Little Planet allows you to become a city planner and socialite on a world of your own making, and it recently went free-to-play on Quest.
In Little Planet, you become the architect of a world in almost every sense. You can shape it on a macro level, shifting rivers and cliffs to your liking. Then, roam around your curated space, chopping trees and crafting furniture, all while living among adorable anthropomorphic villagers. It's a comforting setup that's easy to get lost in, and after exploring and fine-tuning my digital home away from home, I'm impressed by how deep these systems can go.
Alas, an adorable utopia isn't built in a day, and your time with Little Planet begins with the basics. Taught through a series of approachable tutorials, you'll quickly learn how to collect materials, earn recipes to craft with, and interact with the all-important inventory system at the center of it all. Each aspect is introduced quickly, though given their practical nature, it doesn't take long to feel at home with these systems.
Similar to other sandbox experiences like Minecraft and Animal Crossing, much of Little Planet's world is engaged with through the moreish process of experimentation and exploration. What happens if I chop down this tree? Or if you're like me, how much random junk can I fit in my inventory before it's full? These questions create a sense of intrigue that's easy to invest in, further bolstered by Little Planet's Pedia, which serves as an enticing scavenger hunt list.
For our hands-on experience, the developers at VRWood provided UploadVR with a late-game account for Little Planet, which also allowed me to experience the simulator with all its systems unlocked. This gave me a brief taste of the expanded building types, such as the furniture shop and fashion house, as well as a full range of equipment, including the peashooter, fishing rod, gardening tools, axe, and a watering can.
When compared to the sparse planet you began with, it's impressive how much you can accomplish if you invest your time in its sizable open world. As someone who puts a lot of stock into customization, I'm particularly impressed by the range of dress-up and accessory options available to jazz up your avatar. That includes everything from glitzy star glasses to bucket hats and adorable coquette-collared tops.
Perhaps my favourite aspect of Little Planet was the fishing minigame, and I'm embarrassed to admit how much time I've spent happily staring at a bobber. Similar to real-world fishing, here you equip a rod and fling your arm back before casting your line out as if you're Indiana Jones cracking your whip. Then, once a fish has nibbled your bobber, you can use your free hand to grip the reel and hastily crank it backward. It's a simple yet surprisingly meditative process, made even better by the sloshing of the waves and the clicky reel sounds of the rod.
I would be remiss not to mention the residents of the world, dubbed Planet Pals, whose playful banter garnered a few giggles from me across my hands-on. It can be lonely working away on the planet by yourself, especially if you aren't keen on the game's social features, and I appreciated having someone to chat to besides myself. While their dialogue isn't overly complex or moving, at least in my experience, they do well to imbue the world with a sense of much-needed personality. Of the bunch, fishing fanatic Rusty is a particular standout, thanks to their pirate quips and comical seafaring attire.
One thing has become clear across my time with Little Planet so far, and it's that I'm only scratching the surface. Beyond the plethora of day-to-day activities to tackle, I didn't get a chance to test out the social features or travel to other worlds. Even so, Little Planet leaves a confident first impression, providing life sim players an opportunity to curate custom worlds in VR.
Puzzling Places adds a 'Replay Tool' in its latest free Quest update, launching alongside the game's newest premium puzzle, “A Painter's Dream.”
The new experimental Replay Tool automatically records the many individual moments in which a new piece is added to your puzzle. At the moment the puzzle is completed, it automatically generates a full timelapse video of the entire puzzling session. This allows players to share their builds with the Puzzling Places community without the need for manual recording or editing.
Releasing alongside the Replay Tool is a new premium puzzle, “A Painter's Dream.” This peaceful riverside escape is inspired by impressionist paintings, so think water lilies, sun-dappled ponds, delicate swans, and quiet cafés. Unlike the Replay Tool, that's receiving a wider release that covers Quest, PS VR2, and Pico.
Developed by realities.io, Puzzling Places is a relaxing 3D jigsaw puzzle game in which players can build all sorts of 3D puzzles in VR and MR modes across solo and multiplayer modes. The game continues introducing new puzzles you can tackle with different-sized piece sets, with more added monthly.
An Apple Immersive Video documentary about Real Madrid is coming next year, "with a level of access that fans have never experienced before".
If you're an American reading this who doesn't know much about what you call "soccer", here's some context: Real Madrid is one of the most successful football clubs of all time, and has signed some of the best players of all time, including both Ronaldos, Zinedine Zidane, and David Beckham. In the year 2000, FIFA even officially declared Real Madrid "Club of the Century".
Today, Real Madrid and Apple confirmed work on an Apple Immersive Video documentary about the club, captured during last month's Champions League match against Juventus.
What Is Apple Immersive Video?
The Apple Immersive Video format is 180° stereoscopic 3D video with 4K×4K per-eye resolution, 90FPS, high dynamic range (HDR), and spatial audio. It's typically served with higher bitrate than many other immersive video platforms.
We highly praised Apple Immersive Video in our Vision Pro review. It's not possible to cast or record Apple Immersive Video though, so you'll have to take our word for it unless you have access to a Vision Pro.
Apple says the documentary was filmed using over 30 Blackmagic immersive cameras, and "brings viewers inside the world’s most decorated club, capturing moments from practice to the pitch with a level of access that fans have never experienced before."
In an interview with GQ Spain, Real Madrid's president Florentino Pérez described the documentary as just the beginning of a long-term plan to connect the club's "billion" strong global fanbase to the stadium using technology. He references the "Infinite Bernabéu", an idea he has floated in previous interviews, a goal of one day letting fans all over the world virtually attend Real Madrid home matches using VR.
That strongly suggests that the next step of Real Madrid's plan is to stream live games in Apple Immersive.
The first known live Apple Immersive Video offering will be select LA Lakers NBA games, set to be streamed next year via Blackmagic URSA Cine Immersive Live, a special variant of the immersive camera creators are using for prerecorded Apple Immersive Video content.
The announcement came almost nine years after NextVR started streaming weekly NBA games to the Oculus-powered Samsung Gear VR headset in 180-degree. In 2020 Apple acquired NextVR, and leveraged its expertise and IP to develop Apple Immersive Video.
Interactive VR movie Mobile Suit Gundam: Silver Phantom is out now on PlayStation VR2.
Created by Bandai Namco Filmworks and Atlas V, Mobile Suit Gundam: Silver Phantom first released last year on Quest. Offering a VR interactive anime film with an original story, it's set three years after Char's Counterattack in the Universal Century 0096, delivering a more narrative-focused tale with light gameplay elements. After appearing last month on the PlayStation Store, that's now available on PlayStation VR2.
Silver Phantom focuses on a mercenary group called Argent Keil, presenting a neutral insight into the war between the Earth Federation and Zeon. With a group of Neo Zeon's remnants called The Sleeves causing issues, these scenes unfold across 6DoF, 360° environments and use a cel-shaded presentation to match the anime's visuals.
We went hands-on during Venice Immersive 2024 and considered publisher Astrea describing this as an interactive movie to be a smart decision. While we found the actual interactivity to be disappointingly limited, though you can still participate in mech battles, we believed Mobile Suit Gundam: Silver Phantom is an experience that's ultimately “carried by its narrative.”
You can now turn new Horizon Hyperscape captures into unlisted Horizon Worlds, letting you invite friends to join you in them as Meta Avatars.
Launched at Connect 2025, Meta's Horizon Hyperscape Capture app for Quest 3 and Quest 3S lets you use your headset to scan a real-world environment, such as a room, to create a photorealistic VR replica.
The Hyperscape scanning process requires between 5 and 10 minutes of walking around the scene while wearing the headset, and it's followed by between 1 and 8 hours of processing on Meta's servers, depending on the complexity of the capture.
At launch, Hyperscape was a solo experience, and you couldn't share your captures with others. It was also cloud rendered, requiring a very strong and stable internet connection at all times.
