The FCC is the US regulatory agency with responsibility over wireless frequency use. Its approval is necessary to sell a device with wireless capabilities in the US market.

Pico and TikTok owner ByteDance publicly teased its next headset back in March, calling it 'Project Swan'.

Pico said the headset will have micro-OLED panels with 4000 pixels per inch (PPI), a dual-chip architecture with a self-developed coprocessor for computer vision and image processing, and a new main processor that will have twice the CPU and GPU performance of the Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 in today's Pico 4 Ultra and Meta Quest 3 headsets. It also detailed many of the visionOS-like features of Pico OS 6 and the RealityKit-like Pico Spatial Engine.

Pico’s Next Headset Has 4000 PPI Micro-OLEDs, Powerful New Chip & Next-Gen OS

ByteDance’s Pico announced the key display and compute specs of its next headset, coming later this year, and detailed the revamped XR operating system it will run.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

Pico simultaneously opened applications for a "Global Early Access Program" that provided closed beta access to Pico OS 6 and the Project Swan headset.

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

While the company showed a stylized silhouette of the headset, it did not show an actual image or render, nor did it give any details at all about the design.

Then, in June, videos depicting the design were found to be present in a public Pico SDK.

The Design Of Pico’s Next Headset Leaked Via SDK Videos

The design of Pico’s next headset leaked in videos from a public SDK, and it looks like a cross between Apple Vision Pro and Samsung Galaxy XR.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

The clips show a headset that is clearly inspired by both Apple Vision Pro and Samsung Galaxy XR, with a rear strap almost identical to the former's Solo Knit Band and a visor and forehead pad strongly resembling the latter. They also show an external tethered puck.

In August, the company announced a launch event for the device via Asia-region social media channels, and also revealed the product name to be Pico Space Pro.

Machine translation into English:

Lightweight in form, immersed in everything

PICO Space Pro Product Launch Event

September 2, 2026 - 2:30 PM Beijing Time

However, just days later, the company abruptly announced the cancelation of the event, and noted that the device would be delayed to Q4 2026.

Machine translation into English:

PICO Space Pro
Release Schedule Adjustment

Hello everyone,

To bring you PICO Space Pro in a more complete form, we have decided to move its release to the fourth quarter of this year.

Over the past few months, PICO Space Pro’s hardware and software have reached an advanced stage of development. However, during the final phase of user-experience testing, we discovered an exciting new opportunity, and we hope to include it in the initial release.

We have therefore decided to spend more time making a major upgrade to the software experience. We hope this effort will ultimately deliver a better product experience and bring you some new surprises.

We sincerely apologize for this change to the release schedule and the additional wait, and thank you for your continued interest and patience.

Over the coming months, we will expand our early-access program, inviting more users to try PICO Space Pro ahead of release and work with us to refine the product.

Now, in September, Pico Space Pro appears to have received FCC certification one day before its originally planned launch event. The filings list a "Mixed Reality Computer", with separate entries for the headset and external tethered puck under FCC IDs 2A5NV-AA1Z0 and 2A5NV-B3110, respectively.

Some documents in the FCC filings are withheld under short- and long-term confidentiality requests, but the labels are publicly available. The headset's label appears in a PDF named "HMD铭牌_镭雕20060520", while the puck's appears in "BOX铭牌_A_20060520".

More interestingly, these labels describe the two components as a "Mixed Reality Headset" and a "Mixed Reality Main Unit", respectively, with both listing the model number B3110.

There is no Wi-Fi authorization shown under the headset's FCC ID, but the test documentation describes a radio operating between 2.402 and 2.480 GHz, and an nRF link with a controller. Meanwhile, the main unit's label explicitly lists a 7,000 mAh battery rated at 54.32 Wh, and the documentation lists support for Wi-Fi 7.

This strongly suggests that the external puck houses both the battery and at least some computing hardware, similar to XREAL's Aura and Meta's long-reported mixed reality device codenamed Phoenix.

In July, Pico also received FCC certification for a new "Wireless Keyboard", FCC ID 2A5NV-C6110, which may be intended as an accessory for Space Pro.

It remains to be seen exactly when Pico Space Pro will launch, though the company says it is now targeting Q4 2026. Short-term confidentiality for documents in the FCC filings is set to expire on February 28, 2027.

Here's a rundown of the new features:

• The weekly free puzzle is a rotating selection from its extensive catalog of paid add-on puzzles. It starts with the twenty-five-piece version as the only option. If you complete that challenge, you unlock the fifty-piece option for the following week. Completing each weekly puzzle for five consecutive weeks unlocks the four-hundred-piece variant and an additional bonus puzzle. Players who miss a week get a mulligan and can continue the streak the following week. This feature will be Quest only for now as the developer Realities.io currently cannot unlock DLC content for free on Steam. Puzzles will update every Friday night at midnight UTC.
• The guest pass is similar to Walkabout Mini Golf's, where players completing puzzles together in multiplayer now only require the host player to own it. Guests can join the room, download, and play for free. This feature is also restricted to Quest for now.
• The passthrough portal is a slider option for players to blend the game's virtual environment with their physical surroundings to their preference. This feature is for Quest, Pico, and Steam Frame headsets.
• The Quest version has also been updated to start in mixed reality instead of the black loading screens.
• A news carousel has been added to keep players up to date on announcements, new pack releases, and special offers.

Puzzling Places is available now on Quest, Steam, PlayStation VR2, Pico and Apple Vision Pro.

Blackout Crew is the latest title from Salmi Games (Sweet Surrender). You and up to three other players are a crew stranded in deep space with a ship in need of supplies and repairs. Your crew raids temples filled with hostile machines guarding ancient power systems you need to keep your ship running. After a successful raid, you turn your loot into new parts for your modular, customized weapons, tools, and suit upgrades.

You can sign up via Discord for the Quest playtests. Salmi says it will also be opening up SteamVR playtesting soon. The playtest ends Sunday morning, so don't miss out.

For more info on Blackout Crew, check out our recent interview with Salmi Games founder Yacine Salmi on the UploadVR Gamescast.

Created by solo developer Paulo Cunha, Loony Laps is an upcoming toy car racing game that brings the magic of die-cast racing and elaborate toy tracks into mixed reality and VR.

The game features 29 handcrafted tracks designed around chaos and laughs, rather than realism. These tracks feature loops, jumps, magnetic objects, branching paths, mobile machinery and ridiculous hazards. The cars are designed to look like detailed die-cast toys, and are customizable with paint, wheels, and materials.

A recently-released trailer shows off the game's many wacky races, and it's looking like a well-polished machine!

The game is playable in VR and mixed reality. In VR, players race within a dedicated miniature environment while in mixed reality, the wacky racetracks appear inside your physical space.

Loony Laps will launch with three play modes. Championship progression unlocks cars and tracks, while Quick Race lets you jump right into a chosen event. Time Trial lets you focus on beating your best times. The game is built around short, replayable arcade sessions.

Loony Laps is currently scheduled for a Q1 release in 2027. A price has not been announced, though the game's Meta Horizon Store page is up and open for wishlisting.

A miniature Art Nouveau villa appears in front of you before expanding to full scale. Inside, photographs, objects and woven artwork become portals into the life of Norwegian textile artist Frida Hansen.

That's the premise of Finding Frida, a 41-minute VR documentary experience from director Hilde K. Kjøs that's now being shown in competition at Venice Immersive.

UploadVR can exclusively reveal a new trailer for Finding Frida below.

Stepping Into Frida Hansen's Art

Finding Frida is guided by Hansen's great-great-granddaughter Cecilie Levy, who also wrote the experience's original story and script. Hansen was an internationally recognized textile artist during her lifetime, but her work later largely faded from public awareness.

Rather than presenting that history as a conventional VR documentary, Finding Frida builds its environments around Hansen's life and artwork. Archival photographs, a gramophone and her woven works become portals into different parts of her story. A lush garden, for example, withers as the experience explores Hansen's bankruptcy and personal loss before moving toward her artistic reawakening.

The production combines photorealistic 3D scans, animated artwork and dreamlike projections with an original score and reworked foley. Voice-over material is drawn from interviews with Hansen and contemporary historical sources.

Finding Frida is Kjøs's first VR project, though she has been exploring the medium since 2019 alongside her documentary and photography work. Producer Bjørn-Morten Nerland has more than 15 years of experience creating immersive projects and founded RippleX Studios, a production company focused on VR, spatial storytelling and interactive experiences.

Finding An Audience After Venice

For now, seeing Finding Frida isn't as simple as downloading it onto a headset.

The experience is premiering at Venice as an XR installation, though its press notes also list PCVR and standalone formats. There is currently no announced home release.

A representative for the project tells UploadVR that Venice is the starting point for Finding Frida's international launch. A festival and exhibition run is planned in Norway and elsewhere, while the team is also exploring distribution partnerships.

Finding Frida is being shown in competition at Venice Immersive, which runs through September 12 as part of the 83rd Venice International Film Festival.

I have been playing JRPGs my entire life, starting with the first Final Fantasy in the '80s through Persona, Xenoblade Chronicles, and the Trails series today, just to name a few. I offer this qualifier to start this review of Character Bank's Knights of Fiona so you understand that my words come from a love and appreciation for both mediums. I want this to work, which is all the more disappointing when Knights of Fiona doesn't.

The game starts with stylized opening cinematics detailing the war-torn history of the land of Gallia. This is presented with a striking red-on-black presentation, followed by the introduction of the lead protagonist who is not the player character. The titular Fiona is a seventeen-year-old girl serving as the typical "chosen one" fantasy stories have built around for years and you play as one of her knights, a passive background character in this fantasy story. The paid Story Pass add-on has five chapters, with a sixth due out before the end of 2026.

The central town square itself is lovely, but I cannot say the same for the bland battle environments. They are not bad. There is just nothing to them. The town, as nice as it looks, is sadly not fully open to explore. There are a half dozen designated areas to shop, trade (only for paid players), collect achievements, and select your next quest. You get to these areas via signposts in the town square with a fade out and in on a button press to enter. The music, however, is very good. RuinsMagus, a previous Character Bank title, has an excellent musical score and while Knights is not on that level, I will still be picking up the soundtrack.

Trying To Please Two Different Player Types

After RuinsMagus had you traversing dungeons in ten-to-twenty-minute runs, Knights of Fiona cuts this combat time to a few minutes, excluding boss fights. You load into an arena-like environment to dispatch several waves of enemies, usually in less than three minutes, and the mission is over. That's it. Rewards are distributed on the victory screen, then off to the next mission. It plays more like Thirdverse's Soul Covenant, which had similar arena battle-style missions, than RuinsMagus. Given the combat itself is mostly a pedestrian affair with weightless weapons and standard block/dodge and attack mechanics, this shift to quick arena battles feels like a step back. Also, because you have to keep selecting new missions every few minutes, expect a lot of loading screens.

Knights of Fiona feels like it badly wants to be a free-to-play title. The short missions, constant rewards, in-game shop, and quantity-based achievements all feel very free-to-play coded. Even the cinematics count as a mission completion, victory screen and all, but uninterested players will simply button-mash to speed through the dialogue and get the completion check.

On the other hand, the spliced missions and cutscenes as a whole form an interesting story with different personalities, interpersonal relationships, and world-building that fantasy gamers would likely enjoy over twelve hours of main story. Combined with weapon customization and progression systems, there's a good, lengthy (by VR standards) JRPG experience here. However, the start-and-stop combat loop may grate on that crowd.

It feels like Knights of Fiona wants to have two target audiences, but the preferences of one may hurt the attractiveness of the end product for the other.

Hitting All The JRPG Tropes

The overall vibe of Knights is not going to be for everyone. The time from the first cinematic and mandatory tutorials to the first official mission in the game is nearly twenty minutes. To be fair, this is very typical of a JRPG. As a genre, these games are usually slow starters. The scenery-chewing voice acting is often over the top. Cinematics can veer into a silly direction. There are a lot of names, races, and lore to keep up with right from the start. Your health and stamina persist as a UI element on the screen and hitting an enemy pops up a damage number. As a lifelong fan of the genre, I expected all of this and enjoyed every bit, but it is an acquired taste. If you are not into JRPG-like fantasy games, Knights of Fiona is not changing your mind.

Gripes about the combat aside, the weapon loadout and party building are terrifically executed. Weapons have different stats, charged attacks, and secondary functions. A shop in the town allows you to reassign functions from one weapon to another, in essence making custom weapons. You collect glyphs from books discovered throughout the game that offer buffs to your character. Each has a point value with limited points to spend that increase as you level up. A restaurant in town has dishes that grant temporary buffs. The progression and loadout systems are genuinely well designed.

Then there are the bugs. Thankfully, nothing that prevents progression or soft locks the campaign. Just sloppy little inconsistencies that weighed on me the longer I played.

• The game is voice-acted and subtitled in Japanese and English. However, some of the English subtitles do not match the spoken dialogue.
• Some of the Japanese, like the names of at least two bosses, is not translated into English when they flash on screen.
• There are multiple typos in the subtitles, including the name of a fairly important character when they are introduced.
• The English dialogue sometimes cuts off, missing the last few words and advancing to the next character's line instead.
• Sometimes the voice lines for AI party members stack on top of each other, doubling up the same line. In one mission, I had an ally go down and still keep speaking as if they were attacking.
• There would randomly be a slight delay using the bow and arrow. You aim, fire, and a full second or two later, the arrow actually shoots off, usually missing the target that has already moved.
• The skip cutscene button selectively works. If I was defeated and had to replay a mission, none of its cinematics were skippable. The 'skip' countdown would get to zero and the scene would continue on, ignoring my controller input.
• After customizing my character, including changing the skin color, the original default hand models show up in some cutscenes, but not in others.

Knights of Fiona Review - The Final Verdict

Knights of Fiona feels like it wants to serve two masters: the free-to-play crowd and those seeking a layered fantasy campaign. These two play tug-of-war, resulting in a final product that is constantly at odds with itself and thus not truly great for either group. Ultimately, it lands right in the middle, with some satisfactory elements offset by bland combat on the battlefield.

Since it is free-to-start, I recommend at least giving Knights of Fiona a try if you are into fantasy action games to see if there is enough there to keep you interested.

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

Halo. System Shock. Metroid Prime. Turok. GoldenEye. BioShock. Any gamer thirty or older is at least familiar with story-based first-person shooters of yesteryear like these titles. Linear campaigns with a plethora of weapons and limited, highly predictable enemy behavior. That is Discovery: Rogue Planet in a nutshell with a liberal dose of generative AI thrown in.

You play as a stereotypically gruff bounty hunter on the planet Rogax, a frontier planet packed with hostile mercenaries and creatures. The story kicks off with taking a job cleaning vermin out of a farm. This mission doubles as a tutorial on basic weapon handling and customization, the inventory sling over your left shoulder, and a multitool akin to the one in Star Wars: Tales From the Galaxy's Edge.

This mission also establishes the gameplay loop for the rest of the game. Cutscenes are presented as a series of comic-book-style 2D images on a black screen with some truly bad voice acting. Then off to a mostly contained map to explore, loot, and face loads of enemies with cringeworthily bad AI. Run straight ahead and attack is their single directive.

Each mission requires you to complete a series of tasks (find an item, repair broken equipment, eliminate enemies). Then you are back to a black screen for another few minutes of static image storytelling.

Bad VR Storytelling Powered By Generative AI

These interludes and the voice acting within them are bad. Dialogue is full of stilted delivery, unnatural pauses and word inflections no human actor would ever perform. Ironically, the best realized character in the game is your silver-tongued robot companion Fifi, who sounds more human than the actual humans and humanoid races! The spoken dialogue has mismatches with the written text on screen. All of the images look like they were prompt-generated, including a baffling end credit image sequence that I won't spoil here.

It's frustrating, not because this content is AI-generated, as that is a larger discussion than I care to have in this review, but because it's just bad storytelling in a VR setting. We did not like it in Soul Covenant or System Critical 3 and we do not like it here. Physically removing you from the world and telling you to stand still and listen to mundane, badly delivered exposition while staring at grainy images for several minutes is very boring and the game suffers for it. The story being told is fine, but the delivery lets it down.

Variety Keeps Things Interesting

That said, Rogue Planet wins on variety. The game has well over twenty weapons, a good mix of knives, pistols, shotguns, and rifles that let you make the combat your own. Guns also come with different attachments to choose from. You can also color your weapons with spray cans found in stashes.

The campaign takes you through a mishmash of biomes like deserts, swamps and caves with creatures unique to each area. The level design is pretty good too, with a fair amount of verticality via ladders, loot chests, ammo, and new weapons to find. None of the combat is truly challenging due to the weak enemy AI, but the number of different weapons and environments was enough to keep me engaged and it was still satisfying to clear out a mob.

Occasionally, you drive to your next destination in a massive land rover controlled with two handles. Entire conversations occur during these sequences and it was such a refreshing change from the still images that I wish it happened more often.

Dated Design

Gunplay is functional and responsive aside from grab jank when reloading, but I wish the tablet you use for a map and switching your weapons out wasn't placed directly behind your ammo pouch and the knife wasn't above said pouch. Games like Alien: Rogue Incursion, Metro Awakening, and The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners series avoid this level of grab jank by never putting two different items in the same general area on your virtual body. It is not unplayable, just a nuisance when it counts. Using the tablet to switch weapons had me begging for a button-press-activated weapon wheel too, even if it would break immersion. I appreciate a virtual body inventory system, but the execution here is clunky.

I complimented the level design, but the graphical fidelity feels like it belongs in the era of those early 2000s shooters. Discovery: Rogue Planet is not a great-looking game, even by Quest standards. A lot gets crammed into these environments and maybe developer Immersmind ran into some overhead issues due to the sheer amount of things on screen, but unfortunately, a lot of the game is an eyesore. Sound design is similarly weak. Weapons don't sound impactful and would benefit from stronger controller haptics. None of this really hurts the game while playing it, but a coat of polish in all areas would certainly help.

On the upside, I did not have a single performance issue. The only bugs I encountered were the critters in the game and I had guns for those.

Discovery: Rogue Planet - The Final Verdict

Rogue Planet doesn't outstay its welcome in its four to five hour runtime. At $14.99 with collectibles, in-game achievements, and an optional arena mode, it is priced appropriately for what it offers. It doesn't stack up with the very best VR has to offer in the genre, falling well short in story and visuals, but the retro-level story FPS formula still holds up, flaws and all.

I will not say whether or not you should buy and play this game solely due to the presence of generative AI, nor am I going to dock the final score simply for its inclusion. That is a personal choice for every gamer and a divisive topic these days. I will just say that the end result hurts the experience.

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

Meta Horizon OS 2.5 and later includes Android USB networking (NCM) support, meaning that apps can request a direct network link to a connected host computer over USB after the user approves the system-wide permission required to enable the feature.

In the case of Steam Link, this works by simply plugging a data-capable USB-C cable into the headset after launching the app. An active USB connection is currently indicated by a cycling Wi-Fi signal on the SteamVR dock.

You can join the Steam Link for Meta Quest Public Beta channel using Valve's official invite link while signed in to your Meta account, and you can join the SteamVR Beta on PC by following these instructions.

You should also opt into the Steam Client Beta on PC by following these instructions, as this is a prerequisite for wired USB streaming without Wi-Fi. However, in my testing, Steam Link would still fail to find the host PC without an active Wi-Fi connection. It instead seemed to require the PC to be discovered over Wi-Fi before switching to USB streaming, so the feature may not yet be fully implemented in the current release.

Out on Apple Vision Pro and Meta Quest, Starclash is an animated film that places you front and center as the star of the show. You will play the role of the film's main character, an aspiring singer and performer named Jack, as he reaches for fame, suffers sabotage at the hands of a rival, and pushes forward to regain his lost voice.

A trailer has been released, which you can see below:

Starclash comes from Tack Entertainment, a creative studio based in Hollywood and Tokyo, and was directed by Jack Yoshida. You experience Starclash seated, using no controllers on both Apple Vision Pro and Meta Quest.

Here are some additional key details as outlined in Starclash's press release:

• First-person embodiment: You don't just watch the story unfold; you enter the animated world as the protagonist to experience your own on-stage performances and red-carpet moments directly.
• Supported platforms: The experience is confirmed for both Apple Vision Pro and Meta Quest.
• The inciting incident: Jack makes it to the "Star Clash finals" but is poisoned by a toxin from a rival named Adrian. He loses five years of his life, while Adrian becomes a top star in his place.
• The main quest: Jack wakes up to discover he has lost his voice. With a "Star Clash remake" reunion show only a month away, he must travel to a place called Star Valley to heal and get his voice back.
• Thematic focus: The narrative builds up to a triumphant return to the stage, driven by his father's advice to "be the star the world needs."

Starclash is available as a free preview, with a $14.99 in-app purchase to unlock the entire experience. You can check it out on Apple Vision Pro and Meta Quest.

