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- Asgard’s Wrath 2. Well, Meta’s big bet on a first-party title paid off in the biggest way possible. Asgard’s Wrath 2 is the epitome of what is possible in VR right now, and it’s best played on the Meta Quest 3, although it is compatible with the 2 and Pro.
- Arizona Sunshine 2. A sequel to the hugely popular zombie survival game, everything is taken to the next level in Arizona Sunshine 2, and you even get an adorable – but deadly – animal companion named Buddy to help you survive the apocalypse.
- Assassin’s Creed Nexus. It’s not every day that a AAA studio brings a long-established franchise to VR, but with Assassin’s Creed Nexus, we get just that, and it’s quite the adventure.
- PowerWash Simulator VR. The VR edition of everyone’s favorite power washing game is “mesmerizing” according to our PowerWash Simulator VR review, and sees the feature-rich adaptation elevate it to “the only way” we recommend playing the game.
Sep 12, 2024 · Our picks for the best Meta Quest 3 games offer one-of-a kind virtual reality experiences with high replay value.
- Heir to the virtual throne.
- Meta Quest 3 – Design and Features
- Meta Quest 3 – Setup
- Meta Quest 3 – Gaming and Performance
- Assassin's Creed Nexus VR Screenshots
- Oculus Quest 2
- Score: 9
- If you're in the market for standalone VR, which one of these categories describes you?
- Meta Quest 3 – The Competition
- Purchasing Guide
By Eric Song
Updated: Oct 10, 2023 6:47 pm
Posted: Oct 9, 2023 3:00 pm
I’ll cut straight to the chase: the Meta Quest 3 is the best standalone, consumer-oriented VR headset you can get right now. With a slimmer design, sharper display, more powerful processor, full-color passthrough for mixed-reality gaming, and better controllers, the Quest 3 is clearly a superior headset when compared to its three-year-old predecessor. All those upgrades, though, don’t come cheap. The Quest 3 is priced at $499 for the 128GB model and $649 for 512GB. Comparatively, the Quest 2 starts at only $299 for its 128GB model – and for newcomers to VR who don’t want to go all in with their wallet just yet, it’s still a wonderful option. But for everyone else, the Quest 3 and all of its current-gen tech easily justify the cost.
The Meta Quest 3 arrives in a deceptively small, rather spartan looking box. I don’t mind because I’d rather not spend extra money on fancy packaging. The contents include the headset itself, a pre-installed foam facial interface, two Touch Plus controllers with pre-installed wrist straps and AA batteries, an 18W power adapter, and a USB Type-C charging cable for the headset itself.
The first thought that came to mind when unboxing the Quest 3 was just how similar it looked to the Quest 2. Meta claims that the Quest 3 is 40% slimmer, but if you look at the fine print you’ll see that the comparison excludes the facial interface, which is thicker on the Quest 3. There’s no weight savings either, unfortunately; I weighed my Quest 3 visor without the strap at 459 grams, which is actually three grams heavier than a strapless 2.
On a positive note, the ergonomics have been improved. The Quest 2 isn’t the most comfortable headset for long gaming sessions because the facial interface is pressed against your temples and cheeks, which isn’t nearly as comfortable as the PS VR2’s halo-style head strap that rests on top of your head. The Quest 3 still mounts the same way as the 2, but it protrudes out from your head by about an inch less than before, which means it feels less front-heavy. The soft, cloth head strap has also been redesigned so that it’s easier to adjust, and it does a good job of keeping the headset firmly in place without applying too much pressure – even during intense Beat Saber sessions. If you want to swap it out for a more robust, hard plastic alternative, the Elite Strap will run you another $70.
Meta listened to user complaints about the limited IPD adjustability on the Quest 2, which only has three specific IPD stops (58mm, 63mm, and 68mm). The Quest 3 now offers continuous IPD adjustment, which ranges from 58mm to 70mm, easily manipulated by a little rotary dial on the bottom of the visor.
The Quest 3 also lets you adjust the depth of the facial interface, or how far from your face the screen is. I simply set it to the shortest depth to get the maximum 110-degree FOV, but if you wear glasses for VR you’ll appreciate the extra space. The aggressively-curved facial interface means that there’s also a good amount of light spilling in from the nose bridge; you’ll have to deal with it for the time being because Meta currently doesn’t sell a full light blocker like it does with the Quest Pro. The facial interface is lined with a foam padding that, although is comfortable, will absorb your sweat like a sponge. That’s a sanitation issue because the padding isn’t removable; you have to detach the entire plastic facial interface, so you can’t just toss it into the washer. Meta does sell a facial interface with an easier-to-clean silicone cover pre-attached, but you’ll have to pony up another $30 to get it.
The Quest 3 sports dual 2064x2208 LCD displays – that’s 30% more pixel density than the Quest 2 – and the result is, as you’d expect, improved visual clarity. You can see it most clearly with textual elements like in-game huds, menus, and virtual browsers, and with technically demanding games like Microsoft Flight Simulator when you’re tethered to your PC. We’re not quite living the dream yet, since it could definitely be sharper (as compared to my 4K PC monitor), but it does look better than any comparable headset.