Now, just over two months later, Meta is "rolling out" an overhaul of the technology.
Instead of creating cloud-rendered captures only accessible within the app, Hyperscape now creates a special kind of Horizon Worlds destination, a Hyperscape world. While the initial processing is still done on Meta's servers, Hyperscape worlds are rendered on-device in VR, via the Horizon Engine that also powers Quest's new Immersive Home and Horizon Central.
Once a new Hyperscape world finishes processing, you'll see Invite and Share buttons, with the latter generating a URL that you can send to friends.
People with the link can join the Hyperscape world in VR from a Quest 3 or Quest 3S, or in flatscreen on a smartphone in the Meta Horizon app, and you can reset access to the link at any time, according to Meta.
Generic depiction of the Horizon Hyperscape social update from Meta.
Hyperscape worlds currently support up to 8 people per instance, and Meta says it "hopes" to increase that number in future.
As with all Horizon Worlds, for people joining on smartphones the experience will continue to be cloud-rendered. The on-device rendering is for VR only.
Note that Hyperscapes scanned before the new update cannot be shared, and are only accessible solo in the Horizon Hyperscape Preview app.
UploadVR plans to test the new social Hyperscape experience as soon as we can, and we'll bring you footage and impressions once we do.
A couple weeks ago, fully reclined horizontally on a couch at Valve HQ, I watched a video streaming from the web via a virtual browser window floating in the open air of Linux.
When I slipped the Steam Frame off my head, I congratulated a Valve industrial designer who worked on it. I had just spentfour days in Galaxy XR with a thick rigid strap and a knob on the back of my head preventing me from even thinking about what I had just done so comfortably in Steam Frame.
"I don't think I've experienced that in a hard shell before," I told the Valve representative.
"I don't think it's been done before," he replied, holding Steam Frame's cushioned battery in one hand. "Starting from this and going along the strap, that's why we eliminated all sorts of knobs or mechanism in the back that could protrude and prevent the user from laying back."
A great many people consuming the news of Valve's announcement find themselves curious but unconvinced the private company will land at a compelling price for the LCD-based standalone VR system. Many wanted a Quest killer and some wanted a high-end successor for their wired PC VR system. Half-Life 3 hasn't been announced and Valve isn't working on VR games right now. So without trying Steam Frame themselves, or knowing the price, we're seeing people reporting potent withdrawal symptoms from extended use of copium.
Over the course of our recent discussion about Steam Frame, David and I found ourselves in a circular loop with our audience, essentially trying to sort out whether people could be both disappointed in Valve's choices and sequestering funds anyway for hardware purchases sometime next year.
While we won't have a review of Steam Frame for you until sometime next year, meanwhile, Bigscreen claimed high sales numbers on Valve's announcement day, likely from buyers who were waiting to see what Valve decided before committing to the Beyond 2 for their wired PC VR setup.
Steam Frame's Value
VR headsets really didn't go into bed before the Vision Pro, and there's no hard-backed strap design sold by Apple.
I've probably worn Apple's headset as many hours in bed as I have seated, with standing active use representing a very small fraction of my time in Vision Pro. Yes, I miss Beat Saber and Walkabout Mini Golf and Half-Life: Alyx, but I recently got access to those with ALVR streaming and PlayStation VR2 controllers.
What keeps me in Vision Pro for so many hours is that the headset multitasks iPad apps in a way no iPad can while going places no iPad goes. Because I had so many surfaces around me I could use, I spent hundreds of hours in an Apple VR headset and only the tiniest sliver of that time found me interacting with fully immersive VR games.
When calculating the value of Steam Frame, your equation is deeply flawed if it assumes VR use solely in standing or seated scenarios. If you can't imagine the headset's grayscale passthrough as a tunnel through reality taking you from sitting on the couch to reclined in bed, so you can continue playing your favorite Steam game for another two hours, then you have no frame of reference to calculate whether Valve's upcoming headset will add value to your life.
Valve sent out the first developer kits for Steam Frame in ski goggle cases. Its rear battery pack and cushion can travel inside the facial interface.
Any VR headset made 2014 to 2025 that used your Steam library required external equipment making it difficult to even imagine why you might want to fall asleep in the falling snow on the helipad from the opening level of Metal Gear Solid.
I had that environment on Quest set as my home from SideQuest before Meta replaced it with its new immersive home space. I've found that when trying to relax in a place like that with the front-heavy Quest, the battery strains the soft strap's ability to hold the headset to your eyes. Even without the battery on the front of the face in Vision Pro, using Apple's Dual Loop Band, I found the headset too loose to be held comfortably by its soft strap when turning on my side in bed. I've already shared my impressions of Apple’s new Dual Knit Band, but if there are any Vision Pro M2 and M5 owners with the strap in our audience I'd invite them to share more widely their experience with whether that balanced soft strap allows them to wear it in more places.
When I was at the San Francisco airport earlier this year returning to New York from my demo of Bigscreen Beyond 2, I spotted another Vision Pro owner in the terminal. He was carrying the large white bag strapped to his rolling luggage that Apple sold when the headset first launched. Meanwhile, I had the much more portable grey Belkin bag Apple started selling some time after, with my headset stored vertically and a flip out cover built in to protect the lenses.
Instead of strapped around my luggage, my bag goes over the shoulder with a pocket for a folding keyboard or, in recent weeks, you could find the Muse pen a useful companion ready to pop out and move windows or sketch something.
Why am I spending so much time telling you about the places a $3,500 headset goes? Because we all know Valve’s standalone makes trade-offs to come under the price of the $1,000 Index, but until you wear one you can't believe that all of these choices result in a headset you might be interested in wearing on a 6 hour flight. When that happens, whatever the price, it will literally be measured as a fraction of what Apple charges to take Vision Pro into those same places.
The relevant comparison for calculating value here isn't the OLED of Vision Pro vs. the LCD of Steam Frame. The comparison to think about is whether you're sitting back comfortably or craning your neck downward at a physical display. Are you looking at the back of a seat rest for six hours or playing your favorite Steam game?
I was only half kidding about those copium withdrawals. If Valve pulls the trigger on Half-Life 3, there's a good chance it will run flat on Steam Frame just like Portal 2 does.
SteamVR supports all PC VR headsets but Valve has really only directly supported three devices in a decade of VR – Vive, Index, Frame. And their developers are not making a VR game right now. But if Valve makes the third game in any of their trilogies? Imagine how the variables in the value equation change if Steam Frame is the most comfortable way to enjoy Half-Life 3 on a flight, train, or in bed on the ceiling.
The Thrill of the Fight 2 is now out of Early Access with a launch update that adds a singleplayer campaign.
The original The Thrill of the Fight arrived on Steam for the original HTC Vive all the way back in 2016, and is still considered to be one of the best VR games of all time, as well as one of the first to get you breaking a sweat. It was ported to Quest soon after the original Oculus Quest launched, and last saw a major update in 2023.
Compared to the original, the biggest addition in The Thrill of the Fight 2 is multiplayer, which was the only mode available when it entered Early Access on Quest headsets back in November.
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The Thrill of the Fight 2 launch trailer.
The Thrill of the Fight 2 also adds a visible and customizable player body model, as well as a thumbstick locomotion option in addition to the default room-scale movement. It's also a little more game-like, with visible scoring, a departure from the simulation feel of the original.
While the multiplayer-only Early Access release was $10, the full game with a singleplayer campaign too is now $20 for new buyers (existing buyers get the update for free).
You can find Thrill of the Fight 2 on the Meta Horizon Store, with support for Quest 2, Quest Pro, Quest 3, and Quest 3S.
There's no timeline yet for a PC VR release, though there is a flatscreen PC viewer app launching on Steam soon for spectating fights between Quest players.
TCL is showing off a compact 2.5K RGB OLED panel for XR headsets that could be the perfect midpoint between cheap LCD and expensive micro-OLED.
