was utterly drenched in sweat. When I looked down at my Fitbit, I saw I’d burned more calories than I usually do with a more traditional fitness game like BoxVR or Beat Saber in the same time frame. I only bought the game a week ago, so I evaluated this game playing in Easy and Normal mode. I wasn’t ready to attempt playing at Hard. Even with the data right there, in front of me, even with the proof that Pistol Whip was a solid cardio workout – I had a hard time believing it! I didn’t feel like I’d exerted myself more; if anything, I felt like I’d done less. The natural movements I used to dodge and aim motivated me to move my entire body without being specifically dictated to do so and without much conscious thought.
  
  
• Freedom of Movement: There isn’t a dictated rhythm in Pistol Whip like there is in Beat Saber, BoxVR, or synth riders. Your movement isn’t choreographed as it is in Dance Central. You shoot where you want when you want, and you don’t lose points for misses, though if you get hit, you can die and have to start over(though you can choose to disable death, here). Each scene is custom-built for the song it accompanies, so each song gives you different playing experiences. Even though there are only ten songs available at the current time, each time you play through any one level would or could present a new challenge every time you play. 

Why You May Not Love It: 

• Possible Motion Sickness: One thing that made me nervous when I first started playing Pistol Whip was that levels automatically move forward, as though you’re on an invisible conveyor belt. Full Disclosure: I easily get motion sick. I had to take Dramamine to get through games like Journey of the Gods(which was worth it) and had to lay down for the rest of the day when I tried out Epic Roller Coasters (which totally wasn’t worth it). I appreciate it when game developers give those of us with weaker stomachs alternative forms of locomotion. Pistol Whip does not give you the option to remain still in-world. I will say that you should play a level or two for yourself to evaluate whether you will have issues with queasiness. To my delight, I did not personally get motion sick when I played.
  
  
• I Keep Getting Killed: Pistol Whip has three levels of difficulty: easy, normal, and hard. I only just started playing, and even normal was an insane workout and much more difficult than I would have anticipated. Several times, I died within the first minute of starting a level and had to start the whole thing over. Normally, I wouldn’t mind, but when you have to start a level over and over and over again during a workout, it interrupts your flow. Ultimately, since my objective was to get in a workout while having fun and not necessarily to be the master of Pistol Whip, I opted to make myself immortal and engaged the no-fail modifier.
  
  
• Lack of Context:  Honestly, one thing I’d love to see in Pistol Whip after playing it for a short time is some kind of optional campaign or story mode that could help the player slowly work their way up from super beginner to a pistol-wielding dynamo. A story mode would also give me some context for WHY I’m killing these people. In a few of the levels, there are some “bad guys” who aren’t actually trying to kill you. They’re just kind of standing there and dancing. Even though the enemies are just shadowy, abstract, pixelated figures, I actually did sort of twinge at shooting someone who wasn’t trying to kill me. The fast-paced action and intentionally retro graphic design reminded me of my two favorite FPS from way back in the day: Wolfenstein 3D and Area 51. Those games didn’t have much of a story but did force you to progress through levels, and the context was clear just by the setting of the scene: you’re killing Nazis/space invaders and a good guy. The lack of context didn’t lessen the enjoyment gameplay for me. Still, the addition of even a pretextual reason for killing the shadowy figures who weren’t even trying to kill me would have been very welcome.
  
  
• Limited Song Choices… all of Which are EDM: In Pistol Whip, you have the option of choosing from ten different songs, each with its own matching scenery. The songs are each only about 5 minutes long, and those minutes fly by. There are only thirteen songs to choose from, and they’re all EDM. The limited music and scenery choices may mean you’ll get bored with this game over time since you’re mostly playing the same levels repeatedly. If you don’t like EDM (I don’t mind EDM in this context, but it’s far from my favorite type of music), you might find yourself avoiding gameplay just because of the music. Three of the songs have been added to Pistol Whip post-launch. I’ve been told that they plan on releasing a new level every month or so, which should keep things exciting and fresh. But if you don’t like EDM, more EDM songs won’t exactly enhance your playing experience. Custom track packs have been made by fans that match the tempo of existing ones, but adding them isn’t a very straightforward process. My sincere hope is that the developers add additional levels with music genres that aren’t EDM. 

I would suggest avoiding boredom with Pistol Whip by not making it your only workout on any given day. I’d suggest making Pistol Whip one more part of your routine. Play one or two songs each day or on alternating days to keep your workout interesting, if you’re the type to get bored quickly with repetition. I’d also suggest playing with the modifiers, as you become more adept, to give yourself a challenge and keep gameplay fresh.

Guided Tai Chi

Calorie burn: 20-40 Cal / 10 mins

Why I Love It 

So, Guided Tai Chi is not technically a fitness game, but I use this app at the end of every single workout. It makes a great cool down and helps me transition from an adrenaline-filled exercise back into the real world. There are about a hundred routines to choose from, and one routine only takes about 5 minutes. There are a shorter 3-minute “arcade” mode and an “around the world” mode that takes 60 minutes to complete.