Galápagos: The Last Eden will let visitors explore the wildlife, oceans and volcanic history of the Galápagos Islands through an interactive experience running on Xreal Aura at Venice Immersive this week.

The 60-minute experience was produced by documentary filmmaker and Atlantic Studios founder and CEO Anthony Geffen, directed by Lina Zilinskaite and Marcus Moresby, and narrated by Margot Robbie. It's made in collaboration with Google using Android XR and is competing at this year's Venice Immersive.

A representative for the project confirmed to UploadVR that the Venice presentation will run on Xreal Aura.

But Galápagos isn't simply an immersive nature film viewed through a headset. Visitors can interact with the environment as the experience explores the volcanic activity that formed the islands, their surrounding oceans, and the evolution and behavior of their wildlife.

Capturing The Galápagos For XR

Geffen says the team used several specialized camera systems to capture the Galápagos in stereoscopic 180-degree video. The primary system was Blackmagic's URSA Cine Immersive, which uses dual 8K sensors, alongside a RED camera fitted with a specialized dual-lens VR rig for underwater footage and a custom-adapted drone for stereoscopic 180-degree aerial capture.

The experience also lets visitors have a personalized conversation with Charles Darwin using Google's Gemini Live API. The creators say Darwin's responses are grounded in research and material from the production, with a system prompt used to define his personality and speaking style. His animated appearance is driven using OpenXR blendshapes in Unity.

Geffen has a long history of using emerging technology for immersive documentary storytelling. His company, Atlantic Productions, and its former immersive arm, Alchemy Immersive, produced several VR experiences with Sir David Attenborough, including Micro Monsters and Kingdom of Plants. Atlantic Productions was also involved in the 2022 expedition with deep-sea mapping specialist Magellan that captured more than 700,000 images of Titanic to create a highly detailed digital twin of the wreck. That scan later formed the basis of the National Geographic documentary Titanic: The Digital Resurrection.

Robbie has a personal connection to the islands. She says she visited the Galápagos when she was 18 and was "completely captivated by them," and sees immersive technology as a way for audiences to develop a more personal connection with the islands and their wildlife.

A Wider Android XR Release Is Planned

Galápagos won't be limited to its Venice presentation. A representative for the project tells UploadVR that the experience will be released on Google Play for Android XR devices, though no release date has been announced.

That means Xreal Aura won't be the only way to experience Galápagos. We've asked for more details on release timing and which Android XR devices will be supported.

Galápagos: The Last Eden is being shown in competition at Venice Immersive, which runs September 2-12 as part of the 83rd Venice International Film Festival.

Maze Theory has released a new trailer showing the first extended look at gameplay from their upcoming immersive mixed reality game Project Hail Mary: Journey Among the Stars.

Coming to "major MR and VR platforms" this fall, the game is developed in collaboration with Andy Weir, author of The Martian and Project Hail Mary, and is a completely new chapter in the Project Hail Mary story.

You'll play as Ryland Grace, the main protagonist of Weir's novel and the character played by Ryan Gosling in the recently released film adaptation, as you experience a critical moment in the Hail Mary mission. The ship's systems are failing, and it's up to you to diagnose and solve the problem with the help of your friend Rocky, the alien intelligence whose partnership with Grace defines the story's emotional core.

You'll build a relationship with Rocky, bond over the course of the experience, and use your scientific and engineering skills to keep the Hail Mary intact and bring your world-saving cargo to Rocky's home planet.

Project Hail Mary: Journey Among the Stars will launch on Meta Quest, Pico, and Android XR in fall, 2026.

I am not going to bury the lead here. Amelia's Escape is too short. I have played a number of environmental puzzle games in VR and can only recall a few that were less than two hours long: The Curious Tale of Stolen Pets, the first A Fisherman's Tale, Rogue Escape (if you figure out the controls quickly), and this game.

After finishing in just over one hour, I was not even upset at the runtime, though I think for the price, there is nowhere near enough game here. I was frustrated because the story being set up was legitimately fascinating and felt incomplete. You play as the titular Amelia, a young British girl on a train to an unknown location when blue lights and streaks flash all around you. Then, after a few 'stops' you end up in the room that comprises the full game, a bunker-like science lab where a seemingly mad scientist obsessed with time travel has brought you. It is impossible to go any deeper into the story here without major spoilers, so I will just say that it feels like the start of a larger story without a proper payoff.

That all said, if you are just there for the puzzles, this is still a good time. Amelia's Escape is the type of game where you just sit there until you figure it out. The 'escape' is through a door locked by multiple keycards scattered throughout the room. To locate them all, you have to pay attention to everything in the room, more specifically any object you can interact with. Most escape room games like this in VR only allow you to interact with things you need to interact with.

That does not mean the game is too easy. Instead, you'll hold an object and think, 'What do I do with this?' There are context clues and Amelia occasionally says a bit too much, but this is still a game that requires you to think logically. Okay, this says the number 1, but what does that mean? There were three keycards I figured out in the first few minutes in the room, with the remaining batch taking the rest of the hour, walking back and forth, holding some random object unsure of its purpose. If you have played Myst or the I Expect You To Die series, this will feel very familiar to you.

Visually, Amelia's Escape is on the bland side. After a few minutes exploring the room and realizing very little in the room could be interacted with, I started working out keycards with the things I could touch. The grab interactions were mostly jank free, but the hand/grab animations (or lack thereof) stick out. I also had to reset the room when one of the keycards I found fell through the floor and could not be retrieved. Thankfully, I remembered the solutions and caught up quickly even with some objects and lock boxes randomized to new locations.

Amelia's Escape VR - The Final Verdict

Amelia's Escape offers a satisfying bit of puzzle gameplay, but it is let down by an abrupt ending and a story that left me unfulfilled. Puzzle game lovers will get something out of this, but even then the short length makes it hard to justify its current $14.99 price tag. There are other similar games in the same price range with more to offer. Hardcore puzzle gamers only.

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

It's the first of the month, and that means a whole new batch of games have been added to the Meta Horizon+ subscription service. September's Monthly Games are Warplanes: Air Corp and Prison Boss VR.

The rotating Games Catalog and Indie Catalog are also bolstered this month by a combined seven new titles:

• Cave Crave
• Loop One: Done (which also gets a new VR-mode update)
• I Am Cat
• StarWave
• BattleGlide
• Cave Digger 2
• Toy Monsters

Loop One: Done Is A Roomscale Mixed Reality Sandbox About Automation

Loop One: Done is a roomscale mixed reality sandbox game about automation that’s heading to Quest Early Access next week.

UploadVRHenry Stockdale

Let's take a closer look at the Monthly Games!

Warplanes: Air Corp

Warplanes: Air Corp is an action-focused flight combat game that drops you into the cockpit of modern fighter jets and other aircraft to battle it out against enemy planes, drones, convoys, tanks, and military bases. The third release in the Warplanes series, which had previously focused on

WW1 Fighters and Battles Over Pacific, Air Corp makes for a more modern aviation combat experience.

Warplanes: Air Corp Returns To VR Battlefields On Quest

Warplanes: Air Corp takes VR aerial combat to the modern battlefield on Quest App Lab.

UploadVRHenry Stockdale

Prison Boss VR

Prison Boss VR is a classic "job simulator" that tosses you into a prison cell and throws away the key. You'll spend your nights secretly building and running a small contraband business, crafting items to sell to your fellow inmates. Our review called Prison Boss VR "a breath of fresh air [...] with a [...] light-hearted and whimsical tone."

Prison Boss VR Review (PC VR): Job Simulator Meets The Life Of A Criminal

Prison Boss VR is out on Quest today. Below is our original PC VR review published in September 2017. Job Simulator is still, even a year and a half after its release, one of the very first VR apps I put a new user inside. It just does so much

UploadVRDavid Jagneaux

Horizon+ Games Catalog Games

Horizon+ continues offering both a Games Catalog and Indie Games Catalog of Quest titles that any subscriber can access. Meta can add new games to and remove games from these catalogs at any time.

Here are all of the 100+ games included in the current combined Horizon+ Games Catalog and Indie Games Catalog in the US:

• Action Hero
• After the Fall
• Alvo
• Angry Birds VR: Isle of Pigs
• Arcade Paradise VR
• Asgard’s Wrath II
• Audio Trip
• Banners & Bastions
• Barbaria
• Barbershop Simulator
• BattleGlide
• Beauty Salon Simulator VR
• Blacktop Hoops
• Breachers
• Cactus Cowboy: Desert Warfare
• Cave Crave
• Cave Digger 2: Dig Harder
• Chess Club
• Coffee Quest VR
• Cooking Clash
• Crime Shop Simulator
• Crisis Brigade 2: Reloaded
• Darksword: Battle Eternity
• Demeo
• Dig VR
• Discovery 2
• Dragon Fist: VR Kung Fu
• Dungeons of Eternity
• Elements Divided
• Escaping Wonderland
• Espire 1: VR Operative
• First Person Tennis - The Real Tennis Simulator
• Fruit Ninja VR
• Galaxy Kart
• Genotype
• Ghost Signal: A Stellaris Game
• Golf+
• Green Hell VR
• Grill on Wheels
• Hide The Corpse
• I Am Cat
• I Am Hamster: Simulator
• I Expect You to Die 2
• iB Cricket
• In Death Unchained
• Innkeeper VR
• Into the Radius
• Iron Guard
• Iron Guard: Salvation
• Ironlights
• Job Simulator: The 2050 Archives
• Killer Frequency
• Laser Thief
• Last Stand
• Les Mills XR Bodycombat
• Little Cities
• Little Thief
• Loop One: Done
• Maestro
• Medieval Dynasty New Settlement
• Moss
• Motion Soccer Pro
• Onward
• Outta Hand
• Pets & Stuff
• Pistol Whip
• Premium Bowling
• Prison Boss VR
• Project Demigod
• Puzzling Places
• Racket Club
• Real VR Fishing
• Red Matter 2
• Retropolis 2: Never Say Goodbye
• Runner
• Shave & Stuff
• Shooty Fruity
• Slot Car VR
• StarWave
• Stilt
• Survival Nation
• Surviving Mars: Pioneer
• Synth Riders
• Table Troopers
• The 7th Guest VR
• The Climb 2
• The Curious Tale of the Stolen Pets
• The Secret of Retropolis
• The Thrill of the Fight
• The Wizards
• Thief Simulator VR: Greenview Street
• Tiny Archers: Adam’s Tale
• Titans Clinic VR
• Toy Monsters
• Ultimate Swing Golf
• Vacation Simulator
• Vibe Punch
• Viral Descent
• Walkabout Mini Golf
• War of Wizards
• Warplanes: Air Corp
• We Are One
• Zero Caliber: Reloaded

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

In addition to gameplay of the in-development game, the hands-on preview will showcase an AR experience with an as-yet-unannounced "major" Evangelion character and a VR experience in which players will explore a recreation of NERV headquarters.

To attend the free preview event in San Francisco, interested parties must apply to attend via an online form, which can be found here. Approximately 80 participants will be selected and notified by email on September 22.

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

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

Pixelity has not yet revealed specifics on platform or release date, listing "2027" and "various VR devices" in press documents.

FitXR is expanding its fitness platform beyond VR with personalized mobile workouts that can be completed without a headset.

The new Mobile Workouts beta is launching through FitXR's redesigned app for iOS and Android, with short video workouts across strength, cardio and mobility based on a member's goals and fitness ability.

The mobile workouts are integrated into FitXR's Your Journey training plans. Once enabled, FitXR says they can begin appearing from a member's next Journey checkpoint. Members can also manually switch an existing Journey workout between VR and mobile from the phone.

I tried the new mobile workout system at launch. During setup, FitXR asked what equipment I had available, offering options including dumbbells, resistance bands, loop bands and a chair, as well as bodyweight-only workouts. I could then select either Casey or Dane as my coach.

FitXR's Atlas assistant says it will build sessions around a member's goals, while the selected coach demonstrates each movement. Workouts can also be adjusted for length, difficulty, style and available equipment.

In my testing, FitXR generated a mobile workout based on the preferences I selected during setup. The workout used short exercise videos, with my selected coach demonstrating each movement and Atlas guiding me through the session. I was also able to adjust the workout's length, difficulty, style and available equipment.

Your Journey Comes To Mobile

Speaking with UploadVR ahead of the update, FitXR CEO and co-founder Sam Cole said the company has historically given its mobile app less attention than its VR app.

"The headset is still the best place to work out we've ever built. What it can't do is be in your pocket," Cole said. "The phone is where people decide, plan, and adjust."

Cole said FitXR remains heavily invested in VR while looking for ways to support members outside the time they spend in a headset.

The redesigned mobile app now lets members view their Journey progress, see upcoming workouts and make changes to their training plan from their phone. Those decisions carry back to VR, allowing members to plan a workout before putting on their headset. FitXR says it has also rebuilt the app's navigation, class details, plan management and onboarding.

The mobile update builds on FitXR's introduction of Your Journey earlier this year. Journey shifted the app toward providing members with an ongoing training plan, recommending workouts based on their goals and preferences rather than leaving them to choose every class themselves.

FitXR has continued iterating on Journey since launch, and Cole told UploadVR that community feedback has already influenced its roadmap.

A new Smart Intensity feature now asks members to rate how difficult a workout felt after each class. At each checkpoint, Journey uses those ratings to recommend increasing the intensity, holding steady or easing off.

The feedback prompt can be disabled, in which case FitXR says Journey will continue making recommendations based on recent workout results.

"We want our customers to feel like, 'Oh wow, the system really knows and understands me and my goals,'" Cole said.

How FitXR Builds A Mobile Workout

FitXR describes its new mobile sessions as "made-to-order" classes. Instead of matching a member with an existing prerecorded class, the company says each session is assembled on demand around their goals, stated preferences and readiness to train that day.

Movement selection, sequencing, intervals and intensity can vary, meaning two members pursuing the same goal can receive different sessions.

The mobile onboarding process adds several other inputs. Members tell FitXR what equipment they have available and choose a coach before their first workout.

The workouts themselves are presented as short exercise videos. Atlas guides the session, while the selected coach demonstrates the movements. FitXR currently offers Casey, described in the app as "High energy, no BS," and Dane, described as a "Daily mood booster."

Members aren't locked into the workout FitXR initially creates. An Edit Workout menu lets them change its length, difficulty, style and equipment, causing the workout to be adjusted around those selections.

The connection between mobile and VR also works in both directions. FitXR lets members change a scheduled VR workout to a mobile workout, while a mobile workout can be switched back to VR.

FitXR VP of Product Rob Mayes says the company is launching Mobile Workouts as a beta so it can gather feedback from members before expanding the feature.

"Our best feature releases have all started as betas because our community is the most reliable source of truth we have," Mayes said.

The Mobile Workouts beta is available as an opt-in for existing FitXR members at no additional cost, while some new users will receive access through an A/B test. The redesigned FitXR mobile app is available on iOS and Android. FitXR membership currently costs $12.99 per month, or $107.99 annually.

A group of ten people wearing Apple Vision Pro gathers around a table. Through passthrough mixed reality, volumetrically captured actors appear within the scene in front of them, while viewers can move around the table, change their perspective and take part in a branching story.

That's the setup for Empire At Sea, a new 22-minute immersive drama from director Peter Flaherty premiering in competition at Venice Immersive this week. The creators describe it as a "solarpunk AR drama", drawing on a science-fiction genre that imagines more sustainable futures.

Venice Immersive runs September 2-12 as part of the 83rd Venice International Film Festival, with Empire At Sea among the projects competing in this year's immersive program.

UploadVR can exclusively reveal a new trailer for Empire At Sea below.

Empire At Sea follows a group of climate scientists who move to a remote oil rig to try to build a sustainable community at sea. Their experiment takes on a very different purpose after a catastrophic event devastates the mainland and leaves them cut off from the outside world.

The story picks up five years later, when a young woman named Lani spots a boat on the horizon. It's the first sign of civilization the community has seen since the disaster, forcing them to decide whether to welcome the strangers or keep them away by force.

A Shared Story Around The Table

The story plays out around a custom-built LED table, with Vision Pro blending the volumetrically captured performers into the physical scene. Ten participants can move around the table simultaneously and follow the action from different positions, while participatory elements influence the branching narrative.

The cast includes Orlando Jones (American Gods), Ayelet Zurer (Munich), Geoffrey Arend (Goliath), Beth Grant (No Country for Old Men), Imani Jade Powers and Mary Chieffo. The actors were volumetrically captured for the production, which uses technology from 4DV.ai. Flaherty previously created the AR and projection-mapping experience The Dial, shown at Sundance in 2019, and served as creative director for Marvel Studios and Disney's Eternals AR project in 2021, among other immersive media projects.

Beyond Venice

Empire At Sea was commissioned by Lincoln Center and ASU Gammage, and Venice won't be the only place to experience it. The production is scheduled to appear at Lincoln Center in January 2027, and its press notes say versions are also planned for VR headsets and mobile phones for at-home audiences.

Specific platforms and release timing haven't yet been announced.

We normally do not traffic in copium, but this is a curious bit of news. At the August VR Games Showcase, developer ANB_Seth's mod-turned-standalone title Gunman Contracts announced it would launch on Steam as a hybrid title (supporting VR and non-VR gameplay) "alongside Steam Frame" in 2026.

Gunman Contracts Stand Alone Will Launch Alongside Steam Frame

Gunman Contracts Stand Alone, the action-movie inspired shooter, will launch in Early Access alongside Steam Frame’s eventual release.

UploadVRJames Tocchio

Due to that promise, the game has since been closely monitored by a segment of the gaming community tracking any possible Steam Frame news. Earlier today, the Steam listing was updated with a release date of September 10. Valve itself has not, at the time of this article, officially confirmed a release date for its new headset. The developer made a brief statement with the release date announcement on Reddit:

Note: While the initial plan was to launch the same day as Steam Frame, we ultimately decided to choose our own launch timing. But we still have full trust that Steam Frame will be coming this Summer, as this is Valve's last standing statement. So we wanted to pick a date that will make sure that Gunman Contracts - Stand Alone will be available close to any possible Steam Frame Summer-release.

In Gunman Contracts, you play as a professional hitman working for a mysterious order that has vowed to dispense justice to the criminal underworld. The Early Access launch will include three contracts, with three more reportedly already in development.

Gunman Contracts can be wishlisted now on Steam.

BRINK Traveler brings real-world destinations into VR as explorable 3D environments captured on location by developer BRINK XR. Unlike 360-degree photos and videos that limit users to a fixed viewpoint, BRINK's locations let you move around a small area with six degrees of freedom, giving a better sense of their scale and depth.

Virtual Desktop lets VR headset owners access their computers from inside a headset, stream PC VR games, watch media, and use virtual screens within a choice of immersive environments. Its latest update adds BRINK's Iceland Riverbed to those surroundings.

I spent some time in the new environment before speaking with BRINK XR co-founder Akin Bilgic, who told me the collaboration grew out of something the three-person studio has wanted to do for years.

From BRINK Traveler To Your Virtual Home

When BRINK Traveler launched on Quest in 2021, it came with a bonus Quest home environment based on one of its locations. Bilgic says the response convinced the team there was an opportunity to do more.

"We've wanted to do more," Bilgic told me. "These locations are all perfect. It's like the desktop wallpaper of VR."

BRINK continued talking with Meta about bringing more of its locations to Quest home environments, but Bilgic says those efforts eventually stalled as Meta's priorities shifted.

The team explored other possibilities before Bilgic eventually approached Godin about bringing one of BRINK's locations to Virtual Desktop.

"There's a lot of Virtual Desktop users," Bilgic said, noting his respect for an app that has remained popular despite years of competing alternatives. "That app has stood the test of time."

There was one problem. Getting a BRINK environment running inside Virtual Desktop wasn't as simple as moving it from one app to another.

Making Room For Virtual Desktop

BRINK's environments already push standalone hardware hard. Bilgic says roughly 90% of the team's work involves optimizing the experience to run on VR headsets, something BRINK has been wrestling with since shifting its original PC-focused project to the first Quest.

"When you're in our locations in our app, the Quest is redlined," Bilgic said. "It's using all the resources."

Virtual Desktop can't give an environment that luxury.

Virtual Desktop still needs resources to handle PC streaming, virtual displays and PC VR gaming while rendering the environment around the user. Bilgic pointed to a demonstration of the new environment showing three PC monitors at once, with Netflix, Steam and Discord running across them.

"There's a lot going on," Bilgic said. "If you had shown that to somebody like 10 years ago at Oculus, they would just be like, 'What are you talking about?'"

BRINK therefore had to create a more heavily optimized version of its Iceland capture.

Iceland Riverbed was particularly well suited to that process. Bilgic said its relatively flat topography made it a good fit for a Virtual Desktop environment, where users aren't expected to explore the same five-meter radius available in BRINK Traveler.