Setup is easy and straightforward. You’re no longer required to create a Facebook account (but you do need a Meta account, which is effectively the same but doesn’t come with a public page). After charging your Quest 3 for the first time, you turn it on and follow the steps to get connected to the internet and download all the firmware updates. You’ll need to install the Meta Quest app on your Apple or Android phone or tablet to pair your device, but afterwards you’ll probably never need to use it again unless you want to livestream the view from inside the headset to a screen for others to watch.
From there, the Quest 3 has you set up your choice of a stationary or room-scale boundary (which can be changed at any time). If you choose the room-scale option, the headset will automatically map out the room as you walk around. You can watch it happen in real time as little geometric shapes scale your floor, walls, ceiling, and furniture. It’s a good way of visually letting you know exactly which parts of your room haven’t been mapped yet; there were some nooks and crannies in my space that required a couple of passes for the cameras to register them. The headset does a good job of handling reflective and transparent surfaces like sunlit windows, glass tabletops, and even a fish tank.
What sets the Quest 3 and its predecessors apart from almost every other headset out there is its ability to play games on its own, without relying on a PC or console. Meta provided several games to try out including Samba de Amigo, a rhythm based game where you shake your maracas to the beat of the music, Demeo Battles, a D&D-style isometric turn-based strategy game, and Islander, a simple yet deceptively addictive city builder. I also tried a couple of my own games that I’d brought over from my Quest 2, like Pistol Whip and Robo Recall: Unplugged. All of them ran flawlessly, with zero framerate dips.
The Quest 3 is equipped with a Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 chip that’s up to 50% more powerful than the one found in the Quest 2, but games that are already released won’t be able to take advantage of the extra resources unless the developer releases an optimization update. The only game I was able to test is Red Matter 2, which developer Vertical Robot has already released a Quest 3 patch that includes 4K textures, dynamic resolution scaling, anisotropic filtering, dynamic shadows, and more. I compared the game post-patched on the Quest 3 and pre-patched on the Quest 2 and the difference is stark. The game exudes more polish than ever before. The in-game models, from the space station environments to all of the equipment you manipulate during the game, look much more sharp and detailed, even when you walk right up to them, and the new dynamic shadows add another level of realism. The only time I noticed any sort of performance hiccup was during the transition scenes when the game was loading in the next playable area. Red Matter 2 is a testament to what developers can do with the more powerful hardware, and I’m hoping more high caliber games will be updated in the near future.
Red Matter 2 is a testament to what developers can do with the more powerful hardware
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Of course, you’ll have to keep your expectations in check – this is still a mobile device, after all, and it can’t keep up with a high-powered PC or PlayStation 5 when it comes to the details. But really, that’s okay. While the Quest 3’s games might be limited to relatively lower-poly models and lower-res textures, they still offer super interactive gameplay and VR mechanics that you can’t experience with a traditional game on a TV or monitor. Simply put, many of these games are exceptionally fun to play.
And there’s a very good chance you’ll find something you like, because the Quest 3 is fully backwards compatible with the more than 500 games that are already available for the Quest 2 –you won’t have to re-buy anything you already own. That’s a far cry from the PS VR2’s predicament, in which great hardware was crippled by the lack of a decent launch library and backwards compatibility.
To be fair, there are a couple of high-profile games coming out later this year: Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR will be available on November 16 and Asgard’s Wrath 2 will be released on December 15. So it’s not a total desert out there.
In the meantime, you can play VR games that aren’t available in the store on your Quest 3 by tethering it to a PC like a traditional PC-based VR headset. That can be done with an Oculus Link cable or wirelessly through AirLink. This allows you to flawlessly play SteamVR games, including two of the best VR games that aren’t available at the Oculus Store: Half-Life: Alyx and Microsoft Flight Simulator. Alyx worked immediately and looks absolutely amazing through the Quest 3’s optics, and the controllers function as if they were natively supported (Valve went out of its way to make Alyx work with any PC VR headset).
Microsoft Flight Simulator requires a little more effort in that you have to manually turn on VR mode in the in-game settings menu before putting on your headset, but that’s a small hoop to jump through. Note that you’ll definitely need a powerful rig to drive this game, but if you have one, you’re in for an extremely realistic-looking game. Flight Simulator gives you the option to overlay real satellite imagery over the terrain, and it looks incredible. I’m not a big fan of heights, and I actually felt queasy flying the prop planes over Bora Bora or Manhattan – and that wasn’t VR motion sickness.
New to the Quest 3 are two 4MP RGB cameras and a depth sensor embedded into the front of the visor that allow for the much-touted full-color passthrough feature, which you’ll see while on the Quest 3 home screen, in some mixed-reality-enabled games, and can be swapped to by tapping twice on the side of the headband. The clarity is a vast improvement over the Quest’s monochrome muddiness. In good lighting conditions, the image is bright and clear, with accurate, true-to-life colors. The litmus test is text clarity, and the image was just barely sharp enough for me to read and send messages on my phone or browse the internet on my PC. It’s definitely not the same resolution as in VR mode and there is plenty of room for improvement, but it’s still 10 times sharper (a ballpark figure) than the Quest 2’s passthrough mode.