Today, almost every affordable headset uses LCD panels, while premium options use micro-OLED, technically known as OLED-on-silicon (OLEDoS).
LCD is cheap, but has poor contrast, forming a relatively washed-out image that compresses the darkest details into a gray haze in place of deep blacks. Meanwhile micro-OLED offers vibrant colors with rich contrast, and can achieve extremely high resolution without increasing the bulk of headsets, but is incredibly difficult to manufacture and thus very expensive.
Some headsets like Meta Quest Pro, the Pimax Crystal series, and Somnium VR1 use advanced LCD panels with an array of mini backlights to improve contrast compared to regular LCD, and a quantum dot layer to enhance colors, but the result is still a far cry from the self-emissive nature of OLED, where every pixel provides its own light. Further, the extra layers increase thickness, weight, heat, and power draw.
Of course, there is another display technology for headsets between LCD and micro-OLED, one that also offers many of the latter's benefits: regular OLED, also known as OLED on glass.
OLED on glass is what's used in your smartphone, your smartwatch, and perhaps your TV too, if you paid a lot for it. For VR, it was seen as the only game in town between 2014 and 2016, used in the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and PlayStation VR.
HTC continued to use OLED in Vive Pro, as did Oculus for the original Quest. But LCD soon offered higher density at lower cost, a killer combination for a market looking to scale up while increasing resolution, and so investment in new custom OLED panels to keep up with the density demands of VR mostly dried up within just a few years.
The only regular OLED VR headset still on the market today is PlayStation VR2. And one key reason that it's the only headset from a major company with new fresnel lenses is that, when it released, there was simply no OLED with high enough density to be compact enough to be suitable for pancake lenses (among other issues, which we'll get to later in the article).
TCL's New OLED
PlayStation VR2's OLED
Size
2.56-inch
~3.4-inch
Resolution
2560×2740
2000×2040
Subpixels
RGB (3/3)
PenTile (2/3)
Refresh Rate
120Hz
120Hz
Density
1512 PPI
>800PPI
That brings us to TCL's new OLED panel, which its China Star Optoelectronics Technology (CSOT) division is showing at the Display Tech-Ecosystem Conference (DTC 2025) this week in China.
The company says it's the highest density RGB OLED-on-glass display in the world, and has the 120Hz refresh rate ideal for VR.
It's almost twice as dense as the OLED in PlayStation VR2, while using a full RGB subpixel arrangement, letting it offer 73% more pixels and 160% more subpixels despite being just over half the size.
Its size makes it ideal for use with pancake lenses, its RGB subpixels mean it shouldn't need a softening diffusion layer, and its resolution is notably higher than the LCDs in Meta Quest 3 and Valve's Steam Frame.
Putting it all together, this means TCL's new OLED panel could power clear and sharp headsets with rich colors, deep contrast, and true blacks, but without the sky-high prices you get with micro-OLED. And this could be key to delivering compelling products that sit somewhere between Meta Quest 3 and Samsung Galaxy XR in the market.
This isn't the first time we've heard about the idea of high-density regular OLED as a way to deliver some of the advantages of micro-OLED but in far more affordable headsets.
Over a year ago, South Korean news outlet The Elec reported that Japan's JDI was pitching Apple a 1500 PPI regular OLED for the rumored "Vision Air" headset, and that Samsung was working on a similar display too.
That's notable because it's almost exactly the same density as TCL's new OLED, and may suggest that TCL too is (or was) pitching the panel to Apple.
For now, TCL isn't saying whether it has any customers for the new OLED panel, but does confirm that it's designed for "XR devices".
Type
Resolution
Quest 3
LCD
2064×2208
Steam Frame
LCD
2160×2160
TCL's New Panel
OLED
2560×2740
Apple Vision Pro
Micro-OLED
3660×3200
Samsung Galaxy XR
Micro-OLED
3552×3840
There are, however, a few major unanswered questions.
The first is whether the panel is bright enough to overcome the inefficiency of pancake lenses, and the fact that they work best with polarized light, which OLED doesn't provide. There are workarounds for this, if the panel layers and lenses are specifically designed to work together. And the brightness of OLED panels has significantly improved in recent years, with the latest iPhones and Apple Watches for example reaching 3000 nits.
The other question is whether the new panel exhibits the same non-uniform fixed-pattern noise we've seen in many regular OLED headsets like PlayStation VR2, the mura, an issue not present in any micro-OLED we've viewed to date. Overcoming this may be the key to reviving regular OLED as a great option for midrange headsets, so we're incredibly curious to find out whether TCL has done so.
Marvel's Deadpool VR, the latest Quest 3 and Quest 3S exclusive blockbuster, is out now for $50.
Developed by Meta-owned Twisted Pixel Games in collaboration with Marvel Games, Deadpool VR has a cel-shaded graphics style, and unlike in the movies, Deadpool in VR is voiced by Neil Patrick Harris, not Ryan Reynolds.
The arcade-style action game sees you, as Deadpool, kidnapped by the supervillain Mojo (voiced by John Leguizamo) and forced to hunt down talent for his galaxy-wide reality TV show. The talent you'll kidnap are iconic villains from across the Marvel universe, including Mephisto, Lady Deathstrike, Omega Red, and Ultimo.
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In UploadVR's review of Deadpool VR, Pete Austin described the visuals as paying off "beautifully", with the best implementation of cel-shading that he's seen yet in VR. He also found Neil Patrick Harris' performance to be "easily on par" with Ryan Reynolds in the films, and the "gloriously over-the-top" soundtrack to feel like it was straight out of one too.
However, his feelings on the combat system were more mixed. While it impressed in the early phases of the game, he criticized the fact that it's "disappointingly weightless", with weapons clipping through each other, hands clipping through the environment, and two-handed weapons feeling like they’re made of paper.
"Deadpool VR is a paradox. It captures the antihero's essence perfectly but wraps it around mechanics that just never feel like they completely deliver - great presentation carrying combat that never quite lives up to its potential."
You should go read Pete's full review, and if it leaves you wanting to, you can buy Deadpool VR on the Meta Horizon Store for Quest 3 and Quest 3S, priced at $50.
Healer is a mixed reality roguelite where you save the universe one encounter at a time, and it's coming to Quest 3 and 3S next month.
Developed by ROTU Entertainment (Eolia), Healer sees players become planetary defenders, wielding their wits and helpful hand cannons against a joy-devouring evil called the Entropic Virus. From a gameplay perspective, this means shooting at undulating orbs, solving 3D puzzles, and fighting off alien creatures to earn high scores. You can check out gameplay below:
Among the bubble popping, you can also find crystalline creatures called Cosmic Critters that apply upgrades to your runs. The trailer shows a blue critter called 'Reanu Keeves' that affects enemy movement speed, a purple critter called 'Enna Jortega' that increases the fire rate on dark weapons, and more. As you seek them out, you'll also unlock Set Bonuses to further bolster your arsenal.
Beyond Healer's main story, competitive players can seek additional glory by competing on the game's global leaderboard. When you complete an 'encounter,' your successes will add up to a high score that you can post. Hand tracking and controllers are both supported too.
Healer is launching on December 11 exclusively on Quest 3/3S.
EA Sports will release a paid 2026 season expansion to F1 25 instead of a new title, with a “reimagined” game to follow in 2027.
Since F1 22, EA Sports and Codemasters have continued supporting PC VR in its officially licensed series of Formula 1 racing games. While each real-life season is normally reflected through a new game, it's now skipping the usual annual release cycle by instead releasing a paid expansion to F1 25, one that reflects the upcoming 2026 season.
“The premium content update will bring players closer to the sport’s major changes for 2026 that include new cars, sporting regulations, teams, and drivers,” states EA Sports in a new blog.
While the 2026 season officially kicks off with the Australian Grand Prix on March 8, there's no indication this will also be the expansion's release date. New entries since 2021 have arrived between May and July, and pricing is also unconfirmed.