"It was definitely a process of pushing what we could do visually, but also giving as much headroom as possible for Virtual Desktop to do its thing," Bilgic said.

The differences aren't necessarily obvious when you first put on the headset.

BRINK Traveler gives users roughly a five-meter radius to move around each location, which means the captured terrain around you has to remain detailed as you explore it. A Virtual Desktop environment is designed around a much more stationary experience.

That gave BRINK somewhere to save resources.

Bilgic says that standing in the center of the Iceland environment, the Virtual Desktop and BRINK Traveler versions should ideally look the same. Walk several meters away from that position, however, and the differences become more apparent. Ground that remains sharp in BRINK Traveler can become blurry or distorted in the Virtual Desktop version.

BRINK could therefore reduce detail in areas a Virtual Desktop user isn't expected to explore while preserving the view around their workspace.

Having tried the environment myself, that compromise isn't apparent from where you're intended to use it. The mountains still have the depth and scale I associate with BRINK Traveler, except now they're surrounding my virtual workspace instead of being the destination itself.

An Idea That Goes Back To Oculus Story Studio

Bilgic's interest in capturing real-world places for VR goes back to his time at Oculus Story Studio, the experimental VR filmmaking team behind Lost, Henry and Dear Angelica. Story Studio explored how placing viewers inside an experience could change the way stories were told.

While working there around a decade ago, Bilgic began experimenting with photogrammetry and 3D reconstruction in his spare time.

"What is the VR equivalent of photography?" Bilgic recalled asking himself.

His early experiments involved scanning places he visited, reconstructing them in 3D and viewing them through a headset. Photographs of the same places couldn't give him the sense of scale he experienced while standing there.

"It was kind of this like, 'Whoa, holy crap, it's like a teleporter device,'" Bilgic recalled.

After Oculus closed Story Studio in 2017, Bilgic chose to pursue the idea that eventually became BRINK Traveler.

Nearly a decade later, the Virtual Desktop collaboration puts one of those real-world captures to a different use, turning a destination into an immersive space for working, gaming, browsing or watching media on virtual screens.

More Environments Could Follow

Virtual Desktop developer Guy Godin told UploadVR that BRINK approached him about bringing its environments to Virtual Desktop after receiving numerous requests from users.

"We've had to do some back and forth testing the limits of what was possible with today's headsets (in terms of texture resolutions) and also where to focus more details in the environment," Godin wrote.

That testing ultimately produced the more heavily optimized version Bilgic described, concentrating detail where Virtual Desktop users are most likely to see it while leaving resources available for the app itself.

Iceland Riverbed may not be the last BRINK location to make the jump.

"We'd be happy to bring more environments from BRINK in the future or from other apps who reach out to us," Godin said. "Always open to collaborations like this one."

With two-thirds of 2026 behind us, we start looking ahead to one of the busiest seasons in the gaming industry. After a summer full of anticipation-building showcases and speculation on new hardware, September sees the releases of games we've seen in multiple VR showcases this year like Sol Protocol, The Lightkeepers, and Knights of Fiona. On the hardware side, Meta hosts its annual Meta Connect summit and we're expecting Valve's Steam Frame any day now. The new headset already has over fifty VR games certified at the time of this article.

We will update this article all month long with any new dates or delays. Some games have 'September 2026' as the release window without a specific date, so we are keeping an eye on those. If we missed any new titles with confirmed dates, let us know down in the comments. For a list of all the upcoming VR games we are aware of, check out that article here.

Upcoming VR Games 2026: New Releases On Quest, PC, PS VR2 & More

Need a refresher on all upcoming VR games? Here’s every major game coming to Quest, PS VR2, PC VR, Pico, Apple Vision Pro, Galaxy XR, and more.

UploadVRHenry Stockdale

Games marked with an asterisk (*) are slated to release in Early Access.

Knights of Fiona - September 3 (PC VR, Quest 3)

Knights of Fiona is a co-op JRPG-inspired adventure from Character Bank (RuinsMagus). The developer announced that Knights will launch on September 3 under a free-to-start model. The base game will be free with access to co-op gameplay and the game's introduction. The full story campaign and other features like community trading will require the purchase of a Story Pass add-on, currently priced at $18.99.

• Store Link(s) - Steam, Quest

Paleo Dive - September 4 (PC VR)

Paleo Dive is a deep-sea exploration adventure that sees you documenting over forty species in five prehistoric oceans. Creatures are photographed from multiple angles to add to your personal gallery. You also collect DNA samples to map each creature's genome, allowing you to keep them in an aquarium. Moon rocks, fossils, coins, and other valuables can be traded in for upgrades to your equipment.

• Store Link(s) - Steam

Battle Beyond The Wall - September 7 (Quest)

Battle Beyond The Wall is a multiplayer sandbox real-time strategy game from Globiss Interactive (Titanic: A Space Between). You will deploy your troops from an overhead perspective before taking to the battlefield yourself in first-person shooter action.

• Store Link(s) - Quest

Squingle Arcade - September 9 (PC VR)

In Squingle Arcade, players manipulate glowing spheres and attempt to make them travel through complicated tubular obstacle courses. The object of the game is to keep the orbs from touching the sides of the courses, to avoid obstacles, collect other orbs scattered along the route, and to do all of this in the shortest time possible. Squingle Arcade follows on from the previously-released Squingle, an award-winning 3D puzzle game that first debuted in 2021.

Store Link(s) - Steam

Detective VR - September 9 (PC VR, PS VR2)

Detective VR is coming to PlayStation VR2 and SteamVR on September 9. The narrative-driven mixed reality and VR investigation game allows you to control time, collect clues and interview witnesses, hear their unreliable testimonies, and confront suspects to find out what happened. The game has been available on Meta Quest since early 2025.

• Store Link(s) - Steam, PS VR2

Gunman Contracts - Stand Alone - September 10 (Steam)

Originally a Half-Life: Alyx mod, Gunman Contracts Stand Alone is an action-movie-inspired first-person shooter (playable in both VR and flat). You play as a professional hitman taking on the city's ruthless criminal element, bringing justice to a seedy underworld beyond the reach of the law.

• Store Link(s) - Steam

The Lightkeepers - September 10 (Quest)

Developed by Spectral Games, likely best known for its work on Medieval Dynasty New Settlement, The Lightkeepers takes place in the 1920s in a world “where daylight unveils discoveries and nightfall demands survival.” You and your friends travel by boat to various uncharted islands during the day in search of weapons, gear, and treasure to prepare to defend your lighthouse base. This will include some puzzle solving to unlock certain doors and secrets. At night, the lighthouse must be defended against an onslaught of various monsters.

• Store Link(s) - Quest

Bomb The Hill - September 10 (Quest)

In Bomb the Hill, you'll race down dangerous mountain roads, weave through traffic at insane speeds, battle desperate rivals, perform tricks, and survive brutal crashes. The game blends realistic downhill skating mechanics with atmospheric storytelling and a road-trip vibe.

• Store Link(s) - Quest

Fresh Tracks VR - September 10 (PC VR)

Fresh Tracks VR is an action-rhythm game where players ride hectic slopes all while navigating obstacles, upgrading skills, and swiping away at aggressive enemies. Initially released in August 2025 as a flatscreen experience, Fresh Tracks is officially coming to VR as a separate release.

• Store Link(s) - Steam

Transformers: Beyond Reality Redux - September 10 (Quest)

META4 Interactive's VR retro arcade rail shooter Transformers: Beyond Reality Redux is coming to Meta Quest on September 10. Previously released on PlayStation VR1 and then ported to PlayStation VR2, the upcoming Quest version will have "new features" (though what those features are exactly has yet to be revealed).

• Store Link(s) - Quest

CleanSheet Soccer 2 - September 17 (Quest)

Incisiv, the developer of CleanSheet Soccer 2, has announced that their goaltending arcade game is coming to Meta Quest on September 17. The game had previously been available on PlayStation VR2 only. Rather than chase the fantasy of scoring spectacular goals, in CleanSheet Soccer 2 you're trying to stop them. You play as a goalkeeper, using your hands to punch, block, catch, and deflect shots in training missions, mock games, and arcade-style minigames.

• Store Link(s) - Quest

CleanSheet Soccer 2 Hands On: Breaking A Sweat With PlayStation VR2’s New Goalkeeping Game

CleanSheet Soccer 2 is a seriously engaging sports and fitness game for PlayStation VR2.

UploadVRJames Tocchio

CONVRGENCE 1.0 Release - September 17 (PC VR)

Created by solo developer Monkey-With-a-Bomb, CONVRGENCE is a STALKER-esque shooter with horror elements similar to Into the Radius. You play as a mystical artifact hunter scavenging for loot, and each expedition across the Chernokamensk exclusion zone takes place in a procedurally generated location.

CONVRGENCE has been in Early Access for over two years, first releasing in April 2024. In that time, it has seen a steady stream of content updates adding new enemies, missions, guns, and features. According to the roadmap, the 1.0 update will see a rework of the main missions (including a proper ending) with added story context and voice acting. Other features expected are advanced graphics and difficulty settings, cloud saves, and a new tutorial.

• Store Link(s) - Steam

Sol Protocol* - September 17 (Quest)

Developed by Singular Perception (Epyka), Sol Protocol draws inspiration from the now delisted Star Trek: Bridge Crew, 2012's FTL: Faster Than Light, & 2024's Void Crew. You and two friends assume three interchangeable roles on a fully interactive spaceship: pilot, gunner, and engineer. Your team travels through hostile star systems and works together to survive a variety of procedurally generated encounters in deep space, including battles with enemy ships and exploration of abandoned outposts, stations, and other structures.

• Steam Link(s) - Quest

Scared by Squares - September 24 (PC VR)

The entire world of Scared by Squares is made of cubes, playing out as a series of rooms players have to navigate from one side to the other. The rooms can shift and transform while moving through them, presenting unpredictable challenges in an eerie, unnerving atmosphere. Scared by Squares is available for Meta Quest and the Steam listing has a free demo available.

• Store Link(s) - Steam

Into the Radius 2 - September 24 (PS VR2)

Dystopian survival shooter Into the Radius 2 launches on PlayStation VR2 on September 24. Developer CM Immersive says the port will run at a native 90fps with eye-tracked dynamic foveated rendering to boost performance. It also has headset haptics and utilizes the Sense controllers' adaptive triggers. That said, the game will not support co-op gameplay at launch. That is planned for a free update in Q4 2026.

• Store Link(s) - PS VR2

Gamepad Mode

Gamepad Mode is a new feature rolling out in Horizon OS 2.7, allowing Quest 3 and 3S users to emulate Xbox gamepad inputs on their Touch Plus controllers after setting up the feature in Settings > Devices > Controllers.

This is similar to the controller-mapping features offered by apps such as Virtual Desktop and various emulators. The Grip button or Thumbrest can be used as an input modifier, like the Shift key on a keyboard, and holding it changes specific controls into buttons not physically present on the Touch Plus controllers.

Meta describes this feature as being compatible with Xbox and Steam Link. In my testing, the feature seems to work best with games that rely on mostly unidirectional inputs, so casual and medium-paced action games will likely be the most suitable. In-headset documentation still recommends physical Xbox controllers for the "best" experience.

Meta has historically prioritized native VR/MR content over flat-screen gaming, and in April CTO Andrew Bosworth suggested that major controller hardware revisions are not currently planned.

While that makes split-gamepad designs like Valve's Steam Frame unlikely for Meta's future VR/MR hardware, this emulation feature gives users a functional software-based alternative when a physical gamepad is unavailable.

Up To 207 Hz Refresh Rate On Quest 3, And Up To 240 Hz With ADB Commands

Since launch, Quest 3 has supported a range of display refresh rates up to 120 Hz, with the explicit options being 72 Hz, 80 Hz, 90 Hz, and 120 Hz. Earlier this year, 96 Hz and 100 Hz options were also added for developers.

Now, Meta has added support for significantly higher display refresh rates on Quest 3, with a feature the company calls extended refresh rates.

In Horizon OS 2.7, apps can now request refresh rates far above 120 Hz, reaching 207 Hz via the standard APIs.

Meta notes that this functionality is "exclusive to Meta Quest 3. It is not available on Meta Quest 3S, and it is not available on any other headset."

For devices in Developer Mode, the refresh rate can even be set above 207 Hz, reaching as high as 240 Hz. This is done with ADB commands and first requires display scaling to be enabled, which renders frames at a lower resolution and then they are upscaled to the panel's native resolution by the display hardware.

Meta says that display scaling trades image quality for bandwidth and that the upscaled image is not identical to a natively rendered full-resolution image, which is visible in details such as small text and thin geometry. The company also cautions that "Perceived motion blur changes at extended refresh rates" and in my testing, this is most noticeable at refresh rates above 144 Hz.

Multiple apps have already been updated to take advantage of extended refresh rates, including both the sideloadable Quest Games Optimizer and Virtual Desktop on the Meta Horizon Store now offering 144 Hz modes, with the latter being available in the app's beta channel.

Display Size

Horizon OS 2.7 adds a new Size section in Settings > Display & brightness. This builds on the existing text size adjustment settings by allowing users to adjust the relative size of all UI elements and windows.

In my testing, at Extra Large, a maximum-size standard window is about the same size as, if not larger than, a Medium (Default) Focus/Theater Window.

Remote Desktop Is Now Virtual Display & Adds HDMI Link Functionality

In July 2026, Meta rebranded the Remote Desktop app as Virtual Display, while Horizon OS 2.7 merged Meta Quest HDMI Link's functionality into it, creating a single app for multiple screen-mirroring use cases.

Meta notes that "Support for the HDMI Link app will be winding down soon, but support will continue in Virtual Display" and in my testing the functionality is identical, as connecting an HDMI-to-USB-C capture card will automatically open Virtual Display.

HyperVR Games, the publisher and studio behind Shave & Stuff and Titans Clinic, has announced that their made-for-VR physics-driven prison escape simulator, Bad Inmate, will release on Meta Quest and PlayStation VR2 on October 15.

Bad Inmate locks you behind bars and throws away the key, leaving you with one simple goal: to escape! You'll use ordinary (and not-so-ordinary) objects as escape tools, steal keys, outwit the guards, crawl through passages, and use your resources and creativity to wriggle your way between the greasy fingers of the law.

Here's a trailer:

HyperVR Games lists Bad Inmate's gameplay features on the game's store page, and we've pasted these below:

• Turn everyday objects into weapons and fight with a full ragdoll physics combat system.
• Befriend, betray, or brawl with your fellow inmates, each with an agenda of their own.
• Craft your way to freedom by combining objects into new tools with unexpected solutions.
• Every escape plan is a gamble, so dig with a spoon, steal a key, or ally with the toughest inmate in the block.
• Hit the yard to enjoy basketball, pull-ups, and weightlifting built for immersive VR interaction.

HyperVR Games has previously released some extremely popular sandbox simulators. Titans Clinic, in which you play as a dentist, currently enjoys a Meta Store rating of 4.8 out of 5 stars based on over 16,000 user reviews. Shave & Stuff, a silly barbershop sim, is rated 4.8 out of 5 stars based on over 14,000 reviews.

Bad Inmate releases on October 15. You can wishlist the game now on Meta Quest and PlayStation VR2. Bad Inmate will also be released for SteamVR, though a release date has not yet been announced.

In March, following far-reaching layoffs and reorganization of the VR and Horizon teams within Reality Labs, and a declaration to begin "Explicitly Separating" Horizon Worlds From Quest, Meta made the decision to drop Horizon Worlds from its series of VR devices, going mobile-only. The company then partially reversed this decision just days later, clarifying that only the Horizon Engine-based Worlds would be deprecated on VR devices.

Now, Meta appears to be preparing to spin off Horizon Worlds from the Horizon mobile app into a new one, internally codenamed Eclipse, with Horizon Create appearing to be its current pre-release name.

In early August, dataminer and programmer Nori discovered in-development pages in the Meta Horizon mobile app referencing the new Meta Horizon Create app, which is described as an app for playing, remixing, and building mobile game Worlds with integrated AI tools.

In the August 25th update to the Meta Horizon mobile app, numerous strings were added describing the transition to Horizon Create and informing users that they’ll need to migrate there to access mobile games.

This would represent the clearest separation yet between Worlds and VR, further establishing them as increasingly distinct platforms.

Since March 2026, most of Meta’s public comments about Horizon have focused on VR. The company even seemingly canceled planned GDC 2026 talks related to Horizon Worlds, while the Horizon Studio creation tools announced at Meta Connect 2025 have received few new announcements.

At GDC 2026, Meta detailed changes to the Horizon Store, including the removal of World listings and a more modern page design intended to encourage users to engage with VR apps and games. In one session, the company showcased some of this new design work.

But notably, the design shown for the Meta Horizon mobile app was dramatically simplified, with the Store as the primary landing page and the navigation bar only containing additional headset, messages, and search buttons.

As of late August 2026, that design does not match the Meta Horizon mobile app, which still mixes numerous World recommendations with VR experiences and other platform features.

This suggests the design showcased at GDC 2026 may instead represent how the app is intended to look after the removal of Worlds, leaving it focused on VR app and game discovery, headset management, and off-headset socialization.

Meta promises updates at its Meta Connect 2026 conference on “expert-led VR developer sessions covering SDK updates, AI development workflows, controller-free interactions and new ways to grow revenue.” The company has meanwhile offered few hints about Horizon Worlds or Horizon Studio, so it remains to be seen whether either will feature at the event, and whether any such announcements form part of a broader reboot of Worlds.

Here's the full tracklist:

• Kendrick Lamar – tv off (Feat. Lefty Gunplay)
• Lil Nas X & Jack Harlow – INDUSTRY BABY
• Doja Cat – Kiss Me More (Feat. SZA)
• JID – Surround Sound (Feat. 21 Savage & Baby Tate)
• Lil Wayne – 6 Foot 7 Foot (Feat. Cory Gunz)
• Cardi B – I Like It (with Bad Bunny and J Balvin)
• Doechii – NISSAN ALTIMA
• Tommy Richman – MILLION DOLLAR BABY

Mixtape 2 features more contemporary artists than its 2024 predecessor, which had songs from Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five, Dr. Dre, and 2Pac as a tribute to the fifty-year celebration of hip hop.

Like the first Mixtape, this collection features the uncensored versions of each song and makes use of the explicit lyric toggle, so users over 13 years of age can choose to show and hide songs with explicit language. This toggle is only available for users over 13 years old. Younger users will not see the pack at all.

Hip Hop Mixtape 2 can be purchased for Quest and Steam as a full collection for $10.99 or each track separately for $1.99 each. Beat Saber was also recently Steam Frame certified, so users of Valve's new headset, whenever it releases, will be able to play it standalone.

Vertigo Rush takes a novel approach to the racing genre. Doing away with the traditional schtick of ‘cool people in even cooler vehicles’, SumaLab has instead asked the question: “What if we mounted small, bobble-headed children on dieselpunk-inspired parkour robots and combined that with dizzying verticality and arm-swinging movement?”

An important question indeed. And while the result is initially a charming idea, it doesn't quite stick the landing… at least, not yet.

Off To The Races

Vertigo Rush sees you (initially) take on the role of a brash young street urchin named Jack who is intent on piloting a rust-bucket robot to victory in a series of races known as 'The Derby'. Supported by a pit crew that consists of your precociously adept engineer/sister Sarah and a completely superfluous bearded man, you set off to claim glory across a series of challenging urban courses.

You propel your little mechanoid racer forward using an arm-swinging locomotion system similar to that popularized by Gorilla Tag. Additionally, you can vault, jump, climb and rocket boost yourself around the course. There are also sections where you grab onto rails that zoom you around sections of the track.

Vertigo Rush even includes a classic arcade racer-style weapon system, with a range of power-ups that can be collected and fired at opponents to slow them down or knock them off the track. As a premise, everything lands very well and in some ways the game puts me in mind of one of my favorite VR racers ever: Sprint Vector.

Testing Your Metal

Unfortunately, I found the core locomotion mechanic just a little too finicky. I've played a great many games that focus on arm-swinging locomotion, so I’m no stranger to the technique, but there is something about this game's implementation of that system that I found just a little too fussy. Your arm movements need to be much more precise than feels necessary and even a small misstep will cost you your momentum.

There is definitely a skill curve to learning the correct technique, so with some practice you can find the required rhythm, but even after a couple of hours I would often find myself frustratingly stalling. Games like Orion Drift make a similar movement system feel fluid, and in that game, moving over varied terrain feels both challenging and intuitive. By comparison, Vertigo Rush ends up feeling a little clunky. However, this is something that could no doubt be smoothed out during Early Access.