You can choose from about 10 different relaxing scenes. You follow the movements of transparent Tai Chi masters. As you play through each routine, a calm disembodied voice guides you and reminds you to relax. 

Why You May Not Love It

I did say this wasn’t a fitness game, right? If anything, this is more of a mindfulness/meditation app and an intro to Tai Chi. It focuses on the relaxation aspect and not necessarily the martial arts aspect of Tai Chi. Guided Tai Chi does not increase in difficulty as you play, which I personally found a little disappointing. 

VR Fitness: Conclusion

There is a lot to love about using VR to get a cardio workout. It’s great for beginners, reduces your excuses; it’s portable, versatile, fun, and as effective as traditional cardiovascular activities. A Quest is also a great option when you don’t have access to a gym, or the elements prevent you from being outside. Like any other work out, you should still consult a physician to make sure you’re healthy enough for vigorous cardiovascular activity. However, the cost of the Quest, in addition to the games you’ll need to purchase, can get expensive. I personally suggest creating a workout routine that incorporates a few different games to keep the experience of working out entertaining.

TLDR: The Oculus Quest will give you an insanely fun and very effective workout that reduces your excuses and yields similar results to many traditional cardio workouts. You’ll have to use the same caution as you would with any other exercise routine. 

Sources for caloric burn information: https://vrhealth.institute/

Featured Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay

6DOF: Let’s get the simplest question out of the way first! WHY ZOMBIES?

Zombies are great! Relentless, fearless, creatures that just won’t give up. Take one down and there will be another one behind it. The thought of endless waves of zombies is terrifying, and that translates really well to VR.

6DOF: How did you decide what to cut back in order to port Arizona Sunshine to the Quest? Did this involve heated debates? What key elements did you decide could not be sacrificed?

‘Keep it the way it was.’ That was our goal. The main game was well received and we wanted the same experience on the Quest. We knew the Quest is not as powerful as a beefy PC but that did not stop us from trying.

The thing that I fought for the most was to keep the zombie mechanics the same. I wanted to shoot off legs and heads, for me that is the best part of Arizona Sunshine. If that was cut, then why would we even port the game to Quest? In the end, all the gore stayed and I’m proud of that.

6DOF: What was the single biggest compromise that you felt you had to make for the port to work?

I think that has to be the realistic graphics from the original, in exchange for a more stylized version. We had to make big decisions regarding what and where to optimize our game. The large world with lots of interactions was something that made the original game stand out. We made the decision to keep that and that meant reducing the number of complex shaders and big resolution textures, so we could keep so many objects on the screen at the same time.

6DOF: Were any of your decisions influenced by the resulting storage size of the game on Quest? We see that most Quest games are under 2 gigabytes in size, and Arizona Sunshine is around 1.25 gigabytes. Why is this the case? Why aren’t we seeing games that are 5 or even 10 gigabytes in size?

Honestly, we did not consider storage size at all. The size came naturally as we optimized the game. It is a bit of cause and effect: because of the graphics chip and shared memory we had to use less complex models and reduce the size of our textures. This resulted in less data to store and load, and quick loading screens.

6DOF: Do you think the release of Hand Tracking for the Quest is a game-changer? Do you have any plans to incorporate that functionality into any future releases?

The hand tracking is a very well made feature, one of the best I’ve seen so far. I like how robust it already feels and I’m excited to see what we can come up with if we prototype this.

6DOF: Speaking of new functionality, has the release of Oculus Link affected your plans in any way? Some Quest users are concerned that Link might dissuade developers from making Quest-native apps, have you felt this way at all?

Not at all. I think Oculus Link is a great way to enjoy PCVR games without having to buy a PC headset or a powerful PC to play. But the Quest is all about freedom of movement, easily bringing the headset with you to your friends or to a party. Quest native apps will always be necessary for that.

6DOF: How much of your code had to be re-written for the Quest?

Exactly 24.8%. No, in all seriousness, most systems serve the same goal as their original counterparts but we had to rewrite and optimize most. The biggest one was rewriting the systems related to the shooting. The reason we had to rewrite much of this was that all of our content is multiplayer enabled and it caused massive CPU spikes when all players started shooting in a 4 player horde mode for example.

6DOF: How much of the content had to be remodeled for the Quest? Or was it enough to just reduce the polygon count? Did this get done manually or did you have some way to automate it?

 Basically everything has been changed in some form. There wasn’t a single thing we could use straight out of the main game because it was simply too heavy in some way. It was mostly done manually to maintain quality. For example reducing the polycount for models, adjusting texture resolution and repainting textures were done by hand.

Something we could automate was combining geometry together. We created some clever tools that would process entire scenes, sorting objects by type and area, drastically reducing GPU instructions.

6DOF: Any more games coming soon from the Arizona Sunshine team? Can you give us a hint on what we can look forward to?!

We still have a few content drops scheduled for Arizona Sunshine on Oculus Quest, for example, the Old Mine update, adding a new Horde mode map to the game. For a reminder of what else is to come, check out the content roadmap.

That’s it for our DevTalk! Hope you liked it! Are there any other developers you’d like to see us talk to? Give us your ideas and we’ll do our best to follow up on them!