With the next entry, EA Sports confirmed that F1 27 is a new game “that looks, feels, and plays differently, delivering more gameplay choices.” Little else is currently known, and in a prepared statement, Codemasters' Senior Creative Director Lee Mather states this “reimagines the F1 experience” for 2027.
Considering this is being touted as a larger overhaul, it's unclear whether PC VR support will continue beyond F1 25 and next year's expansion with future entries. We'll keep an eye out for further updates as they come through.
PlayStation VR2 is on sale for $300, its lowest price ever, and this includes the Horizon Call of the Mountain bundle.
Originally priced at $550, Sony officially cut the price of the headset to $400 earlier this year, just over two years after it launched.
Now, for the 2025 holiday season PlayStation VR2 is temporarily being sold for just $300, its lowest price ever. This price applies to both the regular SKU and the bundle with Horizon Call of the Mountain, so you should always grab the latter if it's in stock.
The new $300 sale ends at 11:59pm Pacific Time on December 18, just in time for Christmas.
The lowest price we'd seen before this was $350, which the headset has gone on sale for three times: in summer 2024, the 2024 holiday period, and for the Days Of Play 2025 event. During that summer 2024 discount, sales reportedly skyrocketed, with one retailer selling more units in one day than had been previously sold all year so far.
If you're a PC gamer, you can now pick up the headset, Sony's PC adapter, and (if required) a DisplayPort cable and Bluetooth adapter for less than $400 all-in.
And with PSVR2Toolkit and PimaxMagic4All, if you have a GTX 16 series or RTX graphics card, you can even leverage eye-tracked foveated rendering in a wide range of SteamVR titles.
With its 2K OLED displays, PlayStation VR2 offers a more vibrant image with far greater contrast than any other affordable PC VR headset, though with the tradeoff that the image is softer and has a non-uniform fixed-pattern noise over it, called mura.
The PS5 and PS5 Pro are also on sale, with the same $100 discount. The holiday deals come three months after Sony increased the price of the consoles.
The digital edition PS5 is on sale for $400, while the PS5 Pro is at $650.
That means you can grab a PS5 and PlayStation VR2 together for $700, or a PS5 Pro and the headset for $950, delivering a full consolized high-end VR experience for less than $1000.
Of course, next year Valve too will offer a consolized high-end VR experience with Steam Frame and Steam Machine. That combination will have the significant benefit of being wireless, but will also likely cost at least twice as much, making Sony's holiday proposition still a good deal.
This article, originally published when the sale was announced, has been updated to reflect it going live.
A free tool for Windows PCs with modern Nvidia GPUs adds eye-tracked foveated rendering to a huge number of SteamVR games.
Called PimaxMagic4All, the tool re-implements a feature Pimax ships in its Pimax Play software used to set up and adjust its headsets. As such, if you already own a Pimax headset, you don't need it.
PimaxMagic4All should work with any SteamVR-compatible headset that exposes a low-level public API to retrieve eye tracking data, or which has third-party software that does so, including:
Meta Quest Pro (via Steam Link or Virtual Desktop)
Fixed Foveated Rendering (FFR) means rendering the central area of the image at a higher resolution than the peripheral area.
Eye-Tracked Foveated Rendering (ETFR), occasionally also called Dynamic Foveated Rendering, means rendering the area you're currently looking at at higher resolution than everywhere else, as determined by eye tracking sensors.
Both techniques save performance in VR, and this can be used to either run demanding experiences at a smoother framerate or render experiences already hitting framerate at higher peak resolution.
FFR comes with noticeable pixelation at the edges, but works on any headset, while with ETFR there shouldn't be any noticeable difference, depending on the settings and that assuming the eye tracking system has low enough latency.
The developer says that it should "likely" work with Valve's Steam Frame too, when streaming from a Windows PC with an Nvidia GPU, and in theory could work with HTC Vive Pro Eye and Vive Focus Vision with additional development time.
The developer, by the way, is Matthieu Bucchianeri, a name you may recognize if you're a regular UploadVR reader.
Bucchianeri is a very experienced developer, having worked on the PS4 and original PlayStation VR at Sony, Falcon 9 and Dragon at SpaceX, and HoloLens and Windows MR at Microsoft, where he currently works on Xbox. At Microsoft he contributed to OpenXR, and in his spare time he developed OpenXR Toolkit, VDXR (Virtual Desktop's OpenXR runtime), and most recently Oasis, the native SteamVR driver that revived Windows MR headsets.
PimaxMagic4All used with Varjo Aero.
PimaxMagic4All has a simple graphical interface with three levels of foveated rendering: Maximum, Balanced, and Minimum. You can choose between prioritizing increasing performance, achieving a result where you shouldn't notice the difference, or a balance of the two.
The tool can inject foveated rendering into any title that uses the DirectX 11 graphics API and OpenVR, Valve's deprecated API for SteamVR. The game also needs to not have an anti-cheat system, since those will prevent code injection. And remember, you need to have an Nvidia graphics card, specifically a GTX 16 series or RTX card.
You can find a small list of supported titles on the GitHub project's wiki page, and it includes Half-Life: Alyx, Skyrim VR, Fallout 4 VR, Elite Dangerous, Assetto Corsa, and Boneworks. But this is only a fraction of the total number of games that should be supported in theory.
How well it will work will vary wildly between titles, with some seeing performance improvements and others exhibiting significant visual artifacts and other issues.
Note that three titles you won't need this for are Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, DCS, and iRacing, since all three now support OpenXR eye-tracked foveated rendering natively.
The playable activity is initially available in the VR version of the game in Upside Town and Venice, as well as in the Welcome Island.
Chess joins a steadily growing list of activities inside Walkabout that can be played whether or not you engage with the core game of mini golf. In recent months the developers added slingshots, leaf blowers and bug nets to various areas, joining the existing hidden ball and "fox" hunts. Die-hard fans may have also noticed the stairs inside the shack on Welcome Island leading to an underground area styled as if it is for employees, with new areas opening up down there connecting to secret rooms all over the game.
With chess, Walkabout opens up its universe to tabletop board games. There's no comment yet from Mighty Coconut on whether they've got other tabletop games queued up yet, but you can use the menu on a course like Venice to quickly teleport to the chess board where you replace your club for a hand. Just pull the trigger to grab a piece and place it somewhere else on the board. There appears to be no enforced turn order or rulesets, so you can play with custom rules if you wanted.
Developers say the game board and pieces will retain their state in a multiplayer room as long as there's a player in it. In other words, the board will reset when the room isn't occupied. For players who use standalone headsets with streaming PCs to play a game like Walkabout, one could hypothetically leave a private room open on their PC and just put on the headset when they hear their friend enter the virtual room already open on there. It'd be a lot of work and wasted electricity to dedicate a PC for just this purpose, but a universe sounds nice that exists just for a friendly game of chess in Venice.
Which tabletop game do you want to see Walkabout add support for next? Let us know in the comments below.
Article originally published November 17 and updated with release.
Reality TV show Ninja Warrior is getting a VR game next month on Meta Quest headsets.
Initially debuted on Japanese TV as Sasuke in 1997, Ninja Warrior has since been remade in over 20 countries. The show is a test of skill and endurance for those who participate, tasking competitors with the need to overcome increasingly intense obstacle courses with the promise of a cash prize for the winner. It’s a concept with universal appeal that challenges people to overcome extraordinary feats of strength and attain victory.
This upcoming game is being developed by MyDearest in partnership with TBS Games, giving anyone a chance to compete in this virtual recreation. In the jump to virtual reality, players will take the form of a stylized ninja-like character in a cartoonish approximation of the real thing. Many of the recognizable obstacles from each stage of the competition make a return, and you must actively overcome these hurdles using full-body motion.
The intent is to not just make this a competitive title that supports up to 3 other players; MyDearest hopes to make a challenging exercise regimen that lets you feel the burn as you undertake these courses. The TV show's format of three stages plus a final stage is also present in the game, with variations and new stages being introduced in future updates.