That said, the climbing and boosting mechanics work well and once you do get a decent flow going, the game becomes quite enjoyable. The level design complements this nicely with tracks that mix verticality, twists, turns and platforming elements, ensuring that players have to make use of the full range of movement mechanics at their disposal.

In Need Of A Tune Up

As Vertigo Rush is just entering Early Access, it's difficult to be too critical, but there are several areas that clearly need further development.

The current version contains a time trial mode and three cups in the campaign, each consisting of only three tracks. Unfortunately, the AI opponents you face when playing solo don't provide much of a challenge and I was able to place first in every cup on my second attempt. By the end, I was winning some races by a minute or more, which meant there wasn't much incentive to replay the tracks once I'd finished them.

I was excited when I saw the range of playable characters, including both the riders and the robots themselves, thinking that much like Mario Kart we would see some interesting specialization that would give the game some depth and nuance. Unfortunately, these are purely cosmetic and none of the different bots appear to have any stats that influence how they handle on the course, which feels like a real missed opportunity.

Where My Bots At?

Vertigo Rush does not seem to currently offer open online matches, with multiplayer only available via room codes. One can only hope that open lobbies will find their way into the game soon, as it is a sorely needed feature.

Thankfully, family sharing is available for Vertigo Rush which feels particularly important for the game's intended audience. I was able to play online using both my account and my daughter's, allowing us to enjoy some games together. For a game that appears reasonably focused on families or younger audiences, that feels essential.

Final Stretch

Vertigo Rush is charming, well-presented and built around a novel idea. Its level design is very strong, mixing verticality, branching pathways and a range of movement mechanics to create courses that encourage you to find your own rhythm.

Unfortunately, finding that rhythm is currently easier said than done. The limited number of tracks combined with weak AI opponents and limited multiplayer options means there isn't currently enough challenge to keep players coming back after completing the cups.

For now, Vertigo Rush is a pleasant experience that I think is worth keeping an eye on, particularly for families or a younger VR audience. Those who are less patient with Early Access limitations, however, may want to wait a little longer before diving into the world of Vertigo Rush.

How do you celebrate that history? You could go moment by moment, carving out knowledge and archival pieces for every minute portion of the franchise, but when you have a series this large, how do you make such an exhibit truly exhaustive of every nook and cranny of the series? Which is why Dragon Quest: The Dive took a different approach, and it used VR to achieve that.

This celebration of four decades of this massive franchise is split into three distinct sections. The third and final area is the most traditional aspect of the exhibition for those wanting a pure look at franchise history. Encased in glass with a strict no-photography policy, were original design documents unearthed from vaults now on rare display. Handwritten, the original proposal lists almost all of the initial game’s very small team, which even at this early stage includes Akira Toriyama’s name as a designer of characters and monsters. Many of his initial sketches for the Slime and every monster were on display, as were entire dungeon maps and large tables that showed the specific stat increases of every level as the team sought to find balance.

Even musical notation for the main theme has been preserved and displayed. It’s a small space only focused on the first game - there are no documents for any other title in the series, but it’s such a fascinating look into the often-logical, nerdy necessities of programming and design in these early days of gaming.

The second area focuses primarily on the mainline titles for the series, starting with statues that offer life-size recreations of recognizable creatures and scenes that you can enter and take photos as the hero. Inflatable slimes can be squished and hugged, while stone golems and a knight aberrant stand menacingly. If you ever wondered what a creature in these games might feel like to the touch, there was an experience where you could touch a slime, or place your hand on the surprisingly warm surface of a rock bomb. Other areas scanned you to find out your kin monster or sprite - I was one of the many bunny girls from Dragon Quest’s history.

While certainly colorful with enough to engage audiences of all ages, it’s not something that will educate you if you’re already up to speed on the series. Aside from a neat visual of the original designs of Dragon Quest XII’s protagonist, likely the last to be designed by Toriyama before his sudden passing in 2024, much of this was designed to evoke memories or emotions more than educate. There are screenshots and quotes from every mainline title to point to and reminisce about, and displays to bring scenes to life.

What it does achieve by taking this approach is capturing the experience of being a Dragon Quest fan and bringing that to the space, rather than dryly recapping history that those fans already know. It’s a space that demands that you feel what 40 years of this series were like to live through, using this concept as the design philosophy driving this exhibit, rather than a more typical recap of documents and dates. Celebrate the fans, in that sense.

Which is where the VR aspect of Dragon Quest: The Dive comes into play. Rather than an introductory movie or series recap, this is a 5-minute VR attraction that speeds through locales while placing you in the role of the hero assisting a healslime named Homita with naive hopes of saving the world and a killer panther.

We climb aboard the killer panther and, at first, the adventure is pretty run-of-the-mill. Alongside Homita and his wooden sword, we wander through the woods until Treefaces, stone golems and more attack. That’s when things go far off plan, as we run and bound away till we have to jump from cliffs and ride upon a giant Hades Condor as recognizable creatures rush past and attack and we simply do everything we can to survive. Even that doesn’t go as we had hoped, however, as we are tossed into fast-paced river rapids and continue to be tossed and turned till we even find ourselves in an underground dungeon, where the most threatening creatures appear.

Here we are pitted face to face with an Estark, a lord of the Underworld against pits of fire and smoke. All seems lost, until the wooden sword begins to resonate inside you. That resonance transforms it into a mighty hero’s sword that slices down the creature and saves you all.

The entire attraction is on-rails and non-interactive, essentially an immersive video pre-rendered and displayed on Quest 3 headsets provided to all audiences. Immersion for the experience comes not just from the fact this video places you directly inside the world of Dragon Quest, but also from how the exhibition itself leads you into feeling a direct part of this world even as you are prevented from playing an active role.

By stepping into the exhibition, you get an introduction video from your new Slime friend that leaves you acquainted. Following that, you step into the exhibition room and not only are you required to put on your headset, but you must also securely strap yourself into a 4DX-like chair that jolts you around with every duck and weave of your brief journey. Far from a minor jolt, this is intense in ways more reminiscent of an immersive rollercoaster from a theme park than a temporary attraction, and certainly not for the faint of heart when drops into ravines can feel near-blind and incredibly steep in this setup.

Not that this isn’t entertaining, but it could prove too much for audiences less familiar with the medium.

It’s certainly the highlight of the exhibition, but also a very different approach to what has become a growing trend in Japanese showcases as they seek new ways to integrate modern technologies into the traditional retrospective. During an exhibition for the beloved manga and anime franchise Ghost in the Shell, centered on its many made-for-TV and theatrical adaptations, the exhibition used AR glasses not to transport people into the world of the series, but to enhance what already exists in the show to provide context through audio and video that simply can’t be printed on a piece of paper alongside static displays. Between the two exhibitions, whether by creating a virtual overlay to the real-world show or whisking audiences away into the world itself, the purpose of this is to provide a new dimension that can’t be offered without the use of additional technology.

In Dragon Quest: The Dive, the approach has flaws. While the VR ride itself is truly a full-body excursion that does integrate well into the exhibition - the following room with statues is placed in a manner that maintains the illusion of stepping into the world from the VR ride and translates it to a slow transition back to reality. Only, once the transition has ended, there is very little left of the exhibition, which can feel disappointing considering the high cost of entry. Tickets start at 4,400 yen per person when standard exhibitions of this caliber for other franchises typically cost half this price. It begins to feel like the VR ride is the point of the experience, not merely an enhancement, and at that point the question of whether such a high price for a 5-minute experience is justified begins to arise.

Especially when, if we were to compare it to VR attractions of similar length, the price similarly can feel steep. Just a few minutes away on the train from the exhibition’s location in Tokyo’s Harajuku area is Shinjuku, where the Kabukicho Tower plays host to numerous VR attractions based on IP like Evangelion for just a quarter of the price (and with more interactivity). Places like Immersive Journey and Tyffonium exist. Monster Hunter Bridge, which was a fully interactive AR experience at the 2025 World Expo in Osaka before that event's closure, will move to Nijigen no Mori theme park in 2027. Also present at the theme park? Dragon Quest Island, a full themed area complete with interactive attractions, accessible starting from a similar price to this exhibition.

For the brief runtime of the VR attraction part of Dragon Quest: The Dive, I truly felt immersed in the world of Dragon Quest in a way that the series has genuinely never achieved virtually before. Offered in other formats, this attraction is a must-try experience for anyone interested. While in theory this could complement a more voluminous exhibition, the lackluster offerings elsewhere in this showcase feel lacking for what should be an anniversary celebration for one of the biggest gaming franchises in Japan. Rather than enhancing the exhibit, like AR did for Ghost in the Shell, it exposes how lacking the rest of the showcase is, making this feel like an (expensive) paid test run for this ride’s possible installation elsewhere at a later date.

Which I hope can be done! But compared to how immersive technology has been able to enhance exhibitions in Japan in recent months, this is a case where, for all its individual merits, it can’t justify the price of admission.

The tactile nature of virtual reality, with its granular interactivity, can greatly enhance the experience of playing simulation games. Pulling a carrot seed from your backpack, scattering it onto the earth, watering it, and harvesting it with a shovel feels somehow more meaningful when every one of those actions is a physical one. This is where Isle of Food shines.

In Isle of Food, you play as the chef of a restaurant on a tropical island. You must attend to hungry tourists by collecting every resource—alive or dead—on the island to serve as a proper, edible dish. Spawning at a wooden dock, your tiki hut restaurant is bustling with hungry customers. Equipped with a grill, oven, blender, and plenty of cute little umbrellas for cocktails, the only items missing are the ingredients. One half of Isle of Food's gameplay involves cooking up delightful recipes for your hungry tourists. The other half is all about collecting raw ingredients.

On this densely packed island, there are tomatoes, potatoes, cows, deer, fish, and more that appear in the mornings or evenings, whether it's rainy or not. Anything that is not naturally accessible around you can be bought and crafted with a rather futuristic 3D printer to spend your hard-earned money on. Among the many items on offer, buying new furniture to customize the business and attract new types of customers is one of the main goals.

One of the first dishes a customer requests is a grilled sliced apple. Surprise. There are no apples in your pantry. You need to go and pick the apple from a tree and cook it within an allotted time. Once back with the juicy fruit, the cookbook on the table directly explains how to chop it into five slices, cook, flip, and deliver. Voila. Completing dishes quickly and accurately makes your customers happy, which awards you experience points. Get enough of these, and you level up, learn new recipes, and continue to expand your nascent business.

Isle of Food does not concern itself too much with realism, to its benefit. For instance, while a spatula can be used to flimsily plate a boiling hot veggie, I found it easier to simply grab it with my hand and put it on the dish. A handy wristwatch you can click on will make any tool you require appear, like a shovel or fishing rod. There is no fall damage, stamina, or life bar to consider either, as evidenced when I simply stopped holding the top of a palm tree to reach some coconuts. Lastly, offloading any collected ingredients from your backpack automatically to your kitchen’s stock with the press of a button is refreshing.

An interesting detail you notice while scavenging for ingredients is how the island itself feels full of secrets, many of which are not fully explored. There are giant glowing crystals next to where grapes grow. More puzzling even is the fact that an elaborate throne of an ancient civilization, complete with a shiny crown, is just lying there. Perhaps the medieval sword stuck a la Camelot’s Excalibur foreshadows more combat options, considering hunting animals with a bow and slingshot is necessary to obtain certain proteins.

Although it is billed as a full release, it does feel like the game still has some technical issues that need work. There is noticeable pop-in on the corners of the peripheral view. I got stuck in one part of the map with no unstuck button to speak of, which required a reboot. Some ingredients did not register as being placed on the dish I put them on, acting as floating objects instead.

Restaurant simulators are nothing new, but the physicality that VR brings to the process of exploring and collecting ingredients makes the experience feel novel. Hunting animals, harvesting vegetables, or climbing palm trees blends easily with the cooking part of the game, making for a hectic but fun gameplay loop. Isle of Food could do with more time in the oven, but what is on offer is worth a taste.

Isle of Food is out now for SteamVR in Early Access and Meta Quest.

After such a fun-filled trip, returning to the real world has been a drag. So it was a nice little surprise to come home and find that Trombone Champ: Unflattened's Disney Movie Magic Volume 1 DLC pack had tooted its way onto Meta Quest, SteamVR, and PlayStation VR2 while I was away.

I've spent the last few days honking my way through the paid music pack, unlocking its collectibles, and fighting back the post-vacation blues via the immersive power of VR.

To catch you up, Trombone Champ: Unflattened is the VR port of Trombone Champ, a flat screen musical rhythm game with a decidedly comedic tone that made a huge splash when it debuted in 2022. The game's silly presentation and the naturally oddball charm of playing a trombone to well-known tunes really struck a chord (to use a mixed musical metaphor).

The Flat2VR Studios-made VR port was similarly well-received when it debuted in 2024, and has benefited from several DLC music packs since then. The Disney Movie Magic Volume 1 DLC is the latest, and it brings seven beloved Disney songs, two Disney-themed concert environments, and a smattering of Disney-esque cosmetics to the game.

Launching into the DLC we find six songs available from the start. Each has three achievements, and by collecting a certain number of cumulative achievements, you can unlock the "Final Boss," which is a medley mashup of all the songs included in the pack.

The songs can be played in any Trombone Champ: Unflattened environment, but Disney freaks will likely want to dive right into the new ones: there's one that's reminiscent of Andy's room from Pixar's Toy Story, and another undersea area which references Ariel's grotto from the 1989 film The Little Mermaid.

The full track list follows:

• "A Whole New World" from Aladdin
• "Under the Sea" from The Little Mermaid
• "You've Got a Friend in Me" from Toy Story
• "Be Our Guest" from Beauty and the Beast
• "Circle of Life" from The Lion King
• "Part of Your World" from The Little Mermaid

It's a solid playlist of Disney classics, and anyone who grew up watching these films will instantly recognize the tunes. And the DLC is populated with plenty of little Easter eggs to keep Disney fans smiling. My youngest daughter's favorite characters are the little green aliens from Toy Story, and seeing their rocket ship sitting in the corner of the Toy Story environment was a sweet treat.

But don't let the cute presentation and warm nostalgia fool you. While some of the included songs are relatively easy to play, others are diabolically tricky. "Be Our Guest" from Beauty and the Beast is fast-paced, with rapid pitch changes that really challenge your coordination, especially on everything but the easiest difficulty mode. Similarly, "Under the Sea" from The Little Mermaid is a real hand-eye workout.

That said, mastering the songs is extremely rewarding, as confetti bursts from the ceiling and a roar of appreciative applause rolls from the crowd. As in the base game, the mechanics and gameplay loop are simply solid.

When we reviewed Trombone Champ: Unflattened we described it as being "more like a brand-new game than a flatscreen port, [that builds] upon the existing foundations well to deliver ridiculously silly fun." This DLC naturally carries on with everything great about the base game, just with a Disney-esque skin that fans of the film studios' works will appreciate.

For me, Trombone Champ: Unflattened's latest DLC is a real pleasure. It's been a blast playing along to some of the most memorable tunes from some of my kids' (and, admittedly, my own) favorite animated films. And watching my two daughters honk their way (off-key) through some of these great songs has filled my house with joy, even if my family and I are no longer partying in "the most magical place on Earth."

Late last week, several Schell Games employees posted news of layoffs at the veteran studio. One person unaffected by the cuts stated "this has happened not because of anything you did or did not do. Our industry (and beyond) right now is hemorrhaging." The cuts reportedly hit multiple departments including marketing, art, design, and visual effects.

Schell Games CEO and founder Jesse Schell has said in past interviews that he avoids layoffs as a company philosophy, including this quote from a GamesIndustry interview in 2024:

At the heart of it all is choosing not to put jobs at risk. We'll put cash at risk when we make a game, but we don't put jobs at risk. Even if our own IP brings in zero dollars, we still haven't put any jobs at risk—we still have a path forward where we'll be able to keep people on. So, in a lot of ways, it's a choice.

Schell's highest-profile VR project is Among Us VR, which started as a VR-only title of the hit social deception game before being ported to flatscreen, renamed Among Us 3D, and eventually turned over to Among Us developer Innersloth. The studio has also released horror game Silent Slayer: Vault of the Vampire, free-to-play hybrid title Project Freefall, and the I Expect You To Die series of games. Aside from gaming, Schell Games has also done XR work in location-based entertainment and education.

Schell Games joins a growing number of studios working in game development, in and out of VR, that have had layoffs in 2026. In VR specifically, that list includes Polyarc Games, Mighty Coconut, Kluge Interactive, and nDreams among others.

Supernatural's new independent app can now be wishlisted, while Meta's existing version has been renamed Supernatural - Legacy Edition.

The two apps now appear separately in the Horizon Store. Existing athletes who own Supernatural will see the Legacy Edition in their library, while the new Supernatural is listed as Coming Soon.

In a post to the Official Supernatural Community on Facebook, coach Mark Harari said the new app will bring back Boxing and Flow with fresh workouts, new music, and environments presented “in higher definition.”

Supernatural is also directing existing athletes to wishlist the new app from inside the existing VR app. A message posted inside the Legacy Edition announces the new Coming Soon page and asks athletes to wishlist it ahead of the relaunch.

The separate listings reflect how the transition will work. The new Supernatural is separate from Meta's existing app. Athletes will need to move to the new app developed by Supernatural Health, the independent company formed to take over the Supernatural experience.

As UploadVR reported last week, Meta ended new development of Supernatural and laid off its team in January. Five months later, Meta announced that Supernatural Health would take over the experience, with the original founders returning and former members of the team coming back.

Supernatural Head of Fitness Leanne Pedante told UploadVR that the independent company is operating with a team of about 15 people, compared with nearly 200 at its largest. All six current Supernatural coaches are joining the new company.

Meta's Supernatural - Legacy Edition will remain available until December 3, 2026, while the independent Supernatural is expected to launch this fall. An exact release date hasn't been announced.

Supernatural Health previously announced pricing of $20 per month or $200 annually. Athletes who register for a Founding Membership through Supernatural Health's website can lock in a discounted annual price of $180 for the first year.

For now, athletes can wishlist the new Supernatural directly through its Meta Horizon Store page.

The announcement was made at Geoff Keighley's Opening Night Live games showcase at Gamescom this week. The Herbalist runs from August 27 to September 26. Here's the trailer:

In The Herbalist, you once again assume the role of Agent 47, this time on the hunt for Dr. Cyrus Cane, an entrepreneur preparing to launch his latest product, Morsizzles, a cookie product said to be 'addictively' tasty. Behind the scenes, an elaborate cover-up scheme is hiding evidence of deaths during internal product testing. As always, Agent 47's mission is to eliminate the target, this time during a product pre-launch event on Haven Island. You will need to have access to the Haven Island location to complete this mission.

The Elusive Target series is a line of free, limited-time DLCs dating back to the 2016 Hitman game. Past Elusive Targets have featured actors Milla Jovovich, Sean Bean and Jean-Claude Van Damme and rappers Eminem and Wiz Khalifa.

Hitman: World of Assassination is available in VR on Steam and PlayStation VR2. The Herbalist is a free add-on to the game available starting August 27.

The interview is on this week's UploadVR Gamescast with James Tocchio and me. This interview was conducted on August 12 immediately following our media session and held under coverage embargo until now.

Below are some highlights from the nearly forty-minute conversation.

How much content to expect at launch

Erik Odeldahl: You basically start the game with six heists and five difficulty levels. You can play them stealthily or go loud. We will launch another heist very soon after launch, and then we'll keep supporting it. So, we've got a really good plan to basically keep the game active. We're not just launching heists. There's going to be other stuff, which I'm not sure my marketing department wants me to talk about.

Making hard choices on features to cut

Erik Odeldahl: What we decided early on to skip in our implementation, basically, we want to focus on the guns. We want to focus on gadgets. We want to focus on physical interactions. There's a hostage exchange thing where you can take customers at a bank hostage and buy yourself time before the security come and cops come swarming in. And we basically removed that because one thing that is super hard in VR is to physically interact with other NPCs without it becoming a bit janky. And we really didn't want this game to be janky.

Also, we felt that we wanted a slightly higher tempo than the flat as well, a bit more hectic, a bit more intense. So that was the one thing we decided early on to actually take out of the design and instead focus and basically try to give players other means of staving off security and more stealth options.

On researching heists during development

Erik Odeldahl: I bought a book, which I can't remember the name of, but it's an amazing book which is basically like the city from the eyes of a thief. It's like how you scale these walls. You know, the walls are beautiful for you and me, but for a thief, they're perfect.

And when we did research for the game, there's a classical museum in the game which is very much inspired by the National Museum of Art in Stockholm. And we had a guided tour with the entire team. At the end of the tour, he was like, "Do you have any questions for me?" There was a famous art theft in the late '90s, I think, there. So we were basically, "How did they get in? Where's your security room? Where can, you know, if we wanted to disable the cameras or steal the footage, where would we go?" And that got a bit awkward.