The Quest 2 improves over its predecessor in a lot of little ways, with a few small drawbacks like the enlarged controllers and cheaper strap. But its wireless nature, ease of use, and accessible price still make it a killer VR headset. – Whitson Gordon, September 16, 2020
Read the full Meta Quest 2 Review
Currently there aren’t very many games that make use of the passthrough tech, though. For the review, Meta only provided a single mixed-reality game, First Encounters, but it left a very strong impression. Colorful, tribble-like creatures burst out of your walls and ceilings, and it’s your job to capture all of them. It’s more of a tech demo than an actual game, but it was a strong showing of the potential of mixed-reality gaming. The Quest 3 did an excellent job of mapping out the room I was playing in, allowing its tribbles to jump around on my furniture, making the cracks in the walls really look like portals into another dimension, and the rocket ship to leave realistic-looking scorch marks on the surfaces that it landed on. Most importantly, the passthrough quality didn’t detract from the experience at all. I was never really a big fan of AR gaming before, but the Quest 3 just might have made me a convert.
Finally, you can’t talk about the Quest 3’s gaming performance without covering the new Touch Plus controllers. The most obvious change is that the Quest 3’s controllers have done away with the bulky IR rings we’ve seen on every previous Oculus and Quest controller. From an ergonomic standpoint, this was the right move. Without the rings, they’re the lightest VR controllers ever made, no longer top-heavy, and feel balanced in the hand. I weighed mine at a mere 104 grams each without the battery. As a comparison, the Quest 2 controllers weigh 128 grams, the PSVR 2 controller weighs 168 grams, the Valve Index knuckle weigh 196 grams, and the HTC Vive wand tip the scales at over 200 grams.
Also the rings were a structural weak point on the Quest 2. My controllers broke twice over the three years I’ve owned them, and I had to spend $120 on replacements. Without the rings, I expect the new Touch controllers to be more durable.
I have a Quest 1 and would upgrade to a 3
I have a Quest 1 and wouldn't upgrade to a 3
I have a Quest 2 and would upgrade to a 3
I have a Quest 2 and wouldn't upgrade to a 3
I don't have a Quest but would buy a 3
Like the Quest 2’s controllers, each Quest 3 controller is still powered by a single AA battery. That means you don’t have to worry about a non-removable battery losing its charge over the course of its life, and it doesn’t sacrifice longevity. Even after about 20 hours of use, I’m still on my first set. The battery compartment is also a lot easier to access. Instead of pressing down on the cover to push it free from the magnets holding it in place, you simply push a button and the door pops open.
There are only two other VR headsets that offer both untethered and mixed reality gaming. The Oculus Quest Pro retails for $1,500 and the HTC VIVE XR Elite retails for $1,100. You might think $500 is a steep price for the Quest 3, but it’s a straight-up bargain compared to the competition, especially given its resolution outdoes them both.
Not surprisingly, the Quest 3’s biggest competition is its own predecessor. Meta has made it clear that it plans to continue supporting the Quest 2 for the foreseeable future, and it should – it’s still an excellent headset that lets you experience most of what VR has to offer at a pretty incredible price. Even now, there simply isn’t anything else that can compete.
The Meta Quest 3 comes equipped with two different storage capacities. The 128GB model retails for $499.99 and the 512GB model is $649.99. Both include a voucher for the upcoming Asgard’s Wrath 2. The 512GB model also includes a six-month Meta Quest+ trial (a $48 value), which gives you an extra two free games every month.
Oct 10, 2023 · This Meta Quest 3 review dives into the pros and cons of getting the new-generation VR headset.
- East Coast Tech Editor
- kim.gedeon@ziffdavis.com
- Demeo. Demeo isn't a perfect tabletop game by any means. But it is a really good one and, more importantly, its first-rate four-player multiplayer VR experience makes it feel like a genuine social event in a way that no flatscreen game – and even few VR games – have ever really matched.
- Assassin's Creed Nexus. There was a lot of understandable doubt about whether the Assassin's Creed franchise could survive the transition to VR and come out better on the other end.
- Pistol Whip. Continual updates and new content has cemented Pistol Whip as one of the best, most stylish arcade rhythm VR games around. Its sharpshooting, sharp sounding, beat-based gameplay proves even more hypnotic than Beat Saber and in our 2023 review update, we proclaimed Pistol Whip is better than ever.
- Walkabout Mini Golf. Mini golf is actually something that could and should work quite well in VR. Walkabout Mini Golf is all the proof you need; it's an accurate representation of the game that goes beyond what's possible in real life whilst also remaining authentic throughout.
Depending on where you are in the world, Meta Quest 3 officially hits shelves... NOW! Some enhanced versions of games already shipped as part of our Best on Quest 3 program, taking full advantage of all that the new tech stack has to offer (we’re looking at you, Red Matter 2, Pistol Whip, and Guardians Frontline).
Oct 9, 2023 · Our Verdict. The Meta Quest 3 is a massive improvement over the Quest 2, packing in a lot of power and features without adding to the headset's weight, and it doesn't cost a fortune. For....