Ninja Warrior VR will launch on December 18 on the Meta Horizon Store for $9.99.
After being completely spoiled by Camouflaj’s Iron Man VR and Batman: Arkham Shadow, one could be forgiven for going into Marvel's Deadpool VR with a dangerous cocktail of excitement and trepidation.
VR has already proven itself to be a spectacular vehicle for superhero power fantasy, and so far, Meta’s big-budget approach to the genre has landed well. With arguably Marvel’s most marketable antihero now getting the full VR treatment from Twisted Pixel Games, the bar of expectation couldn’t be higher. But while Deadpool VR absolutely nails the look, feel, and humor of the titular character’s comic-book world, it’s also a game that plays like its own punchlines: fantastic one moment, sometimes frustrating the next.
The Facts
What is it?: Superhero action romp with an adults-only sense of humor. Platforms: Quest 3/3S (reviewed on Quest 3) Release Date: November 18, 2025 Developer: Twisted Pixel Games Publisher: Oculus Studios Price: $49.99
I May Be Super, But I'm No Hero
For anyone unfamiliar with Marvel’s ‘Merc with a Mouth,’ Deadpool is the perfect antihero: a wisecracking, fourth-wall-breaking mercenary with a healing factor to rival Wolverine’s and a mouth that could make a sailor blush. Deadpool VR stays true to that lineage.
Narratively, we’re not breaking any molds here; you (Deadpool) are kidnapped by an intergalactic TV producer with a flair for violence named Mojo. From here you are thrown into a carnage-clad reality show that splits your time between hunting down Marvel villains to join the show and competing in a series of Death Battle Arena mini-games. It’s all gleefully absurd and knowingly self-referential, but you can have too much of a good thing, especially if you stay in for longer sessions. I recommend breaking your playthrough into one or two-hour chunks to keep both the combat and the pithy dialogue fresh.
The story itself is little more than scaffolding for some profanity-laden chaos, letting the game bounce from one wildly stylized comic-book set piece to the next amidst an avalanche of eyebrow-raising, off-color dialogue. Thankfully, the script is funny and the performances are great, which stops Deadpool’s constant chatter from feeling intrusive, assuming you’re a fan. This is no small blessing due to the sheer volume of it that players will be listening to.
Fourth Wall? What Fourth Wall?
At its heart, Deadpool VR is an arcade-style action game: a high-energy cocktail of hack-and-slash melee, over-the-top gunplay, and comic-book spectacle. Across its ten-to-twelve-hour campaign, you’ll carve your way through legions of thugs, demons, and cybernetically enhanced space zombies (because why not?) all the while juggling twin katanas, dual pistols, grenades, and a gravity gun that lets you toss enemies around like rag dolls.
You can also unlock new variants of these weapons, as well as new ‘special attacks’ once your 'viewer meter' charges, which will give you temporary access to some of Marvel’s most iconic weapons. From Thor’s hammer to Star-Lord’s blasters, these special weapons add even more flair to the carnage. Not to mention the fact that when you activate these specials, some ‘name brand psych-up songs’ start blaring over the top of the action.
For me, one of the game's highlights came the first time I accessed Gambit’s deck of kinetically charged cards while “You’re the Best” by Joe Esposito kicked in at full volume. It's one of the most gleefully nerdy moments in recent memory, leaving me grinning like an absolute idiot while I throw glowing purple death into waves of comic book ninjas, urged on by the soundtrack from The Karate Kid.
I Aim to Misbehave
My first impression of Deadpool VR was great. There’s something deeply satisfying about pinning an enemy to the wall with your sword, bouncing a pistol off an enemy’s face to reload it mid-air, and then slide-kicking into a group of bad guys. All while Deadpool artfully cracks wise in your ear. On paper, it’s everything you’d want from a Deadpool game: frenetic, over-the-top violence that borders on the absurd.
Unfortunately, the magic doesn’t hold. Beneath the spectacle lies a combat system that, for all its positives, feels disappointingly weightless. Weapons clip through each other, hands pass through the environments, and two-handed weapons feel like they’re made of paper. You can parry attacks, but the system feels inconsistent and finicky. Your swords pass through enemies without convincing resistance. This leaves melee encounters lacking the satisfying physicality found in titles like Asgard’s Wrath 2.
With gunplay, enemies are all varying shades of sponge. While you can finish off a bad guy with a clean shot to the head, headshots don’t seem to count for much at all until you deplete their health. This takes away any real need to try to finesse a fight. Just spray and pray, as it all ends up the same.
It’s this lack of nuance in the heat of battle that robs the world of a sense of physicality, relegating what should be a visceral dance of violence into something that after the first few hours begins to feel unfortunately shallow. The problem isn’t that the mechanics are broken; they just lack some impact. Combat looks spectacular, yet doesn't consistently feel it, and that disconnect grows more noticeable as the game goes on.
Time to Make the Chimichangas!
Twisted Pixel breaks up the action with platforming, mini-games, and tonal shifts that keep things unpredictable. Each level is themed around a different villain, bringing a fresh visual palette, though the basic loop remains consistent: kill waves of enemies, listen to (occasionally) lengthy exposition and move on. Occasionally there will be new interactive mechanics, but nothing cerebral enough that you could call a puzzle, and these parts just feel like VR busywork.
There were also a few repetitive sequences mixed in that feel like playtime padding at its most obvious. The game knows it, too. Deadpool even breaks the fourth wall to call out the “lazy game design” mid-mission. It’s funny, sure, but it doesn't stop these sequences from being a chore.
Between the main ‘acquisition missions,’ Deadpool also competes in Mojo’s “Battle Arena.” These sections are short, self-contained, mini-game style challenges that exist across a spectrum of entertainment. Some are genuinely fun (and even hint at multiplayer potential), while others feel more uninspired.
Comfort
Marvel's Deadpool VR is an intense experience, and players with susceptibility to VR motion sickness should approach with caution.
There are basic comfort options including snap turning and vignettes. Gameplay is very much centered around artificial stick-based locomotion, including parkour elements, so there is no option for teleport movement. There are also two very intense cinematic set pieces, but these can be skipped if needed.
A Bad Guy Paid To F**K Up Worse Guys
The boss fights, unfortunately, are the weakest link in the action. They’re standard multi-phase bullet sponges, complete with Quick Time Event sections that drain any sense of danger or satisfaction. They’re functional but deeply forgettable (except for one), and for a game this focused on memorable action, that’s a shame.
Thankfully, Deadpool VR has a few cinematic set pieces that almost redeem this. The opening sequence, for example, is less about gameplay and more about tone-setting; it’s essentially a low-difficulty rail shooter while also being a pure burst of Deadpool energy that’s equal parts spectacle and slapstick.
Later, there’s a particular sequence featuring one of the game’s many Marvel Comics cameos that, although similar in terms of gameplay, still ranks among the coolest things I’ve done in VR this year. It’s these flashes of brilliance that remind you how much potential is buried under the game’s uneven execution.
Maximum Effort
Visually, I think it’s fair to say that I’m in love with Deadpool VR.
Twisted Pixel’s decision to go full comic-book cell-shaded pays off beautifully, delivering the best implementation of that style I’ve seen. Bold outlines, vibrant color palettes, and perfectly balanced shading make every scene feel like you’ve stepped directly into a Marvel panel.
Each environment bursts with character from its grimy back alleys to neon-soaked intergalactic arenas. While there isn’t much environmental interactivity, the sheer quality of the art direction makes up for it. The visual design alone is worth celebrating; it’s a genuine showcase of how comic-book aesthetics can thrive in virtual reality and is the perfect accompaniment to the quintessentially Deadpool tone that the game delivers so well.
Initially, Deadpool VR maintains solid frame rates, but as the set pieces grow larger and the enemy count spikes, performance begins to suffer. Late-game sequences, particularly those filled with explosions and higher enemy counts, see some serious issues. Things become pixelated and framerates drop to a point that really makes it hard to enjoy the action.