Get the full interview on our YouTube channel or your preferred podcast platform.

Devs United Games have announced that the latest DLC for Real VR Fishing will let players cast their lines across 7 new locations in the waters of the southern United States. The "US South" DLC drops today, and adds fishing spots from Texas, the Texas Gulf Coast, the Mississippi River in New Orleans, the Atlantic coasts of Georgia and Florida, and way out in the Florida Keys.

In addition to the seven new fishing locations, the US South DLC adds many new species of fish drawn from the DLC regions' real-world ecosystems. These include bonefish, tarpon, and the infamously tricky snook. The DLC also adds a new rod and reel set.

Devs United Games is also keen to point out that this latest expansion is the first to utilize a new "image-upscaling pipeline" which is said to produce environments that are "noticeably sharper and higher-fidelity" than any which have appeared previously in the photorealistic fishing game.

The full list of included content is pasted here from the studio's press release:

• 7 new fishing locations spanning freshwater, brackish and saltwater: Hamilton Pool Overhang (Austin, TX), Fulton Harbor (Texas Gulf Coast), The Crescent City Connection (New Orleans, LA), Saint Marys River at Night (GA), Friendship Fountain (Jacksonville, FL), Bahia Honda State Park (FL Keys), and Sunset in Key West (FL)
• New species, including snook, bonefish, permit, tarpon, Guadalupe bass, Atlantic sturgeon, mangrove/mutton/yellowtail snapper, gafftopsail catfish and ladyfish
• A new and reel rod set built for Southern inshore fishing
• Upgraded visual fidelity — the first expansion built on the new image-upscaling pipeline, delivering the sharpest environments in the series to date
• Two night stages and a sunset stage — Jacksonville's illuminated waterfront, Saint Marys River after dark, and the southernmost sunset in the continental United States

Real VR Fishing's US South DLC launches today (August 25) on Meta Quest and SteamVR for $9.99. The base game is priced at $19.99.

Developer CM Immersive announced the release date on the PlayStation Blog and detailed how this version of the game takes advantage of the features of Sony's headsets. Into the Radius 2 will run at a native 90fps with eye-tracked dynamic foveated rendering to boost performance. It also has headset haptics and utilizes the Sense controllers' adaptive triggers.

That said, the game will not support co-op gameplay at launch. That is planned for a free update in Q4 2026.

This news comes on the heels of last week's confirmation that the Quest 3 version of the game will leave Early Access later this week on August 27. Following the 1.0 update on the original SteamVR edition in April, CM Immersive is moving quickly to expand the full experience to other platforms.

Into The Radius 2 Exits Early Access On PC & Looks To The Future

Into The Radius 2’s PC VR full release is available now - and CM Immersive is already planning its future updates.

UploadVRMike Johnson

As far as future updates, when the game left Steam Early Access, CMI stated it did not plan to add new locations or content expansions, instead focusing on more features like mod support and localization for non-English languages.

Into the Radius 2 can be wishlisted on PS VR2 here.

Here is everything we know so far about Meta's next VR/MR device.

Phoenix Is A Passthrough VR (Mixed Reality) Headset

Meta Plans Ultralight Headset With Tethered Puck For 2027

Meta reportedly plans a new extremely light headset with a tethered compute & battery puck for 2027 instead of the canceled Quest Pro 2.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

The headset project now known by the codename Phoenix was initially reported by The Information all the way back in 2024. In that report, an earlier prototype known as Puffin was described as "a bulky pair of glasses" that weighed less than 110 grams, yet was an opaque VR-style headset with pancake lenses and passthrough cameras, with its light weight being achieved by offloading both the battery and computing hardware to an external tethered puck. This is distinct from devices like Apple Vision Pro and Samsung Galaxy XR, which only offload the battery. The report describes Puffin as not including controllers, instead leveraging Eye and Hand Tracking to use the gaze-and-pinch input scheme introduced by Apple Vision Pro, and later utilized by Meta's own Orion AR Glasses prototype. Meta reportedly hoped to ship the device in 2027.

This came shortly after The Information's reporting that Meta had canceled a more direct Quest Pro successor and Vision Pro competitor codenamed La Jolla due to concerns over the costs of the micro-OLED displays and other components. This was later confirmed by Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth in an interview with then–The Verge reporter Alex Heath.

In essence, Meta made a choice to prioritize comfort and wearability, rather than having the best possible specs in its next high-end VR/MR device. When Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth was asked “What do you think is a worthy tech tradeoff to get VR headsets smaller and lighter?” during a November 2025 Instagram "Ask Me Anything" session, his response strongly hinted at this shift in philosophy:

"You know, I love this question because so often the features I get asked for are more features. People want to know, when’s this feature I want coming, and when’s that coming, and when’s this coming, and when can I get more field of view and more of everything?

And I always try to tell you, well, these are real trade-offs, and be careful what you wish for, because there’s headsets out there that deliver the thing that you want and nobody’s using them, and this is why I think a lot of them are not being used:

I think lightness is premium on the headset. I think it’s more important than a lot of other features.

John Carmack used to say, “Simplicate and add lightness,” which is, uh, from an aeronautical engineer, if I recall correctly.

So, yeah, this is the right question to ask. And the answer is, like, I think we can. I think there’s a lot of trades that we can make. Instead of taking the wins from each generation and pouring it into more features, you can take those wins and pour it into lightness and smallness, and that’s probably the right call."

Phoenix Comes Into Focus

Meta Prioritizing Ultra-Light Headset With Puck Over Traditional Quest 4

Meta is prioritizing shipping an ultralight Horizon OS headset with a tethered compute puck in 2026, and might not ship a new traditional form factor Quest until 2027.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

Reports regarding the device were quiet for some time, but in June 2025 UploadVR learned from multiple people familiar with the matter that Meta was prioritizing an ultralight open-periphery headset with a tethered compute puck for 2026 over a traditional Quest 4.

Before this, in July 2024, The Information reported on a 2026 Quest 4 product line that would have a budget model and a premium model, codenamed Pismo Low and Pismo High, and a focus group listing found in October 2024 suggested that at least one of these models would have both Eye and Face Tracking. Both of these devices were effectively canceled, and the existing prototypes became internal development units.

At that point, the ultralight open-periphery headset with a tethered compute puck became Meta's focus, with the goal of shipping it in 2026. It was reported that the device would run the same Horizon OS as Quest headsets, but be strongly focused on virtual screens for productivity and entertainment, and other seated mixed reality and VR use cases. A new prospective traditional Quest 4 was planned to ship no earlier than 2027.

Just days later in June 2025, The Wall Street Journal reported that Meta plans to release a "premium virtual-reality headset" codenamed Loma in 2026, which looks "similar to a large pair of eyeglasses" with a puck — clearly referring to the same headset. Meta often uses separate codenames for projects and the hardware candidates within those projects. The publication also claimed that Meta was "planning to charge less than $1000" for the device.

Around a month later, while reporting on ByteDance's next PICO device, The Information claimed that the primary codename for Meta's ultralight open-periphery headset was now known to be Phoenix.

It is my understanding that the codename Phoenix refers to the overall project initiative, while Loma refers to the hardware candidate, and the additional codename Stanley refers to the underlying mainboard and software platform.

This is consistent with Meta's previous devices. For example, Quest Pro was developed under the project codename Cambria, with the hardware candidate codenamed Arcata and its underlying mainboard and software platform codenamed Seacliff.

Design & Form Factor

In December 2025, I had the opportunity to view development units of the Phoenix device. The 2D mock-up/sketch above is based on what I personally observed at the time (most depictions of the device found online are speculative or derivative edits based on my original post and imagery, rather than independent depictions), while the descriptions below reflect both those observations and information shared by people familiar with the device, rather than the final product.

On a technical level, Phoenix is firmly a glasses-like Passthrough VR (Mixed Reality) headset, operating on the same basic principle as Meta Quest 3 and 3S. It may also be described in broader terms as an XR or spatial computing device, but those terms do not place it in a separate hardware category: Phoenix remains an opaque VR headset that uses camera passthrough to enable Mixed Reality.

It is not a see-through AR device, like Meta's Orion prototype, nor does it fall into the same product category as the many see-through display-mirroring glasses marketed under broad “XR” or “AR” labels, despite sharing a broadly similar glasses-like form factor. Meta may even ultimately market Phoenix as “Mixed Reality Glasses”, though this would describe its positioning and form factor rather than distinguish it from Passthrough VR.

Phoenix has a glossy, ski-goggle-like front visor reminiscent of Meta Quest Pro, though considerably smaller, with IR and passthrough cameras along the upper edge and additional sensing components positioned toward the center. Its overall shape and upper-edge camera layout are broadly similar to GravityXR's M1 reference design. Labels on some early development units also identified a dToF (direct Time-of-Flight) depth-sensing subsystem within the central sensor array.

The visor itself is slim, with a front-to-back thickness much closer to a device like VITURE's Beast display glasses than a Quest 3.

Like Quest Pro, Phoenix uses an open-periphery design by default, with no facial interface or light blocker. Unlike Quest Pro’s halo-style forehead support, however, Phoenix rests on the user’s nose, more akin to the fit of display glasses. Its nose pad assembly is adjustable, allowing the pads to be repositioned vertically and moved closer together or farther apart to accommodate different nose shapes. The assembly can also be removed entirely and replaced with differently sized options.

Phoenix has temples with a thick but conventional glasses-like profile, housing speakers as well as additional cameras. The development units I saw had volume controls under the right arm, and a physical Action Button on the top right of the visor.

Both temples can fold inward on hinges for storage and portability, in a manner broadly similar to Meta’s Orion prototype. On the units I saw, the ends of the temples were made of a silicone-like material, and the compute puck's cable was attached to the end of the left temple.

Inside the headset are pancake lenses. On the development units I saw, the interior of the frame was lined with dark gray fabric. The lenses themselves appeared somewhat similar in shape to those used in Apple Vision Pro, although considerably smaller. Separately, people familiar with Phoenix have described its field of view as narrower than most traditional VR/MR devices, with the optical design instead balancing a smaller form factor with pixel density, while noting that the open-periphery design makes the limitation less noticeable in use, particularly in Mixed Reality experiences.

The other major component of Phoenix is its compute puck. Early development versions of the compute puck resembled a large battery bank, and were larger than the battery-only packs used by devices such as Apple Vision Pro and Samsung Galaxy XR. The puck featured exhaust vents around the upper part of its enclosure, similar to XREAL Aura, but extending continuously around the top.

Dataminer and programmer Nori created a 3D model of Phoenix's compute puck based on "physical prototypes" she had seen in February 2026 (most depictions of the puck found online are speculative or derivative edits based on her original post and imagery, rather than independent depictions) and the model is consistent with my own observations.

Consistent with Nori's 3D model, the development units I saw had a clip mounted on the back of the puck. My understanding is that this is intended to attach to the user’s waistband, helping keep the puck secure during movement while leaving its cooling system exposed during higher-power workloads.

Design Appears In Firmware

In February 2026, dataminer Samuila managed to download an early version of the Eye Tracking NUX firmware package for Phoenix. I was then able to inspect the package and get it running on a Meta Quest Pro. The package itself contained a vector outline and a very low-resolution image of Phoenix that clearly depict a slim headset with glasses-style nose pads instead of a face interface.

Then, in July 2026, dataminer and security researcher ToastConcern managed to download an updated version of the Eye Tracking NUX firmware package. This new version included blurred renders of the headset itself, alongside other device-setup assets labeled "PHX".

While blurry, the videos clearly show a slim headset with an opaque front visor and pancake lenses, with dedicated segments demonstrating how to adjust and detach the nose pad assembly and change the IPD spacing.

Focus On Media, Immersive Video & Screens

There are several indications that Meta intends for Phoenix to have a strong focus on entertainment in the form of media and immersive video, rather than centering primarily on productivity and business use cases as it did with Quest Pro, or on immersive gaming like Quest 3.

Meta & James Cameron Partner To Help Bring 3D Video Content To Quest

James Cameron announced an exclusive multi-year partnership with Meta to help bring significantly more 3D video content to Quest headsets.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

In December 2024, Meta and James Cameron announced an exclusive multi-year partnership to help bring significantly more 3D video content to Quest headsets, via Cameron's company Lightstorm Vision. Meta said the partnership will bring "world-class 3D entertainment experiences spanning live sports and concerts, feature films, and TV series featuring big-name IP" to Horizon OS. So far, the only publicly released results of the partnership have been an Avatar: Fire and Ash 3D clip that was available on Quest in the redesigned Horizon TV app for a limited time, as well as 3D conversions of the film's trailers.

Then in April 2025, Cameron said in a publicized conversation with Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth that headsets effectively solve the problems of 3D cinema.

More notably for Phoenix, during Meta Connect 2025, Cameron appeared in an extended conversation with Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth, and did interviews with several content creators. In a conversation with Norman Chan from Adam Savage's Tested, when asked about the future of headsets and content, Cameron responded:

"I think it’s going to be the portal for all media that we consume, you know. I mean, really, I think when the weight and the form factor and all of those things are all conquered — and that’s imminent. That’s not some pie-in-the-sky thing. That is imminent, certainly to my satisfaction, and I have very exacting standards, as you might imagine.”

In June 2025, The Wall Street Journal reported that Meta was offering firms including Disney and A24 "millions of dollars" to provide "episodic and stand-alone immersive video based on well-known intellectual property" for the device codenamed Loma.

Meta “Courting” Disney & A24 To Make Immersive Video For Horizon OS

Meta is “courting” Disney and A24 to produce immersive video for Horizon OS, offering “millions of dollars”, The Wall Street Journal reports.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

In October 2025, Variety then reported that Meta and XRTV were working on a 3D spin-off series of A24's 2022 horror film Talk to Me, exclusively for Meta's VR headsets. The production and cast were then confirmed by Deadline in February 2026, describing it as a six-episode series "created exclusively for Meta’s immersive VR devices."

Finally, in March 2026, Meta Director of Games Chris Pruett offered what might be the clearest indication yet of the company’s future hardware priorities during Meta's GDC 2026 The State of VR panel. In the company's accompanying blog post, he wrote:

"Over the next couple of years, we expect more Mainstream Adults to enter VR through media consumption first, then discover games once they are in-headset. These are folks who don't move the needle today, but we expect to arrive as a large ecosystem player in the next few years. They purchase VR as a TV replacement first, then discover that it can also play video games. They are mid-core, love Meta Horizon+, and probably play seated without controllers."

This isn't to say Phoenix will be entirely focused on media and immersive video. Meta has been continually updating the Horizon OS Remote Desktop app and its Windows 11 integration, adding new features such as an Ultrawide mode, headset-side input forwarding, and more.

Quest 3’s Windows 11 Remote Desktop Gets Aspect Ratio Setting & Ultrawide Mode

The official Windows 11 Remote Desktop of Horizon OS now has 21:9 and 3:4 aspect ratio options, as well as an enveloping visionOS-like Ultrawide Mode.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

In July 2026, the company even rebranded the app as Virtual Display, while Horizon OS 2.7 merged the features of Meta Quest HDMI Link into it, creating a single app for multiple screen-mirroring use cases.

There are also dedicated strings and assets related to gaze-and-pinch input within the app, suggesting that getting it working on a device where Eyes and Hands serve as the primary inputs has been a meaningful priority.

Meta is also rethinking the core virtual screen experience in Horizon OS through an overhaul of its 2D window and panel system codenamed Display Evo.

While the Navigator replaced the operating system's tablet-style app dock with a more modern overlay-style launcher, the underlying window system remained largely unchanged, still centering the experience around three apps in a relatively restrictive triple-monitor-style layout and forcing users to juggle additional windows between the now-simplified dock and the space around them.

Display Evo removes the simplified dock entirely.

In the Horizon OS 2.7 development version of Display Evo, 2D windows can instead open freely around the user, be "snapped" into groups by moving their edges together, or arranged into a Stack that users can flip through like cards.

Display Evo also introduces a redesigned Quick Actions Menu, providing access to a new Window Manager for viewing all open 2D windows, bringing them forward, or closing them individually or all at once. This is broadly similar to Android XR's app management interface, presenting open spatial windows in one place for quick selection or dismissal. In the Horizon OS 2.7 development version of the feature, the Window Manager also includes Stack and 3-Up presets for automatically organizing windows into stacked or triple-monitor-style layouts.

Eye Tracking & Gaze-And-Pinch

Some of the most critical elements of Phoenix are its Eye Tracking and gaze-and-pinch input scheme. This is done in a way that is broadly similar to Apple Vision Pro, Samsung Galaxy XR, and Meta's own Orion AR Glasses prototype. Users look at UI elements they want to interact with and pinch their fingers together to select them. This is in stark contrast to Meta Quest Pro, where Eye Tracking was primarily for avatars and, in limited scenarios, for foveated rendering.

Horizon OS firmware packages indicate that this is intended to be the default input scheme on Phoenix, prioritizing the user's Eyes and Hands.

The device has an extensive Eye Tracking calibration setup, similar to Apple Vision Pro and Samsung Galaxy XR. Dataminer and programmer Nori managed to get a functional version of the Eye Tracking NUX firmware package running on her Quest 2, using headset gaze to simulate eyes.

The setup flow also provides further evidence for the return of the Action Button that debuted on Quest 3S, positioned on the top right of Phoenix.

Because of the importance of Eye Tracking, prescription inserts on Phoenix appear to need to be paired to the device to apply distortion correction, again similar to Apple Vision Pro and Samsung Galaxy XR.

Meta's partner for Phoenix's prescription inserts appears to be Zenni Optical, the same company behind the Quest 3 and 3S prescription inserts. The lens inserts pair with the device either by scanning an included QR code card, or by manually entering their serial number within the headset.

Eye Unlock

Meta seems to be working on a new feature for Phoenix called Eye Unlock, similar to Optic ID on Apple Vision Pro.

This feature appears designed to work alongside the existing Passcode integration. It appears to leverage the inward-facing cameras to verify the user and unlock the device, make purchases, and access other authentication-gated items.

Codec Avatars & Face Tracking?

Meta's now-canceled initial Quest Pro successor, La Jolla, was reportedly set to feature Codec Avatars, the company’s long-running research project to achieve photoreal spatial telepresence via Face Tracking sensors on VR/MR headsets.

Multiple findings in Horizon OS firmware and elsewhere across Meta's ecosystem suggest that this may still be the case with Phoenix.

One of the clearest indications is a LomaEtFt configuration found in a camera model library within Horizon OS, suggesting that Phoenix is being developed with combined Eye Tracking and Face Tracking hardware.

Earlier evidence specific to Phoenix appeared in December 2025, when the first references to the device surfaced in Horizon OS firmware, tagged as "phx", before being removed around a week later. The strings and assets specifically describe how to pair prescription inserts to the device, and how to set up and calibrate Face Tracking for an avatar.

Later in December 2025, dataminer and programmer Nori noticed that the in-development Codec Avatars of the Meta employees and testers using them could be seen if their profiles were viewed via the Meta Horizon website.

At the time, it seemed that Meta's eventual plan was to integrate Codec Avatars as an avatar type within the Horizon Worlds and Hyperscape systems. However, following the far-reaching layoffs and reorganization of the VR and Horizon teams within Reality Labs, it became unclear if that was still the goal going forward.

Now, as of August 2026, Meta's plans for Codec Avatars seem increasingly centered on video calls and telepresence for more versatile social experiences across the company's family of apps, alongside a new name associated with this direction: Hologram.

Multiple packages within Horizon OS contain what appear to be sub-frameworks for a broader "Hologram Calling" system, with those frameworks also containing extensive references to Codec Avatars.

Alongside this, strings within the Meta AI mobile app for the company's Smart Glasses and other wearables describe the usage and setup process for a "Hologram" avatar, perhaps revealing the consumer-facing name for the long-in-development project.

Taken together, the evidence strongly suggests that Phoenix is being developed with support for Codec Avatars in mind (possibly branded as Holograms), leveraging the device's inward-facing sensor data. Separately, assets showing Holograms on Ray-Ban Display-like Smart Glasses also suggest Meta may plan to support estimated avatar animation on devices without full tracking hardware.

The main remaining questions are whether Codec Avatars will be available on Phoenix at launch, and how broadly Meta will expose its inward-facing sensor data. That data could be available to third-party developers, as with Quest Pro, or restricted to Codec Avatars and other system-privileged apps, closer to the approach used on visionOS.

Display Systems

Meta’s Next Headset Will Reportedly Have 2.5K Micro-OLED Displays

According to a Chinese VR news outlet, Meta’s next headset will use 2560×2560 micro-OLED displays, similar to Bigscreen Beyond headsets.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

In March 2026, Chinese VR news outlet VRcoast claimed that Meta's next headset will use 2560×2560 micro-OLED displays, noting that SeeYA Technology plans to clear its existing production lines to dedicate its full capacity to the display for Meta's next headset. SeeYA is the provider of the micro-OLED displays in Bigscreen's Beyond PC VR headsets, both generations, which are also 2560×2560.

Bigscreen later told UploadVR that the report's suggestion about SeeYA's production is "wrong", but the claim is worth noting nonetheless.

If accurate, this resolution would place Phoenix above Meta Quest 3 in raw pixel count, though still below Apple Vision Pro. However, combined with the narrower field of view people familiar with Phoenix have described, this could give it substantially higher peak pixels per degree (PPD) than Quest 3.

Interestingly, around a week later in March 2026, Meta appeared to have accidentally enabled a global HDR setting for 2D apps in the initial versions of Horizon OS 2.3 PTC (Public Test Channel), visible even on Quest 3 and 3S.

This was disabled in later builds, but it suggests that Meta was experimenting with how the OS should render on headsets with the deep contrast of OLED or micro-OLED displays.

Qualcomm Chipset

Qualcomm Announces Snapdragon Reality Elite, Its New Flagship XR Chipset

Qualcomm just announced Snapdragon Reality Elite, its new flagship XR chipset, and it will debut in the compute puck of Xreal’s Aura Android XR device this fall.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

Evidence found in Horizon OS firmware libraries suggests that Phoenix will use Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Reality Elite, the successor to the XR2 Gen 2 chipset family.

The Snapdragon Reality Elite was announced in June 2026 and is explicitly designed to support multiple form factors, including the chipset being in the headset itself and the chipset being in a tethered compute puck. It's also designed to work in either passthrough or see-through display systems.

Xreal Aura Ships This Fall, With Snapdragon Reality Elite In Its Puck

You can now preorder Xreal Aura, launching this fall, and the company confirmed it has Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon Reality Elite in its Android XR puck. Yet despite opening preorders, Xreal won’t reveal the price.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

XREAL Aura is confirmed to use the Snapdragon Reality Elite, and it recently appeared on Geekbench 6 with the SoC model SXR2330P.

Most notably, the SoC reference board is labeled niobe.

The previous-generation chips in the Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 family powering devices like Meta Quest 3, Quest 3S, PICO 4 Ultra, and Samsung Galaxy XR are typically associated with the SoC model SXR2230P and the anorak reference board, though benchmarks for Meta hardware report proprietary device codenames as the board type instead, such as eureka for Quest 3 and panther for Quest 3S. Even so, the underlying anorak designation remains accessible on these headsets via system properties.

This is all notable in the context of Phoenix, because as of Horizon OS 2.7, niobe is already referenced across multiple firmware libraries in the OS. Moreover, the cam2_bridge library has code that describes a hardware configuration as Stanley/Niobe, along with Anorak.

The association between Stanley, Phoenix's mainboard and software platform codename, and niobe within Horizon OS firmware libraries strongly suggests that the device shares the same reference board as XREAL Aura, which is designed for the Snapdragon Reality Elite chipset.

A New Home Environment

In August 2025, Meta overhauled the Horizon OS Home Environment to be built around a high-quality space called Loft, with unrestricted locomotion and customizable Scenery styles. As Meta moves the Horizon OS experience away from the Horizon Worlds platform, the company seems to be working on yet another overhaul.

Horizon OS 2.6 and 2.7 introduce strings and assets related to a brand-new Home Environment. It was initially named Loma Home, before later appearing simply as Home, New Home, or Home Environment 2026.

This Home Environment appears to move away from the Scenery system introduced by Loft, instead consisting of a single space that has Morning and Midnight lighting options in Settings, similar to most of the environments on visionOS and Android XR.

The space seems to be designed around a lounge-style home cinema and workspace, with what appears to be a large pre-anchored Horizon TV window in the center for easy access to media and immersive video content.

Meta is also experimenting with a feature called Dynamic Ambience, which could complement the Home's media-focused design. References found in Horizon OS 2.6 and 2.7 describe it as adding a rendered "halo" of light around focused theater panels.

In practice, this would likely be similar to the media lighting features available on visionOS and in the numerous premium media player apps on the Meta Horizon Store, or real-world TV LED sync systems such as the Philips Hue Sync Box. A colored glow effect would appear around the currently focused window, with dynamic animations during media playback.

While reception of Loft’s higher quality and unrestricted locomotion had been mostly positive, many existing users were frustrated that Meta chose to deprecate all of the older Virtual Environments with little warning.

Meta now appears to be directly addressing that feedback with a new feature called Classic Environments.

Dataminer and security researcher ToastConcern found evidence that Meta is actively testing updated versions of many previous Virtual Environments within the Classic Environments feature, with the environments being ported to the new Home framework for use as legacy options.

Phoenix & Meta Quest 4 Are Separate Devices

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

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

UploadVRDavid Heaney

While Pismo Low and Pismo High, which would have formed a potential Quest 4 product line, were effectively cancelled as consumer products, Business Insider reported in December 2025 that it had viewed an internal Meta memo in which then-Reality Labs leaders Gabriel Aul and Ryan Cairns announced that Phoenix’s target ship date had been delayed to the first half of 2027. The publication also reported that Meta was working on a next-generation Quest device focused on immersive gaming, representing a “large upgrade” in capabilities over its existing devices.

In January 2026, following the far-reaching layoffs and reorganization of the VR and Horizon teams within Reality Labs, Meta CFO Susan Li said during Meta's Q4 2025 earnings call that the company still had "optimism in the future of VR", and confirmed that it was still "building future headsets", with the plurality being key.

Then, in February 2026, in an interview with tech journalist Alex Heath, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth seemed to confirm the leak that a Quest 4 is still on the roadmap, specifically saying:

"I think it's officially leaked we've got two devices on the roadmap that we're super excited about coming out over the course of a period of time"

Bosworth then reaffirmed this in July 2026, and hinted at a Meta Connect announcement in some form.

So, Phoenix is not a Meta Quest 4. Within Meta’s lineup, it is being positioned as a spiritual successor to Meta Quest Pro, while more broadly targeting a lower-cost, lighter-weight take on the kind of premium Mixed Reality experience offered by Apple Vision Pro. The new plans suggest that Phoenix will land in the first half of 2027, with Quest 4 following at a later date, likely in the second half of 2027 or in 2028.

Can It Run Quest Apps & Games?

Phoenix runs the same Horizon OS used by Quest headsets today. So, barring any device-specific restrictions, it should be backward compatible with most content on the Meta Horizon Store. This means that use cases such as gaming and even PC VR streaming via apps such as Steam Link and Virtual Desktop should be available on the device.

That backward compatibility may also extend to traditional tracked input, as early development units I saw could be paired with the Touch Plus controllers used by Meta Quest 3 and 3S. However, it remains unclear whether Phoenix will ship with them, or whether tracked controllers will instead be supported as an optional accessory.

Its radically different form factor is also likely to introduce trade-offs, including what people familiar with the device have described as a narrower field of view, potentially reduced stability during room-scale gaming and fitness activities, and the need to manage a tethered compute puck.

Devices such as Quest 3, 3S, and Steam Frame are likely to retain advantages such as a generally wider field of view, greater stability during active use, and all-in-one convenience. Phoenix, meanwhile, appears to prioritize a substantially lighter and smaller headset, potentially improved display clarity and contrast, and the ergonomic benefits of moving the battery and compute hardware off the head.

Meta Pegasus?

Many different product names have been rumored for Phoenix. At one point, Meta internally floated "Quest Air" as a possible product name, as well as names that completely separate it from the Quest line.

In June 2026, code added to the Meta Horizon mobile app contained hardcoded URLs that led to web pages titled "Loma Rx Calculator", which included the text "Use this calculator for Loma Headset" on the pages.

The websites were hosted by Pulse LTD, LLC, Meta's solutions partner for retail deployments via the Meta Sales Academy platform.

The "Get help" section on the pages provided detailed instructions for people who appeared to be Meta or Best Buy retail employees demoing the device to prospective buyers, covering topics such as prescription insert selection and pairing, Eye Tracking calibration, and more.

However, in August 2026, all front-facing references to Loma had been replaced with a new name: Pegasus, while the URL and backend for the pages still displayed Loma.

While there is a possibility that this is an interim or placeholder name, such as when the internal renders of Meta Ray-Ban Display featured text with the name "Meta | Celeste", this change appearing on a retailer-facing page suggests that Pegasus may be the product name for the device.

Redefining VR Form Factor

GravityXR: Chinese Startup Builds Chip To Enable Ultralight Headsets

A Chinese startup with former Apple and Meta engineers built a coprocessor that enables ultralight headsets, and its reference design is the lightest ever shown.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

Meta likely sees a large opportunity for a device such as Phoenix. Smaller firms are already producing glasses-like Passthrough VR devices, and adjacent companies such as XREAL plan to ship puck-powered see-through devices.

If Meta can successfully combine the strengths of Quest Pro and Quest 3 into a smaller, more approachable form factor at a lower cost than competitors amid the increasingly harsh consumer electronics market, it could catalyze a new wave of adoption for VR from brand-new audiences. At the same time, it could also offer a compelling upgrade path for casual users with current-generation headsets that have lapsed due to bulk and weight, as well as the subset of enthusiasts who value long-session comfort and advanced features.

Ahead of Meta Connect 2026, the company has informed VR developers that at least one session at the event will focus on controller-free interactions, suggesting its next-generation headset plans could be revealed in more detail.

Developer Singular Perception (Epyka) also opened pre-orders for $9.99, a discount from the $12.99 full price at release and is planning a cross-play supported playtest at the end of this month. We previously learned the game was planned for Meta Quest in September and SteamVR in October from June's VR Games Showcase.

Co-op Interstellar VR Roguelike Sol Protocol Blasts Off In Early Access This September

Co-op sci-fi roguelike Sol Protocol launches in Early Access on Meta Quest this September, with SteamVR expected to follow.

UploadVRMike Johnson

Sol Protocol draws inspiration from the now delisted Star Trek: Bridge Crew, 2012's FTL: Faster Than Light, & 2024's Void Crew. You and two friends assume three interchangeable roles on a fully interactive spaceship: pilot, gunner, and engineer. Your team travels through hostile star systems and works together to survive a variety of procedurally generated encounters in deep space, including battles with enemy ships and exploration of abandoned outposts, stations, and other structures. The goal is to repair and upgrade the team's ship, The Pathfinder.

Singular Perception is also planning for instances where a three-person team cannot be assembled, with fully autonomous systems called Automa being developed to fill in the gaps and additional ship configurations for different crew sizes currently in development.

The team has been conducting biweekly playtests with the next scheduled for the end of August. You can sign up via Discord.

You can wishlist Sol Protocol on Quest and Steam.

When Meta ended new development of Supernatural and laid off its team in January, it appeared to be the end of one of VR's most recognizable fitness services.

Instead, something unusual happened.

Five months later, Meta announced that Supernatural Health, a newly formed independent company, would take over the Supernatural experience, giving the service a path to continue outside of Meta. A new app is expected to launch on the Meta Horizon Store this fall, while Meta's existing Supernatural app will remain available until December 3.

The original founders are returning. Former members of the team are coming back. And a service Meta had decided to stop developing is now being rebuilt outside the company.

Meta's June announcement explained what would happen, but offered little detail about how Supernatural arrived at this unexpected second life.

Leanne Pedante can't answer what happened inside Meta to make that possible. But as Supernatural's Head of Fitness and a longtime coach, she can tell the story from the other side. She was among those who lost their jobs in January and, months later, found herself helping rebuild Supernatural as part of a much smaller independent team. 

And for Pedante, that story begins thousands of miles away from Meta.

An Unexpected Call In Italy

After the layoffs, Pedante started dismantling her life in Los Angeles.

She gave up her apartment, put her belongings into storage and left for Europe without knowing exactly when she would return. The trip had already been in the works, but suddenly there was no job waiting for her back home.

"I was like, maybe I won't come back," Pedante told UploadVR.

Then, about two weeks after arriving in Italy, she began hearing from Supernatural's original founders.

The possibility they were discussing seemed improbable: What if Supernatural could continue?

The timing struck Pedante as almost absurd. After years of having a home and career to return to, she had finally given both up.

"I felt like it was like the cosmic joke," she recalled.

Pedante wasn't ready to believe it yet.

"It sounded like such a long shot that I really wasn't getting my hopes up too much," she said.

So she stayed in Italy while conversations continued back home.

Roughly two months later, Pedante returned to find that the long shot had become something much more concrete.

"Everyone is aligned and this is actually going to happen," she recalled realizing.

"So then I had a job again."

"This Is Not Like Any Other Layoff"

The path toward that return began with a shutdown that Pedante says caught much of the Supernatural team by surprise.

Layoffs were always a possibility working in tech, she acknowledged, but many on the team didn't expect it to happen when it did.

Former colleagues quickly created Discord servers and text groups to stay connected. Pedante said years of working together had produced genuine friendships across the company, including coaches, choreographers, engineers and others who had spent years building Supernatural together.

At the same time, something else was happening. Supernatural's users, referred to within the service as “athletes,” were making it clear that they weren't ready to lose it.

"There was this dual thing happening where we were all so sad and grieving and shocked and not sure what was going to happen next," Pedante told UploadVR. "But then we were being inundated with so much love and support and sadness from the community."

For some employees who had experienced layoffs elsewhere in the technology industry, the response was unlike anything they'd encountered before.

"I had many colleagues who had been through layoffs before say, 'This is not like any other layoff,'" Pedante recalled.

Athletes wrote about relationships they'd formed, changes they'd made in their lives and what Supernatural's coaches and community had come to mean to them.

Pedante described the response as "a salve to our own individual pain."

But it did something else too. It showed the former team that there was still considerable demand for what they had built.

The Community Refused To Move On

In the months after the layoffs, Supernatural athletes organized petitions, filled social media with calls to save the service and looked for ways to make their objections heard.

A Change.org petition launched the day after the shutdown was announced ultimately drew more than 7,800 supporters. Among its requests was that Meta either allow the team to continue Supernatural within the company or permit it to spin off independently so the experience could survive.

The campaign extended beyond petitions and social media. At the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in March, Supernatural athlete Cheryl Briggs approached Meta Director of Games Chris Pruett following a conference session to make the case for the service. According to Briggs' subsequent account in the official Supernatural Facebook group, Pruett gave her his personal email and invited her to send him feedback.

Briggs later shared the email she sent Pruett, which incorporated feedback from other Supernatural athletes and argued that Meta should consider Supernatural as a broader health and wellness platform rather than simply a VR fitness game.

Months later, Meta announced that Supernatural would continue under a newly formed independent company.

There's no evidence that Briggs' outreach, the petition, or any individual community effort led Meta to that decision. Meta did, however, acknowledge the broader community response in its June announcement.

"We've heard your feedback loud and clear over the last few months," Meta told the Supernatural community, adding that it had been "working hard to find a path forward."

Pedante was more definitive about the effect that response had on the former Supernatural team.

"If the layoffs happened and the community quickly moved on and they were like, 'Okay, cool. What's next?' I don't think we would be doing what we're doing right now," she told UploadVR.

"We're only doing this because all of those people, the people who we built relationships with and who came to trust us, said we still need you."

The community provided a reason to try, and Supernatural's original founders and returning team were willing to try. But none of it could have produced an independent Supernatural without Meta allowing a path forward.

Rather than simply allowing the service to wind down, Meta announced in June that Supernatural Health, a new independent company, would "take over the Supernatural experience."

Meta hasn't publicly detailed what led to that decision. Its announcement establishes the outcome and acknowledges the community response, but stops short of explaining how or why the agreement came together.

What emerged from that process bears little resemblance in scale to the Supernatural organization Pedante left in January.

From Nearly 200 People To About 15

"At our biggest we were almost 200 people staff and now we're about 15," Pedante told UploadVR.

That dramatic reduction is shaping how the new Supernatural operates.

Some of the differences are obvious. A team of roughly 15 people doesn't have anything approaching the resources of Meta. Pedante readily acknowledged that being small comes with limitations.

But it has also restored something she remembers from Supernatural's earliest years: the ability to move quickly.

Pedante pointed to recent athlete meetups in Denver and Seattle. The team went from deciding it wanted to organize them to holding both events within roughly three weeks.

"I don't think we could have done that at a big company," she said.

That smaller scale is also giving the team an opportunity to reconsider assumptions built up over years of developing Supernatural.

For now, however, experimentation isn't the first priority.

The immediate challenge is getting Supernatural from where it is today to a new independent app this fall without losing what made people fight to keep it alive.

What Makes Supernatural Supernatural?

Rebuilding with fewer people creates opportunities to reconsider how Supernatural is made, but Pedante says some parts of the experience aren't up for debate.

She pointed to the environments, coaches, choreographers and music as defining elements of Supernatural.

"Those are non-negotiables," Pedante told UploadVR. "Those are the hallmarks of Supernatural."

That continuity extends to Supernatural's coaching team. All six current coaches are making the move to the independent app: Antonio Harrison, Mindy Lai, Raneir Pollard, Mark Harari, Dwana Olsen and Pedante.

For athletes who have spent years working out alongside those coaches, their return provides one of the clearest links between the Supernatural they know and the independent version being built now.

That distinction is important for a team simultaneously trying to preserve an experience and rebuild the organization responsible for creating it.

Pedante described the process as an opportunity to examine decisions that accumulated over years of development.

"Are we doing this because it's always the way we've done it or are we doing this because it is the best way to do it?" she said.

It's a question Pedante sees as surprisingly similar to the ones Supernatural coaches have spent years asking athletes.

"One of the biggest things we do as coaches is try to get you to understand that all the stories you tell yourself about your own limitations might not be true," she said.

Now the team is applying some of that thinking to itself.

For the immediate future, though, Pedante says the priority is continuity rather than reinvention.

"We are just trying to make sure that we can keep delivering what we've been delivering," she said.

The bigger experiments can come later.

Moving Athletes To A New Supernatural

That continuity will soon face a practical test.

Meta's existing Supernatural app will remain available until December 3, 2026. Supernatural Health expects its new independent app to arrive on the Meta Horizon Store this fall.

That means existing athletes won't simply wake up one morning to find the same app under new ownership. They'll need to move to an entirely new Supernatural app.

Pedante acknowledged that the transition could create some confusion, particularly for athletes who have spent years accumulating workout histories, streaks and achievements.

Whether all of that history can follow them remains unresolved.

"We are working on it," Pedante told UploadVR when asked whether those records could transfer to the new app.

"I can't promise anything," she added, explaining that the team is still working through the technical considerations involved.

For a service where some athletes have accumulated years of history, that could be a significant part of the transition.

Pedante says the smaller team intends to be directly involved in helping athletes through it.

"Every single person on this team will be involved in customer support and the community support," she said. "We will do our absolute best to hold people's hands through the process."

More information will arrive as the new app gets closer to release. Pedante also hinted that the team has additional initiatives planned before launch, though she wasn't ready to discuss them yet.

For now, the challenge is straightforward to describe and considerably harder to execute: move a community from a Meta-owned service into a new independent Supernatural without losing the things that made them want to follow it there.

Registration is open for a Founding Membership through Supernatural Health's website. There's no payment or obligation to join now, but registering locks in a discounted annual rate of $180 for the first year. Standard pricing for the new app will be $20 per month or $200 annually. 

Pedante said those registrations serve another purpose for the small team rebuilding Supernatural: they provide an early indication of how much of the existing community intends to make the move.

“It is helpful for us to have a sense of how many people are coming with us,” Pedante told UploadVR.

Why Bring It Back?

As a regular Supernatural athlete myself, I felt some of that loss firsthand. After the shutdown was announced, returning to the app felt different. The workouts were still there, but something about the experience felt hollow, almost like returning to a familiar place after the people who made it feel alive were gone.

I wasn't alone in feeling that loss. The response to Supernatural's shutdown surprised even some of the people who built it.

Pedante believes part of that attachment comes from athletes finding something they hadn't experienced in other forms of fitness.

"There's a safety that people feel in moving their bodies in this fitness environment that they didn't find in other places," Pedante said.

She pointed to inclusiveness, connection and trust as qualities people may not realize they've been missing.

"You don't even necessarily know what's been lacking in the things you've tried before," she said.

The challenge for the independent Supernatural will eventually extend beyond bringing its existing athletes into the new app. The team will also have to introduce the experience to people who have never tried it.

Pedante expects that process to happen gradually.

"One headset at a time, one aha moment at a time," she said.

Puzzles of the World is a miniature building puzzle game that takes you to scenic locations around the world while putting together location-appropriate wooden miniatures like France's Eiffel Tower and a gondola lifted straight out of Italy. At the time of this review, there are eight puzzles available, ranging from 48 pieces to 290 pieces.