Cue the Music
If the visuals define Deadpool VR’s look, then the sound defines its character. The voice performances are universally superb, led by Neil Patrick Harris’s pitch-perfect turn as Deadpool. His comedic timing and delivery are on point, breathing a depth of personality into a game that could easily drown in its own irreverence.
Whether you love or hate the character’s relentless banter, there’s no denying that Harris absolutely gets Deadpool - to the point where it is easily on par with Ryan Reynolds in the films. That commitment is echoed from the voice cast across every supporting role, giving the entire game a premium, Hollywood-grade sheen.
For a game that will often trap you in static dialogue scenes, the entertainment value of the voice acting is what keeps you from giving the “Skip” button a workout. Had more of the main exposition been administered while you were free to play around, it wouldn't have affected the pacing so much and allowed players to better appreciate the excellent voice performances.
The soundtrack, meanwhile, is gloriously over-the-top, particularly in the special weapon sequences where pop anthems take over. Overall, the sound design heavily hints at big-time Marvel money in the production, with the overall score feeling like something straight out of one of the movies.
Marvel's Deadpool VR - Final Verdict
Deadpool VR is a paradox. It captures the antihero's essence perfectly but wraps it around mechanics that just never feel like they completely deliver - great presentation carrying combat that never quite lives up to its potential. It's also marred by performance issues that ultimately undermine the game's otherwise exceptional presentation. If Twisted Pixel can iron out these technical issues, I'd be inclined to give it a higher score.
If you love Deadpool in general or just want to step into the pages of a Marvel comic, then Deadpool VR is worth experiencing. When it works, it’s joyful, absurd, and seriously fun. When it doesn’t, it’s weightless, repetitive, and oddly empty, so temper your expectations: this isn’t the next Iron Man VR or Arkham Shadow. It’s something stranger, sillier, and rougher around the edges - much like the Merc with a Mouth himself.
UploadVR uses a 5-Star rating system for our game reviews – you can read a breakdown of each star rating in our review guidelines.
Through December 2, Quest 3S is just $200 at Costco for members or $215 for non-members, and includes 12 months of the Meta Horizon+ games subscription.
You can find the deal on Costco's website, and the $100 discount from the regular $300 price will apply at checkout, with a $15 surcharge added if you're not a Costco member.
This is the lowest outright price we've ever seen for Quest 3S, and a year of the Horizon+ subscription normally costs $60. New Meta Quest headsets otherwise come with 3 months of the subscription.
Horizon+ includes a Games Catalog with some of Quest's best VR games, including Asgard's Wrath 2, Cubism, Demeo, Dungeons of Eternity, Eleven Table Tennis, Ghosts of Tabor, Job Simulator, Maestro, Onward, Pistol Whip, Red Matter, Synth Riders, The Climb 2, and Walkabout Mini Golf. It also lets subscribers redeem 2 monthly games pre-selected by Meta.
While Quest 3S can run all the same content as Quest 3, and has the same fundamental capabilities (including the same XR2 Gen 2 chipset and 8GB RAM), if you have the funds we always recommend Quest 3 over Quest 3S. The proper Quest 3 features Meta's advanced pancake lenses which are clearer and sharper over a wider area, have a wider field of view, and have precise separation adjustment, making them suitable for essentially everyone's eyes. These pancake lenses also enable Quest 3 to be thinner, which makes the headset feel slightly less heavy.
Still, at just $200 or $215 and with a year of Horizon+ games, Costco's Quest 3S deal could be hard to say no to. The deal ends after December 2, so make sure to grab it before then if you want to affordably bring a friend or loved one into VR and mixed reality this holiday season.
UPDATE November 18: While Costco's deal was originally listed as ending after Monday, it has now returned, and is available through December 2. This article has been updated to reflect that.
UPDATE November 19: Quest 3S is now out of stock at Costco, following "overwhelming" demand.
Of the many things Steam Frame is, what it isn't is a Valve Index 2. But that's a good thing.
When Valve Index launched in 2019, it was one of the most expensive VR headsets on the consumer market. Facebook had just launched the $400 Rift S and Oculus Quest headsets, and there was nothing like Apple Vision Pro or Samsung Galaxy XR.
At $1000 for the full kit, Index was a premium product for enthusiasts, meant to push the high-end, with (relatively) wide field of view lenses, off-ear speakers, and precise laser tracking. The thick, heavy tether and wall-mounted base stations were a feature, not a bug.
Based on some of the reactions to Steam Frame over the past few days, it's clear that many Index owners, and hardcore VR enthusiasts in general, were hoping that Valve would repeat its last-decade strategy, with another high-end tethered headset.
They wanted 4K micro-OLED panels (or at least, say, 3K LCD with local dimming) fed by yet another DisplayPort cable, with ultra wide field of view lenses, face tracking, and "Lighthouse" base station tracking, backwards-compatible with existing SteamVR peripherals.
But there are good reasons why Valve didn't do this, and why Steam Frame is the better strategy.
Index was relatively successful for what it was trying to be, by all accounts. More than six years later it still makes up around 15% of SteamVR usage. But what it did not do is meaningfully increase the total number of people playing VR games on Steam.
Instead, it was the $300 Quest 2 that achieved that feat. Less than six months after launch it became the most used headset on Steam, and today standalone headsets make up over 2/3rds of SteamVR use.
Standalone headsets with computer vision tracking allow anyone to connect to SteamVR on their PC with a couple of clicks, completely wirelessly, with no base stations or other complex setup required. And that they are wireless matters.
Among existing VR enthusiasts, there is a sentiment that wireless is a nice-to-have, but far from essential feature, while some are even actively opposed to it, adamant that they'll never cut the tether.
But there is a selection bias at play here. People who consider the cable a dealbreaker didn't buy the Index, or any other tethered PC VR headset. And they are the majority.
Since the HTC Vive Wireless Adapter, seven years ago, it has been obvious that wireless is the ideal for VR. You don't have to stow a cable and avoid running over it with your chair wheels. You can rotate freely in VR without worrying about getting tangled. And you can truly lose yourself in the virtual world because you don't have a tether reminding you where your PC is.
In fact, in 2017 Valve CEO Gabe Newell called wireless VR a “solved problem”. “My expectation is that wireless will be an add-on in 2017, and then it will be an integrated feature in 2018”, Newell was quoted as saying during a press conference that year.
Of course, the Vive Wireless Adapter relied on a 60GHz signal, unable to penetrate solid objects at all, so the transmitter had to be wall mounted and the receiver positioned on the top of your head, plus it was expensive. It was the right goal, but with the wrong technology.
Within days of the release of Oculus Quest people started using their existing home Wi-Fi network, leveraging the same H.264 codec used for video streaming to turn a $400 headset into a wireless room-scale PC VR system for no additional cost.
From here, the death of tethered PC-only VR headsets, or at least their relegation to a tiny niche, was inevitable.
There are two problems with this approach, however.
Firstly, the high compression ratio means that this kind of wireless VR doesn't look as good as a DisplayPort signal. And secondly, while some enthusiasts have ideal dedicated network setups with a high-end dedicated access point, most people rely on the cheap router their ISP supplied them a decade ago, which may not be near their VR playspace and also has to handle the traffic from the rest of the household.
With Steam Frame, Valve is using a combination of both hardware and software cleverness to refine the compressed wireless streaming experience. The headset has dual wireless radios, one of which is dedicated to the PC wireless adapter included in the box. And eye-tracked foveated streaming is used at all times, optimizing the video stream quality for where you're currently looking.
The Steam Frame box included the wireless adapter, front and center (photo by UploadVR at Valve HQ).
Essentially, Steam Frame is trying to package the high-quality wireless VR setups that only enthusiasts experience today into a relatively mainstream PC gaming product.