Unlike a game like Puzzling Places, Puzzles of the World is not meant to challenge you. Every puzzle has clear instructions on how to complete it and while you do get a time when you finish building, there are no leaderboards I could find or any other sense of challenge or competition. Each puzzle is broken up into phases to keep the number of pieces available to grab low. It is a chill experience in every sense, more about the vibes and looking at the seven real-world locations while building than anything else. This is not a game for competitive players and those who prefer action in VR.

Visually, the environments are cel-shaded with hard outlines and a bright colorful palette that looks quite nice in the headset. All seven locations have a day and night scene with day being the default and the night unlocking upon puzzle completion. The background music is hit and miss. I disabled the music during the tutorial as the short play loop became distracting, but several of the other tracks were quite pleasant. One nice feature is that the music starts simple and layers more melodies on as each phase of a puzzle is completed.

As I understand it, this game started out only supporting hand tracking in Early Access and controller support was added later, prior to the full release. I played multiple puzzles using both inputs and could understand why some players preferred controllers. It felt much easier to grab a piece with a controller. On the other hand, the precise placement of some of the smaller pieces benefited from just using my hands and a pinch gesture. Either way, it's always better to have options.

Another nice touch is that the instruction manual has some quick facts about the location you are playing in, adding to the atmosphere.

The biggest shortcoming in Puzzles of the World is simply that it is short. The longest puzzle, at 290 pieces, took me roughly twenty-five minutes to complete and I took my time. I completed every puzzle in just over two hours and thought to myself, “Now what?” I did revisit the dark versions of the locations and while I guess you could challenge yourself to complete a puzzle without instructions, there just simply isn't enough game here at the moment.

This is, ostensibly, a good thing if my biggest complaint is wanting more, but anyone buying this game will need to take the $14.99 price tag as an investment in hopefully more content to come down the line, free or paid. Puzzling Places has had years of additions and each puzzle has multiple puzzle count options while Jigsaw Night offers a custom puzzle builder. Puzzles of the World comes up short comparatively.

One additional flaw to point out is that occasionally the pieces don't match the instructions. For example, the gondola puzzle has two ornamental dragons that the instructions say to place on planks that were previously placed in a prior step. In reality, the dragons are already on the planks, so that step should not exist. The same happened with a cross-like piece towards the end. According to the instructions, it is composed of two pieces to be placed separately, but the actual puzzle has them put together already. This happened maybe half a dozen times and can be easily patched, but it is still worth noting.

Finally, the descriptive text set on top of scenic pictures in the instruction manual was a bit tough to read. This is in no way the developer's fault, but rather the result of the Quest's LCD panels. Other games have worked around this limitation by popping up a copy of the text against a solid color, usually black, background to make it easier to read.

All that said, there is absolutely room to grow here and developer Astral Shores Games has a near-endless number of scenic locations to draw inspiration from, on Earth or otherwise. Imagine sitting in a Mars location, terra-domed of course, while putting together a miniature of the Curiosity rover. Sign me up for that.

Puzzles of the World: Final Verdict

Puzzles of the World is a charming, relaxed time in VR. Its art direction, sound design, and varied locations all combine to make one of the better cozy puzzle experiences in VR. However, it desperately needs more content to turn first-time players into returning players, specifically more actual puzzles than locations. There is nothing inherently bad about it and overall it is quite enjoyable, but limited in scope.

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

Twilight's End will cost $9.99 on release. Battlemarked launched with two full campaigns, Embers of Chaos and Crown of Frost, and without spoiling those stories for anyone who has not played them yet, there is a pervasive thread that runs through both. Twilight's End will complete that running arc, according to developer Resolution Games.

Here's the trailer:

As Resolution describes it:

Turmoil and chaos are spreading across the lands of the Silver Marches, Neverwinter Wood and Icewind Dale, drawing Battlemarked heroes into a desperate race to stop their growing influence. But hidden plots and creatures born of chaos pose a far greater danger. In a world where reality itself begins to unravel, heroes must confront an enemy whose ambitions threaten to remake existence itself and bring the saga that began in Neverwinter Wood and Frost Keep to its epic conclusion.

Twilight's End is the first full campaign added post-release, but there has been a steady flow of content otherwise. Previous updates added two new characters, warlock Azruss Drevontir and druid Gruda Razortusk, both unlockable via new side quests, a Christmas-themed side quest this past holiday season, and Penny Arcade's Acquisitions Incorporated as a standalone quest. More dungeons from the first two campaigns have also been added as playable one-shots.

Demeo × Dungeons & Dragons: Battlemarked is available now on Quest, Steam, and PlayStation VR2.

James Tocchio and I played the first heist job with Erik and Kris from Fast Travel. James played on Meta Quest and I played on Steam. We were allowed to capture footage, so the clips below will show both of our perspectives side by side.

As Erik, the Game Director for Aces High, would explain to us later, Fast Travel leaned more in the arcade direction with the mechanics, letting players play fast and get caught up in the action as opposed to struggling with finicky precision. Grabbing loot is a good example of this. Big piles of loot, be it money, jewelry, or other objects of value, are grabbed and automatically transformed into duffel bags when pulled towards you. These bags slow your movement speed, leaving you reliant on your teammates to cover your escape. Smaller loot, like a single stack of money, is grabbed with the grab button and collected by holding the trigger button, ending with a satisfying 'ka-chink' sound effect as it explodes into falling coins. Gun reloading is manual, with new ammo over your shoulder, and thankfully jank-free.

Erik stressed to us not to put our masks on when we approached the bank. Doing so would trigger the guards immediately. Instead, we walked the exterior of the building first, peeking in windows to hopefully spot a safe or security code in one of the managers' offices. We also noted a grapple hook spot for roof access if we had that tool unlocked. Our first run didn't have an exterior fuse box to disable some of the cameras, but our second run (which ended badly) did.

Though the general layout of the bank is the same on each heist, the locations of security codes, loose loot, cameras and such are randomized as are the appearances of incursion options like the aforementioned fuse box and grapple hook to the roof, so no two runs are alike. Heists can be completed in full stealth and there is an extra reward for that, but Erik stressed this was very difficult to do.

One of us lingered a little too close to one of the guards, which set off alarms, the stealthy background music shifted to a rock track, and all hell broke loose. From this point, it was an intense scramble to get into the security office via security code and unlock the vault. The cops became progressively more difficult the longer we spent on the heist, eventually escalating to heavily armored tactical officers with stronger guns. The four of us fell into natural positions after the alarms went off, with some handling the guards while others looked for security codes and loot. This wasn't planned. It just happened organically.

After accessing the vault and grabbing some loose money along the way, we called in a pneumatic drill that arrived via drone, an excellent touch of visual flair. The drill functions in three phases with an intuitive skill check via the handle. After looting the vault, we left by shooting out the back windows of the bank and tossed our bags down a nearby sewer to be picked up later. Another secured area gave us explosives to blow open the sewer access, where we collected our loot, shot our way through another round of guards, and escaped. Several of us were downed by gunfire during the fight and revived by a teammate using a health injector. Notably, this heist did not involve a hacking mechanic triggered via your watch that I saw in the tutorial. That will presumably come into play in bigger heists.

Start to finish, the whole run took about twenty minutes. There were secondary objectives, like leaving our Ace Gang calling cards, that we did not complete. At the end, you gain reputation points depending on your performance along with the money. There is an underlying story to Payday: Aces High, with the gang taking revenge on a crooked businessman who betrayed them. A character named The Queen narrates the details of each heist and advises the team in the heat of combat as to the next objectives, tying everything together. After the heist, we regrouped and looked at the plethora of unlockable skills, weapons, items, and abilities available. This along with the story campaign offers clear progression for players to keep returning to the game. I mentioned to Erik that I could see elements of a hero shooter a la Overwatch or Marvel Rivals in Aces High. Depending on the skills and weapons chosen, teammates could fall into natural roles. This will be something I explore in the full game.

Intuitive is the main takeaway here. Everything in the heist was quickly understood and this allowed us to play fast. Even with Erik giving instructions, James and I contextually picked up on what needed to be done and the natural teamwork, given I had never played a game with two people in the group and James and I have only played Forefront together, was excellent.

Simply put, Payday: Aces High is a tremendous amount of fun. There were some expected alpha build quirks. The guard and bank employee movements were stilted in places and some texture pop and flickering here and there, but we understood we were on an early build. The core of the game is outstanding though. If you enjoy co-op action, this game should absolutely be on your wishlist. Even in this early build, it is that good.

Developer Friendly Fire Studios announced the date after an erroneous notification informed players who wishlisted the game that it was available now. Friendly Fire posted a message on August 17 saying the notification about the game being out now for PS VR2 was a system glitch. This issue was resolved, but unfortunately the erroneous release also wiped out all PS VR2 wishlists.

The Long Survival has had a rocky road porting from Meta Quest to other platforms. The PC VR and PS VR2 ports were delayed two separate times earlier this year owing to issues with cross-platform support before it launched in Early Access for SteamVR on May 21. This release came with a name change from A Long Survive to The Long Survival after community feedback.

A Long Survive Early Access Review: A Dull Alien Shooter Saved By Co-op

A Long Survive is now available on PC VR, after a brief delay. But its wave-based alien bug shooting gameplay leaves much to be desired.

UploadVRLuis Aviles

The Long Survival can be wishlisted now on PS VR2.

This information was wrapped in a post announcing the English voice cast for the upcoming co-op JRPG. The English voiceovers and free-to-start model were the primary reveals in the trailer from the VR Games Showcase:

Speaking personally as a Kickstarter backer who paid extra for an additional key so I could gift the game to a friend to play with, this news was surprising. On the game's Kickstarter page, the thought process behind this decision and the question of what backers would receive in light of the free-to-start pricing model were directly addressed:

“Free to Start” is exactly what it sounds like – general players will be able to play through the introduction of Knights of Fiona for free and have limited access to some of the core game mechanics. After looking at how limited demo experiences can be, and the current state of the VR industry, we felt this was the best path forward to bring as many players into Knights of Fiona while providing a robust online experience for everyone.

However, as early backers of Knights of Fiona you will have the full unrestricted access to all of the story content for Knights of Fiona. This includes six storied chapters, all voiced in Japanese and English and their respective battle missions. In addition, backers will also be able to have unlimited access to the game’s trading tables. Lastly, we are planning on distributing an exclusive in-game title so you can show off your support!

In addition to the story access we are also giving backers an option to receive an additional reward. Backers can choose either between in-game storage upgrade, or a 1 day ticket to send to a friend. We’ll be sending out these rewards after our launch soon in September.

There are a few takeaways from the above statement.

First and thankfully, Character Bank is proactively addressing any backers, like myself, who were caught off guard by the news of the pricing model. Full access to the game's story and other add-ons addresses the concerns of anyone who may feel slighted by having paid money upfront for a free-to-start game.

Second, the statement about the 'state of the VR industry' is telling. We have thoroughly documented the ongoing layoffs and closures plaguing VR developers and a number of developers are exploring projects with both VR and flatscreen support or out of VR gaming entirely.

Games like Demeo x DnD: Battlemarked support flatscreen on Steam and PlayStation 5 and are available on other consoles. Mighty Coconut's recently announced Walkabout Dungeon Golfer is planned to be a hybrid release. Other developers like Mixed Realms (Hellsweeper), Wanadev (Ragnarock), and Funktronic Labs (The Light Brigade) have all announced (and in some cases already released) their projects as flatscreen only without VR support.

My read on this decision is this was not the initial plan. However, games can be in development for multiple years and the economic landscape can undergo, and in VR's case has undergone, dramatic shifts since the project was first started. This is not the first case of a game going the free-to-start route.

Fun Train's 4v1 sci-fi horror game BlackGate has a similar model. Players can play as one of the four engineers for free, with a paid add-on required to assume the role of the alien monster. MMORPG Zenith infamously pivoted to this model years after its initial premium release, moving the original Zenith: The Last City to a $9.99 paid DLC for the free-to-play Zenith: Nexus. This was after the game was being run at a loss for quite some time. Ultimately, that didn't work out and developer Ramen was forced to cease development.

VR developers are seeking a path to sustainability in a variety of ways and this is how Character Bank is going about it for its latest title. Time will tell if it works.

The Light Brigade first launched in February 2023 and developer Funktronic Labs has delivered five major content updates in the three-plus years since. Per an announcement in the developer's Discord, Update 5.0 is its final update.

The final update includes the following:

• Official Steam Frame support, described to be running "silky smooth at full native resolution."
• Lebes, a new biome, is a war-torn European town built for close-quarters combat with narrow streets, multiple levels, and small rooms.
• Three new tarot sets (Aspect of Man, Aspect of War, Aspect of Peace) totaling thirty-eight new tarot cards bringing the total to ninety-nine unique cards with upgrades available
• New crystal attachments adding effects to shots like boosted long-range damage, boosted close-range damage, earned gold or souls per shot, and damage to nearby enemies
• A performance update, presumably directed more towards PC players, that further optimizes the game's GPU performance to lower the number of framerate dips and let players increase the render scale up to twenty percent without losing performance.

Funktronic's next project, flatscreen MMO-lite action RPG Scramble Knights Online, has been known for some time now, adding Funktronic to the growing list of developers exploring their options outside of VR gaming.

The Steam developer post for The Light Brigade: Definitive Edition included a message to its players from Funktronic:

Since the game’s initial release in February 2023, we’ve supported and expanded The Light Brigade through many major content updates and countless smaller updates. Your feedback helped us add new worlds, weapons, abilities, classes, enemies, challenges, and much more.

It has been an honor building this game alongside such an incredible community. Thank you for joining us on this journey and for helping make The Light Brigade what it is today.

The Light Brigade Definitive Edition update is available now on Meta Quest and PC VR. PlayStation VR2 will get the update at a later date.

Ancient Dungeon has been in Early Access for five years now and looks set to receive its biggest update. A new developer blog on the Ancient Dungeon YouTube channel detailed a plethora of new content.

The full video is worth watching for a detailed breakdown. Here's a quick list of what to expect:

• A new floor, The Sunken Courtyard - This new environment will be an alternative option to the existing game's first floor, with new hazards and enemies.
• Critical Damage Stat System - Critical damage gets an official stat line now, allowing players to do crit-focused builds during runs.
• New Relics and Augments - A number of new relics and augments, some focused on the new critical damage stat line, allowing for a wider variety of builds.
• The Ice Orb: A new magical orb allowing players to freeze enemies.
• Improvements to homebase: The player hub will get new background music options and visual enhancements.

The end of the dev blog teased a new dungeon generator to be detailed in a later video. This blog did not indicate when the new update will be available.

Ancient Dungeon VR is available now on Meta Quest, Steam, and PlayStation VR2.

The game started in Quest Early Access in May 2025. Like Steam's full release, the Quest 1.0 update will add a complete story campaign with fully voice acted characters, new zones, anomaly types, and weapons.

Here is the original 1.0 release trailer for SteamVR. At the time of this article, developer CM Immersive has not released an updated Quest-footage trailer:

The full release on Steam came with a bit of controversy just before it dropped. CM Immersive ran a brief beta, introducing the story campaign and two new NPCs, Guide Lauri and Supervisor Eva. These characters were met with a negative response as players found them too cheery, talkative, and out of place in the isolated, dystopian atmosphere of the game.

CM Immersive responded by scaling back the number of appearances and voice lines for both characters, with some in-person segments being replaced with voice messages on the player tablet for Eva and interactable white figures for Lauri. These changes will presumably carry over to the Quest 3 port.

Into the Radius 2 is available in full release on Steam and Early Access on Meta Quest 3/3S.

Unlock The Vault was revealed in a four-minute video at last week's VR Games Showcase with Flat2VR Studios' Myles Dyer introducing former PlayStation executive Shuhei Yoshida and PlayStation-focused YouTubers Ryan Biniecki (MysticRyan), Rob Pearson (PlayStation Access), and Bryan Paul (WithoutParole). The latter four will each reveal another game from the vault at a later date. The video ended with VR Games Showcase host Jamie Feltham introducing Drop Dead: The Cabin.

Drop Dead: The Cabin, a co-op zombie extraction shooter set in the same world as on-rails zombie shooter Drop Dead: Dual Strike, started as a two-player co-op action thriller for Meta Quest in 2023. With Meta presumably looking for more mixed reality content after the launch of the Meta Quest 3 in fall 2023, developer Soul Assembly added Home Invasion, a mixed reality mode adjacent to the main game. Home Invasion was later spun off into a separate title on Quest. Drop Dead: The Cabin went on to launch on Steam as a hybrid title now supporting up to four players.

Drop Dead: The Cabin can be wishlisted now on PS VR2.

Developer The Game Kitchen made the announcement during last week's VR Games Showcase with a teaser trailer:

All On Board released in February 2025 with plans on adding more games to the base collection post-launch. The base game currently includes chess, parchisi, backgammon, and a handful of other games for free. Some of the paid add-ons can be seen in the above video, including Terraforming Mars, Rallyman GT, and The Binding of Isaac: Four Souls.

Virus! is a card game where the goal is to be the first player to complete a fully healthy body comprised of four organs: brain, bone, heart, and stomach. Other players can attack your organs by playing virus cards on them to keep the game going.

All On Board is available now on Quest and Steam. Virus! launches as a free new game on August 20.

Scott joined us for this week's UploadVR Gamescast to talk about how his team came to build Tomahawk and the experiences they've had with VR developers and communities while attacking the issue of cheating.

Below are some highlights of the interview. You can catch the full conversation on our YouTube channel or wherever you get your podcasts.

The issue with current anti-cheat solutions for VR

Scott: There was no software other than Meta Attestation. That was it and it's absolutely horrible. None of your major anti-cheat platforms, BattlEye, Easy Anti-Cheat, none of them run in a standalone environment. They just don't work. They never built them for that. So while we use BattlEye on PC and it's great, it's also still easily hacked by smart people. But Meta Attestation was the only thing on the standalone platforms that provided any type of security, and it's so easily bypassed. Kids are just doing it with AI. We call them skids, script kids. They do it in the blink of an eye. It doesn't take any time at all. They're through it immediately.

Tomahawk has already proven to be effective

Scott: Yeah, we've stopped around probably 200 rooted devices so far, if I had to guess. Overall, attempted cheaters in VR since we launched to the open public, which would have been, I believe, last year, we've stopped 4,000 modified APK users and almost 5,000 attempted cheaters. And we have over a thousand bans already active throughout all of our games. We're currently protecting 2,000,600 accounts across all the titles that we protect.

Steam Frame will be problematic

Scott: The Frame is going to be hard to stop, because the Frame, from what I understand right now, is going to be pretty much open source where you can do whatever you want to on it. It's going to be rooted from Steam and they don't care. So, that's going to be a hard one.

We have a couple Steam Frames in the office. We're part of their whole testing pilot program that they did along with a bunch of other developers. So, yeah, we've been working on it for a while. Not sure when it's going to launch yet, but we still haven't solved it yet. We have a pretty good idea what to do, but it's a lot of testing to make sure we don't brick people's headsets on accident.

Scott hired the biggest cheaters in Tabor

Scott: We have a three-man security team. So Tomahawk is actually birthed from our biggest cheaters in Tabor. We did what the Feds do. I found our biggest cheaters and we hired them. They developed Tomahawk and they've been cheating since like old day Call of Duty. Made a lot of money in Bitcoin doing COD cheats back in the day. We brought these guys [in] and turned them legit. At first, it was like, well, will they stay? And it's like, will they get the same rush from catching cheaters as they do as playing the cat-and-mouse game as a cheater? So that's why they're so into it.

The kids are relentless in their cheating efforts

Scott: These kids are relentless. I applaud them for their ability. If they put as much time in trying to modify Animal Company and Yeeps and all these other titles as they put that into schoolwork, they would probably be geniuses and the next Albert Einsteins to be honest with you. They're creative and AI has only helped their creativity, right? Mostly modified APKs. That's mostly what they're able to do because Meta Attestation does not stop it. They do not do anything.

We check every bit and byte of every APK to make sure it matches 100%. We've even told Meta how to do this and they refused to do it. We've told them how to stop it. They won't do it. We had meetings with the security team. They told us cheating in standalone can never happen. Boom. Here we are. So, we did it ourselves. They told us rooted headsets could never happen. Boom, here we are. So, we stopped it ourselves.

If you would like to learn more about Tomahawk, visit the official website Tomahawk.gg.

The new movement comes in two forms: Flow uses a standalone knee strike, while Combat includes both the standalone version and a more aggressive Grab-to-Knee movement. FitXR says the additions are designed to increase lower-body coordination and core engagement while giving Combat more of its own full-body martial arts identity.

I've now spent time with both of the new workouts, and the knee strikes add some welcome variety to each studio.

Knee Strikes In Flow And Combat

In Flow, the standalone knee strike fits naturally into the existing choreography. Flow already incorporates plenty of striking and lunging movements, and bringing a knee up into an approaching target adds another dimension without interrupting the rhythm of the workout. The haptic feedback through the controllers also does a good job of reinforcing the movement.