It's not about delivering yet another tethered PC VR headset with higher resolution – there are Bigscreen and Pimax headsets for that. Instead, Steam Frame is focused on delivering the best possible wireless PC VR experience that can be sold for less than $1000 (Valve's current plan).
And it's exactly this that PC VR needs. A product that out of the box, for every buyer, delivers an excellent wireless PC VR experience, without modifying their home network setup. Steam Frame isn't Index 2, but it's the better move for Valve. And instead of selling to the same few hundred thousand enthusiasts, I suspect it could sell millions of units through its lifetime, bringing far more customers for developers building PC VR games.
VR multiplayer shooter VAIL gets a free-to-play Extraction mode in early access today on Steam and Quest.
Following last year's free-to-play social hub launch, sci-fi multiplayer shooter VAIL has received an Extraction mode. Now live after 10 months of development, AEXLAB aims to make this a “more approachable” extraction shooter for players unfamiliar with this type of game. You descend into the depths of Reyn to retrieve encrypted data, technology, and resources, fending off other players and the island's inhabitants alike.
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Extraction splits you between six teams of three players across a new map, one that contains weather effects like fog, rain, thunder, and more. Alongside the game's usual weaponry, this mode features an “advanced shield and ammo tier system.” Developer AEXLAB states that ammo can penetrate shields in different ways and that's dependent on the relationship between their tiers.
Teammates can be revived if downed, a choice developer AEXLAB says was made to keep players in the action without them waiting around. “Nothing feels worse than being in a squad with your friends, you die, and now you're waiting forever for your teammates to either extract or lose,” stated the studio.
For the full launch, AEXLAB is working on an expanded gameplay loop with in-game missions to help locate and defeat a randomized boss. It's also working on creating customizable homes that other players can visit as your party prepares for raids. Early access will have frequent wipes to assist testing, though there are “no plans” for forced wipes at full release.
AEXLAB also provided UploadVR with its latest roadmap that lists new features to come, such as fishing, unlockable extracts, compound upgrades, and more. Though it doesn't specify release windows, the varying line lengths suggest which of these features are coming first. You can see that in full below.
Tracked: Shoot to Survive is a narrative survival adventure made for VR from the Green Hell VR studio, offering an exciting tale that needs further work. Read on for our full review.
Following Incuvo's work on Green Hell VR, Tracked: Shoot To Survive - or Tracked for brevity - feels like a natural step forward to create a narrative survival game that shares similar DNA with the jungle adventure. This new release expands its commitment to a linear story with more biomes and activities, at the cost of resembling PS2 graphics. While some may appreciate a more single-player focused experience, these dated visuals don't provide a fair tradeoff for what's here.
The Facts
What is it?: A narrative survival adventure set in the Canadian wilderness that's made for VR. Platforms: Quest 3/3S (reviewed on Quest 3) Release Date: Out Now Developer: Incuvo Publisher: People Can Fly Price: $19.99
Starting out in a light aircraft on the way to St. Hubert’s Caldera, a fictional island in British Columbia, protagonist Alex Hart is on his way to spread his father’s ashes with his sister Samantha. Their relationship is strained, as we quickly learn in their brief interactions, with her tattooed sleeves alluding to a troubled past. Unexpectedly shot down by gunfire just before arriving, Alex regains consciousness injured amidst the wreckage.
Doing the motion of bandaging your hands to heal shows a made-for-VR aspect that can be recognized instantly. Next to a hastily written note about drug smugglers who shot down the wrong airplane, Green Hell VR’s same backpack inventory system is now yours to keep any useful items in your path. As the saying goes, why fix what isn't broken?
The view from the father's cabin is enviable.
Narrative emphasis is evident from the start. Overhearing these drug traffickers say that Alex’s sister was kidnapped by them gives us a clear goal to work towards. Numerous written documents detailing the island and its inhabitants make for an interesting read between killing aggressive wildlife and enemies alike. The wooden voice acting ranges from explanatory when obtaining new items to emotional, though the dramatic tension gets a little over the top. Flashbacks abound as it is a narrative device to show Alex and Samantha's childhood summers with their father. Subject matters like substance abuse, family drama, and friendship betrayal verge on clichéd in their execution, though the writing itself is gritty enough.
Your father’s old cabin serves as a base of operations; pushing through to save Alex’s sister is not a straightforward task. Every so often, Tracked forces you to create items at your crafting table to proceed, such as the climbing axe to ride a zipline or warm clothes to withstand colder atmospheres. To manually craft every item makes the immersion a highlight, too. Pulverizing coal and sulfur for gunpowder, stitching together a larger backpack to carry more weight from animal pelts, and cooking animal meat with blueberries for a nutritious broth are but a few necessary actions to face Mother Nature fully equipped.
Poor beaver did not stand a chance.
Surviving in the wilds is not a walk in the park. A wristwatch reminds us of Alex's hunger and thirst levels, causing his early demise if these needs are ignored. Ensuring a safe water source from creeks to industrial plastic barrels, which are thankfully abundant, is a must. Granola bars are suspiciously copious as well, to satiate Alex’s famine. Difficulty options can turn these survival mechanics either completely off or more punishing, depending on your mileage and narrative interest. Welcome options for those after a less punishing, more story-focused experience.
Fighting tooth and nail against the military-trained drug smugglers, Tracked has plenty of combat in its 10 or so hour main quest. Hiding in tall grass, at least in the beginning, you must sneak your way before finding a knife to counterattack. All combat encounters are usually against two unsuspecting enemies. The AI isn't that smart; strafing to get closer with the knife, or eventually the litany of firearms available, will make short work of them. The fact that enemies can also perceive you through doors is quite discouraging.
The best gunslinger this side of Canada strikes again.
A bow, shotgun, rifle, and revolver each offer multiple ways to tackle each clash. Reloading has a distinct movement for every one of them. Opening the chamber of the revolver and loading the bullets manually may sound cumbersome for some, but after getting used to it, you can relive your western dreams with it. Finding upgrades during the story to store more ammo and reload faster helps. However, the bow isn't particularly accurate and the shotgun never really allowed me to load it. Opening the chamber to try to load the shells was hopeless because reaching for the ammo resulted in it closing off again. That said, the rifle equipped with a scope delivers accurate shots to eliminate beavers and deadbeats alike.
There is a fair balance between fighting the wilderness and humans. Each of the open areas that you explore, ranging from warehouses and cabins to caves and forests, is so different; every hostile environment provides unique enemy encounters. It's quite imposing to struggle against a wild bear over a swift wolf, with the latter appearing more often at night. Scavenging for animal supplies is disgustingly gruesome as you separate the poor carcass in two, causing a splatter in the process. The buzzing sounds of flies next to a haunting howl sell the idea of being stranded in an unforgiving wildland well.
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Before using any new weapon it must be repaired.
The day and night cycle is important to consider, as it's nigh impossible to explore once it gets dark without crafting the headlamp to aid your vision. Tracked’s level design is well considered enough to let you backtrack to previous areas, with smartly placed ladders and doors that unlock as you progress. This isn't as mind-blowingly interconnected as a Metroidvania, but with some side quests asking to forage for specific items, these shortcuts are convenient.
Comfort
Extensive accessibility features show Tracked: Shoot to Survive was built from the ground up for VR. Calibration for the notebook that you hold in your chest is adjustable, depending on if you are standing or sitting. So are the weapons and tools next to your hip.
Expected camera options for smooth or snap turning movement and speed are there, including the vignette for those prone to suffering from motion sickness. Climbing and ziplining sequences can be simply skipped if desired, too. Your watch with the survival bars can be moved to the left or right hand, as can the knife and backpack slots to accommodate your dominant hand.
A notebook hovering in Alex’s chest at all times helps to give a welcome sense of direction. From the many tabs on display, a map of every level explored makes getting lost virtually a nonissue. Diary-style entries explain the fledging protagonist’s train of thought well as he slowly becomes a seasoned survivor to save his sister. Tracking unlocked achievements is quick, with the game celebrating goals like crafting 100 bullets or drawing first blood, though you don't earn any rewards for this. All documents obtained are easily accessible, with the standout “Finding Bigfoot” side quest panning out in a silly way.
One of, if not the most, famous cryptids in the modern era unexpectedly shows up here.
Addressing the elephant in the room, the graphics leave a lot to be desired by Quest 3 standards. Reminiscent of PlayStation 2 visuals, the low-poly character models, exaggerated enemy grunts, and janky AI don't do Tracked any favors. Its linear levels, while clever at times, don't allow for much intuitive exploration. Tracked’s narrative focus delivers, but it's hampered by dated looks.
Finally, the third act, which currently suffers from frequent stutters and crashes, leaves a bad taste in an otherwise serviceable adventure. Incuvo confirmed that it's aware of these issues and is actively working to patch them.
Tracked: Shoot to Survive - Final Verdict
You can see Tracked's promise of cutting your teeth in an unthinkable situation to prevail against all odds. However, its presentation ends up feeling like a product of yesteryear, which isn't helped by poor AI and performance issues.
For the insatiable VR player constantly searching for the next story-driven campaign, it's easier to recommend, albeit with the warning to hold off until the framerate issues are resolved. Tracked won me over with its heartfelt narrative, unserious Rambo-esque combat antics, and VR-centric crafting mechanics that kept me engaged throughout. I just wish there weren't so many strings attached.
UploadVR uses a 5-Star rating system for our game reviews – you can read a breakdown of each star rating in our review guidelines.
Quest 3S is on sale for $250 at Best Buy, and comes with a $50 Best Buy gift card, 1 month of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, and The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners VR game.
That's a $50 discount from the headset's regular $300 price, and the three perks together are worth $110. You can find the deal for the 128GB base model of Quest 3 here.
A similar offer is available for the 256GB storage model, with a $330 price ($70 off) and the same $110 of perks. In both cases, you still get 3 months of the Meta Horizon+ subscription, as with all purchases of new Meta Quest headsets.
You could use the $50 Best Buy gift card to get the Elite Strap to make the headset more comfortable for just $20, for example, while during the 1 month of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate (normally $30) you can play flatscreen games like Call of Duty and Fortnite on a giant virtual screen.
As for The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners, it's also normally $30, and it's widely considered to be one of the best VR games of all time due to its physics-based combat system, earning an 'Essential' score in our review.
While Quest 3S can run all the same content as Quest 3, and has the same fundamental capabilities (including the same XR2 Gen 2 chipset and 8GB RAM), if you have the funds we always recommend Quest 3 over Quest 3S. The proper Quest 3 features Meta's advanced pancake lenses which are clearer and sharper over a wider area, have a wider field of view, and are fully horizontally adjustable, suitable for essentially everyone's eyes. These pancake lenses also enable Quest 3 to be thinner, which makes the headset feel slightly less heavy.
Still, at $250 and with $110 worth of perks Quest 3S could be hard to say no to, and it could be an impulse gift for the holiday season to bring a friend or loved one into VR and mixed reality.
VR puzzle adventure Tin Hearts is getting into the Christmas spirit, bringing its first act to Quest next month.
Developed by Rogue Sun and IPHIGAMES, Tin Hearts is a Lemmings-style game that explores the story of a fictional Victorian inventor, Albert Butterworth. Guiding toy soldiers through this Dickensian world with block-based puzzles, VR support arrived in a post-launch on PS VR2 and Steam last year. Now, it's coming to Quest in an episodic release that begins on December 11.
Detailed in a press release, publisher Wired Productions calls Act 1 a standalone episode where these tiny soldiers are appropriately dressed for the festive season in an attic filled with toys. Costing $5.99 for the first part, Acts 2, 3, and 4 will follow “in the coming weeks” on Quest, though no specific release dates were confirmed.
Originally released through a now delisted PC VR prologue on PC VR in 2018, we had positive impressions in our Tin Hearts VR preview two years ago. Stating it offers “some well-considered mechanics” that caught our attention, we believed it provides “enjoyable puzzles and an intriguing whimsical setting.”
Tin Hearts is out now in full on flatscreen platforms, PS VR2, and PC VR. Act 1 arrives on the Meta Quest platform on December 11.
How to God, the deity-themed sandbox experience, launches in Early Access next month on Quest.
Developed by Thoughtfish (Living Room), How to God lets you train as a deity, completing quests and expanding your powers, as you manage a mini society. You can choose to be benevolent and reward your citizens with bountiful harvests or take the spiteful approach and rocket them with fireballs from the heavens. You can check out gameplay below:
On top of building temples and answering (or ignoring) prayers, you'll also perform acts of alchemy, combining materials to create miracles and matter that advance your society. To assist you in achieving these divine goals, you'll have the help of a petlike creature who can help out the locals with tasks or eat them as punishment.
Various biomes are available to explore, including ancient Egypt and the Scottish Highlands, with each location providing a unique set of problems to solve and quests to complete. As you progress through quests, you'll also earn relics that will upgrade your powers at the Tree of Life.
How to God arrives in Early Access on December 4 for $29.99 on Quest.
Lynx says its next headset won't run Android XR, as Google "terminated" its agreement, but will have by far the widest FOV of any standalone.
If you're unfamiliar, Lynx is a French startup that in 2020 announced Lynx-R1, a standalone mixed reality headset with an open periphery design, and ran a Kickstarter for it in 2021. Had it shipped on time, in 2022, Lynx-R1 would have been the first consumer standalone headset with color passthrough. But after repeated delays it was beaten to market by Meta Quest Pro, and by the time backers started to receive their headsets, years later, Quest 3 and Apple Vision Pro had shipped too, with much more powerful chipsets.
Further, at the time of the Kickstarter Lynx-R1 was envisioned as a roughly $500 consumer product, directly competing with Meta Quest headsets. But the price for new orders rose to $850 and then $1300 as the company pivoted to primarily targeting businesses.
When Google revealed its Android XR operating system back in December, it announced that Lynx, Sony, and Xreal were building devices for it too, to follow Samsung.
Last month, Lynx teased its next headset with a darkened image, and because of Google's December announcement, we speculated that it could be the second opaque Android XR headset.
However, Lynx tells UploadVR that Google "terminated Lynx's agreement to use Android XR" in what the startup describes as a "surprising turn of events".
"We remain open to having Android XR running on the device when Google releases the OS for other headsets, as we worked closely with them for a year to make sure the compatibility would be guaranteed", Lynx says in a prepared statement.
Instead, the next Lynx headset will continue to run Lynx OS, the startup's open-source fork of Android with OpenXR support. And Lynx says it will release the source code for both hobbyists and businesses to use as an alternative to closed-source XR operating systems.
UploadVR reached out to Google to ask about the Lynx partnership and the status of Android XR for headsets other than Samsung Galaxy XR. While the company wouldn't comment on the status of any agreement with Lynx, it confirmed that it's still working with Xreal and Sony.
Lynx will announce details and specifications of its new headset over the coming months, with a full reveal at SPIE in late January.
For now, it's only saying that it will be a "mid-range" headset, priced somewhere between Quest 3 and Galaxy XR, with the widest field of view of any known standalone due to the use of advanced aspheric pancake lenses built in collaboration with Israeli startup Hypervision.
The optical approach here should be somewhat similar to Meta's Boba 3 prototype, though given the practicalities of the standalone form factor, Lynx cautions that while its headset will be noticeably wider than anything else on the market today, it still won't be anywhere near as wide as Boba 3.
When it comes to delivering this time, Lynx founder Stan Larroque tells UploadVR that his company has "learned so much with the R1" in regards to electronics supply chains, and will not do a Kickstarter or preorders for the new headset. When it's available to buy, it will be ready to ship immediately, Larroque claims.
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