FitXR describes the Flow version as serving two purposes. It can work as a rhythmic, dance-like movement within a sequence, while also requiring the player to shift their weight onto one foot, engage their core and drive the opposite knee upward.

I found the knee strikes even more satisfying in Combat.

The standalone knee works well, but my favorite of the new additions is the Grab-to-Knee. An overhead target approaches and you reach up with both hands to grab it before forcefully pulling it down as you drive your knee upward to meet it. There's something super satisfying about grabbing that target and slamming it into your knee, particularly with the haptic and auditory feedback accompanying the movement.

It's not an entirely new concept for VR fitness. We've seen a similar grab-and-knee movement in Les Mills XR Bodycombat, but it fits extremely well within FitXR's Combat workouts.

FitXR says the Grab-to-Knee was deliberately designed as a more powerful and drawn-out movement than the standalone knee. Holding your arms overhead adds shoulder engagement before pulling the target down, while the knee strike brings the lower body and core into the movement.

Detecting A Knee Strike Without Tracking Your Knee

So how is FitXR tracking a movement the Quest can't directly see?

Current Quest headsets don't directly track the player's knees, so FitXR developed a system that uses movement from the headset as a proxy. Raising a knee generally causes a subtle shift in your center of mass, and that movement can be detected through the headset.

Rather than looking at a single moment, FitXR analyzes a brief history of headset movement. The system considers physical displacement, speed and direction of the movement, whether it corresponds to the expected left or right knee, and whether it happens close enough to the choreographed strike.

FitXR says the target isn't a "literal collider attached to an invisible virtual knee." Instead, the target acts as a visual and timing cue, while movement detected through the headset provides evidence that you've performed the knee strike.

Grab-to-Knee adds another layer. FitXR looks for both hands to make contact with the target, tracks the target as you pull it toward the knee-strike area, and also looks for the headset movement associated with raising your knee. FitXR describes this combination of hands, target impact and body movement as a "three-way handshake."

The system is intentionally tolerant of small differences in movement and timing. FitXR says it prioritized recognizing legitimate movement rather than trying to turn the game into a strict judge of a player's form.

In practice, that approach worked very well during my time with both workouts.

I didn't encounter any tracking failures with the knee strikes. In fact, there were a few knee targets I missed, and the system correctly recognized those misses rather than registering them as successful strikes. The detection felt seamless enough that I quickly stopped thinking about how FitXR was determining whether my knee had actually moved and simply concentrated on the workout.

More Control Over Journey

FitXR is also giving users more control over which studios appear in their Journey training plans. At Journey checkpoints, users can now edit their studio preferences and select the activities they want included going forward.

Someone who wants to concentrate on Box and Combat, for example, can select those studios and continue with that combination until reaching the next checkpoint. FitXR's existing Today's Edit option remains available for users who simply want to change an individual day's workout.

It's another layer of personalization for Journey, which FitXR introduced as a way of providing more structure and progression across its collection of workouts.

Adding To An Already Broad Fitness Library

There is already a lot to do here.

Between Box, Combat, Flow, HIIT, Dance, Zumba, Sculpt, and SLAM, FitXR offers considerably more variety than simply cycling through different versions of the same basic workout. Different studios emphasize different types of movement and provide different ways to exercise in a headset.

Knee strikes expand that movement library a little further. The standalone version fits easily into Flow, while Grab-to-Knee gives Combat an especially satisfying new interaction and another reason for the studio to feel distinct from boxing.

After trying knee strikes in both workouts, they feel like a natural addition to an app that already offers an impressive variety of ways to work out in VR.

The release date was confirmed in a new video during this week's VR Games Showcase:

Developer Soliton Interactive posits BrushHammer as a cleaner, mistake proof approach to real life miniature painting for hobbyists, using VR/MR to avoid the mess of supplies and spills associated with the real world alternative. You can pick from original, handcrafted collections and paint in multiple ways including spray cans, airbrushes, and more. For clumsy people like me, mistakes can be undone and restarted. All of the models can be kitbashed and can be displayed in your playspace.

Soliton says it has a career mode planned for players who prefer a sense of progression, though it is not clear if that mode will be available when the game launches.

BrushHammer: Miniature Painter can be wishlisted now on Quest.

The Monkey-With-a-Bomb-developed shooter dropped a release date trailer in this week's VR Games Showcase:

This game has an interesting backstory. Originally, Monkey-With-a-Bomb released a similar game, Paradox of Hope, in 2022 that leaned more heavily into its Metro inspiration. That game was accused of copyright infringement and ultimately the developer decided to halt production and remove the game from sale in 2023 to avoid an expensive legal battle. At the time, the solo developer vowed to reshape the work already done into a new game that did not resemble Metro nearly as much.

CONVRGENCE has been in Early Access for over two years, first releasing in April 2024. In that time, it has seen a steady stream of content updates adding new enemies, missions, guns, and features. It also saw a price increase from $19.99 to $24.99 earlier this month. The game currently has a 'Very Positive' rating on Steam from 1,514 reviews.

According to the roadmap, the 1.0 update will see a rework of the main missions (including a proper ending) with added story context and voice acting. Other features expected are advanced graphics and difficulty settings, cloud saves, and a new tutorial.

The roadmap also includes further planned updates you can read in this developer post on Steam.

CONVRGENCE is available now on Steam.

SpaceOwl Games' sequel was featured in this week's VR Games Showcase with a new gameplay video:

BattleGroupVR2 launched in Early Access on Steam in November 2025. It currently has a 'Very Positive' rating from 198 reviews. The Early Access information box estimates a twelve to eighteen month stint before full release, so we are still within that time window. It has been steadily updated since launch, most recently with a small patch on August 12. A batch of new main story missions were added in June.

The first BattleGroupVR came to Meta Quest in 2022 where it currently has a 4.6 score from 114 ratings. It seems to have fared better on Steam, where it launched in summer 2023 and is rated 'Very Positive' from 857 reviews.

BattleGroupVR2 can be wishlisted now on Quest ahead of the August 28 Early Access launch.

The free update is available for both platforms. Developer Incuvo featured the update at this week's VR Games Showcase:

To paint, you simply have to craft a painting brush and bowl (both crafting formulas were added in the update) and get to work. Aside from painting, the update adds two new modular structures, triangle frames & plank structures, to help diversify building out a camp.

With the update come two new paid cosmetic packs, the Art Instructor Pack for $2.99 and Painter Pack for $1.99, and a free anniversary shirt to commemorate Green Hell VR reaching one million players on the Quest platform.

This obviously leaves out the SteamVR version of the game. Earlier this year, we reported on Incuvo's intent to port the PS VR2 version of the game to PC VR this summer. This would include the more linear version of the main campaign PlayStation VR2 shares with the Quest version. Incuvo posted an update to the roadmap in June saying this plan has shifted to fall due to the need for more testing. Existing Steam owners will get the new version for free, but the original PC VR version will reportedly remain unaffected, so presumably there will be two branches of the game, with the new one getting all of the recent content updates.

Green Hell VR is available now on PS VR2, Quest, and Steam.

The first Zero Caliber came to PS VR2 in December 2025 and XReal confirmed on social media the day before this week's VR Games Showcase that the sequel would follow. A new teaser at the showcase confirmed the October release month:

The trailer and the listing on the PlayStation Store also confirm that PS VR2 is getting the remastered edition that came to SteamVR in 2025 instead of the original Meta Quest release.

Zero Caliber 2: Remastered Impressions - VR Warfare Gets A Glow-Up

Zero Caliber 2: Remastered gives the action shooter a welcome upgrade for PC VR players, and it’s out now on Steam.

UploadVRPete Austin

We reviewed the game when it first launched, saying "XREAL Games has delivered an experience that will undoubtedly thrill fans of the genre." The first game currently has a 4.08 rating on the PlayStation Store from 558 ratings. As for the remastered edition, Pete Austin, who reviewed both versions had this to say:

The PC upgrade brings not just a substantial visual overhaul, but enhanced AI and a significant increase in enemy count. Initially playing through the first missions it all feels very familiar - and it does, because the basic mechanics are all there. However, after jumping back into the Quest version for a direct comparison, I'm impressed by how significant the Remastered version's improvements are. Fighting through the overrun suburbs, lobbing grenades into a group of enemies, and picking off stragglers through the dust - this is Zero Caliber 2 as it's meant to be played.

Zero Caliber 2 can be wishlisted now for PlayStation VR2.

These release windows were announced at this week's VR Games Showcase alongside a new trailer:

Out of Sight VR launched in Early Access on Steam in May 2025 and currently has a 'Positive' rating from 45 reviews. The 'Early Access' information box on the Steam store states a projected Q4 2025 end to Early Access and obviously we are well past that target. Flat2VR, amongst its numerous projects like the recently announced VR ports of High On Life and System Shock, has been fairly silent on Out of Sight in recent months, so it is good for PS VR2 and Quest users eager to play the game to get some clarity.

Out of Sight VR Review-In-Progress: A Sight to Behold

Out of Sight’s “second-person” perspective proves it’s already a great fit for VR, even with more polish to come.

UploadVRJames Galizio

Out of Sight uses a unique 'second-person" perspective where the world is viewed through the eyes of a stuffed bear carried around by the protagonist. The bear can be placed in marked locations through the game so the young girl can be controlled by the player from the bear's point of view to complete puzzles and progress through the disturbing mansion she is being held prisoner in. It is a novel approach we called a "fascinating and engaging horror game where you're not the one in danger" in our partial review last year.

Out of Sight VR can be wishlisted now on PS VR2 and Meta Quest.

The VR Games Showcase gave us a closer look at Gunman Contracts Stand Alone, with a blink-and-you'll-miss-it tidbit of information tacked on to the end of an action-packed trailer; Gunman Contracts Stand Alone will launch in Early Access on the same day as Valve's Steam Frame VR headset (though exactly when that might happen is still a mystery).

Check out the (rather violent) trailer here:

To be clear, this does not mean that Gunman Contracts Stand Alone will launch with Steam Frame, like a pack-in game (think: Astro’s Playroom with PlayStation 5 or Sonic the Hedgehog with the Sega Genesis). Gunman Contracts Stand Alone will simply be listed for sale on the same day that Frame launches.

Gunman Contracts Stand Alone is an action-movie inspired first-person shooter (playable in both VR and flat). You play as a professional hitman taking on the city's ruthless criminal element, bringing justice to a seedy underworld beyond the reach of the law.

It's John Wick. In VR!

Of course, Steam Frame is Valve's long-awaited and highly anticipated standalone VR headset. Most recently it has been reported that Frame is launching this summer, though an exact date has not yet been revealed.

Whenever Frame eventually arrives, we at least know now that Gunman Contracts Stand Alone will launch in Early Access on the same day.

You can wishlist the game on Steam now.

During the August 2026 VR Games Showcase, independent studio XREAL Games has provided a new look at COVR, an upcoming tactical shooter with "next-gen" visuals and "uncompromising realism."

COVR's devs describe the game as a "high-stakes tactical VR" game in which you'll play either solo or cooperatively with team-mates. COVR gameplay emphasizes communication, planning, precision, and decisive action to give players an experience that feels tense, physical, and unforgiving.

A trailer was released which shows off the game's next-gen visuals.

COVR's developers are also keen to emphasize that the game's visuals are a central pillar of its development. The team aims to deliver a "highly detailed and atmospheric presentation designed to reinforce the intensity of the gameplay."

XREAL Games has also noted that standalone VR has not been an afterthought. The studio is "focused on pushing each platform as far as possible," they say.

COVR is coming to SteamVR and Meta Quest this year.

The showcase, hosted by Jamie Feltham, featured over twenty-five games with new reveals, release dates, fresh content and more. You can watch the full show on the VRGS YouTube channel.

Here's the full rundown, starting with the main show.

New Game Reveal - Total Chaos VR

Leading today's VR Games Showcase, developer Trigger Happy Interactive and publisher Apogee Entertainment have announced that Total Chaos VR is coming to SteamVR soon. A standalone version of the game is also coming to Meta Quest. The PC VR version will be free for anyone who already owns the flatscreen Steam game.

Total Chaos VR Is Coming Soon To SteamVR & Meta Quest

Total Chaos VR is coming soon to SteamVR, and will be free for those who already own Total Chaos on Steam.

UploadVRJames Tocchio

Bootstrap Island Out Now On PlayStation VR2

We called Bootstrap Island a sterling VR survival adventure and rated it four out of five stars when it went to the final 1.0 release. Now after months of waiting, PlayStation VR2 gets the full game with all post-release content.

Bootstrap Island Out Today On PlayStation VR2

Island survival game Bootstrap Island is available now on PlayStation VR2.

UploadVRMike Johnson

Gunman Contracts Will Launch With Steam Frame

The action movie inspired first person shooter Gunman Contracts Stand Alone will launch in Early Access on the same day as Steam Frame. The exact release date for Valve's headset and now this game is still unknown.

New Game Reveal - Tiny Flock

No Brakes Games, the maker of Human Fall Flat, announced Tiny Flock, a made-for-VR physics-based puzzle game coming to Steam and Meta Quest.

The Studio Behind Human Fall Flat Announces New VR Puzzle Game Tiny Flock

The makers of Human Fall Flat have announced Tiny Flock, a made-for-VR physics-based puzzle game coming to Steam and Meta Quest.

UploadVRJames Tocchio

Out Of Sight VR Release Windows For PS VR2 & Meta Quest

Expect Flat2VR's Little Nightmares-like horror title Out of Sight VR this holiday season for PlayStation VR2 and in 2027 for Meta Quest.

Out of Sight VR Review-In-Progress: A Sight to Behold

Out of Sight’s “second-person” perspective proves it’s already a great fit for VR, even with more polish to come.

UploadVRJames Galizio

Learn More About Drifters: Blackout Crew

Drifters: Blackout Crew, first revealed in the summer edition of the VR Games Showcase, shared more info about the sci-fi co-op extraction shooter gameplay.

In case you missed it, check out our interview with Salmi Games' founder Yacine Salmi on the UploadVR Gamescast as well.

New Game Reveal - Spirit Ritual

Spirit Ritual is a terrifying ghost story, played in either mixed reality or virtual reality, that blends full motion video with mixed-reality gameplay. It is coming to Pico, PC VR, and Meta Quest.

Spirit Ritual Is An Upcoming FMV Mixed Reality Horror Photography Game

Spirit Ritual is a terrifying game that blends full motion video with mixed-reality to tell a supernatural ghost story.

UploadVRJames Tocchio

All On Board Adds A New FREE Game Next Week

Social board game app All On Board is adding a new game, Virus!, as a free update next week.

All On Board! Roadmap Outlines New Games For The VR Tabletop Platform

All On Board! outlined several board games coming to the VR tabletop platform in its new roadmap.

UploadVRHenry Stockdale

R.A.I.D. Drops New Gameplay Trailer & Pre-Order Bonus

Co-op sci-fi shooter R.A.I.D. from FusionPlay and Impact Inked has opened pre-orders ahead of its upcoming release. In R.A.I.D., you inspect interstellar cargo ships to catch smugglers. If the cargo comes up nefarious, you board the ship for high-octane shootout action.

New R.A.I.D. Teaser Trailer Reveals Co-op Roguelite FPS Gameplay

We got a first look at new co-op roguelite shooter, R.A.I.D. at today’s VR Games Showcase after a tease at last month’s Creature Feature Showcase.

UploadVRMike Johnson

COVR Unveils First Official Trailer

We got a new look at COVR, a tactical mil-sim first person shooter from XReal Games (Zero Caliber).

We Got A New Look At COVR, A “Next-Gen” VR Shooter Coming Later This Year

XREAL Games has announced their new tactical shooter COVR is coming to PC VR and Meta Quest in 2026.

UploadVRJames Tocchio

Zero Caliber 2 Hits PS VR2 This October

Speaking of XReal Games, its action-packed cinematic shooter Zero Caliber 2 finally arrives on PlayStation VR2 this October.

Zero Caliber 2: Remastered Impressions - VR Warfare Gets A Glow-Up

Zero Caliber 2: Remastered gives the action shooter a welcome upgrade for PC VR players, and it’s out now on Steam.

UploadVRPete Austin

Green Hell VR Painting Update

Hardcore survival adventure Green Hell VR adds more customization with today's Modular Buildings & Painting update. With the new Painting system, players will be able to craft a brush and bowls of paint, then add some color to the structures around the camp. Modular building has also been expanded with triangle frames and new plank structures, opening up even more possibilities for new builds.

The new update is available on Meta Quest and PS VR2.

Green Hell VR: Quest Edition Review - Streamlined But Engrossing VR Survival

Green Hell on Quest isn’t the same game as the flatscreen original, but look past the changes and you’ll find a great VR survival game. Here’s our Green Hell VR: Quest Edition Review. Let’s get this out of the way first: Green Hell VR’s Quest

UploadVRJamie Feltham

Another Look At The Lightkeepers & Price Reveal

Co-op exploration and survival adventure The Lightkeepers launches on September 10 on Meta Quest and with today's new video, we know the price will be $19.99.

The Lightkeepers Confirms September Release Date For Meta Quest 3 In New Trailer

Co-op action-survival game The Lightkeepers hits Meta Quest 3 on September 10.

UploadVRMike Johnson

A New Look At Adrian's Quest

Adrian's Quest is one of our most anticipated upcoming games in 2026. We got a fresh look at the upcoming single-player action-adventure in a new trailer.

A New Look At The Rifted Skies

We got a new trailer for The Rifted Skies, a physically demanding action-roguelike from location-based-entertainment developer DreamVR.

The Rifted Skies Is A Physically Active Action Roguelite Coming to Meta Quest, PC VR, & Pico

Action roguelite The Rifted Skies brings a physically demanding arm swing movement system to Meta Quest & PC VR later this year.

UploadVRMike Johnson

CONVRGENCE Leaves Early Access Next Month

Post apocalyptic extraction shooter CONVRGENCE leaves Steam Early Access on September 17.

Dystopian Survival Shooter CONVRGENCE Leaves PC VR Early Access In September

Post-apocalyptic extraction shooter CONVRGENCE leaves PC VR Early Access on September 17.

UploadVRMike Johnson

Knights Of Fiona Launch Date

Co-op JRPG Knights of Fiona launches September 3 for Meta Quest and Steam. It has several playtest sessions happening over the next few days.

Knights Of Fiona Aims To Be An RPG You’ll Keep Coming Back To

The developers of Ruinsmagus build a bigger role-playing game in Knights Of Fiona.

UploadVRAlicia Haddick

New Rustmourne Gameplay Trailer

Rustmourne was first announced in our UploadVR Summer Showcase in June and the VR Games Showcase premiered a new video showing more of the Dead Space-inspired gameplay. Expect Rustmourne on PC VR in early 2027.

Rustmourne Is A Sci-Fi Horror Survival FPS Built For PC VR

Rustmourne, a Half-Life: Alyx inspired sci-fi horror FPS, is coming to SteamVR.

UploadVRMike Johnson

Payday: Aces High Launches Playtests Next Week

Fast Travel Games' co-op heist shooter Payday: Aces High kicks off live playtests on August 20.

Payday: Aces High Holding PC VR & Meta Quest 3 Playtests Next Week

You can play Payday: Aces High early in next week’s playtests on SteamVR and Meta Quest.

UploadVRMike Johnson

Flat2VR & Impact Inked To Bring More Games To PS VR2

Soul Assembly's Drop Dead: The Cabin was the featured game in a brief video teasing a 'vault' of new titles coming to PlayStation VR2. The video featured Myles Dyer from Flat2VR, YouTuber Bryan Paul of Without Parole, and former Sony executive Shuhei Yoshida among others.

Drop Dead: The Cabin Hands-On: A Thrilling And Challenging Co-Op Shooter

Drop Dead: The Cabin brings a co-op zombie wave shooter to Quest 2 today, and we were recently joined by developer Soul Assembly for a hands-on preview. Reminiscent of Call of Duty Zombies, Drop Dead: The Cabin takes a different approach to its on-rails predecessor, Drop Dead:

UploadVRHenry Stockdale

Trombone Champ: Unflattened Disney DLC Coming Next Week

Note: We were notified by VR Games Showcase host Jamie Feltham shortly before the showcase started that the Disney Movie Magic Vol. 1 DLC had been shifted to an August 20 release date. The showcase trailer said 'Out Now.' An amended trailer has since been published.

Flat2VR Studios first announced the Disney Movie Magic DLC earlier this summer after a tease in the spring and next week you can play multiple tracks from classic Disney films in its premier rhythm game.

Trombone Champ Unflattened Disney Movie Magic DLC Launching Next Week

Trombone Champ Unflattened launches Disney Movie Magic Volume 1 DLC today.

UploadVRJames Tocchio

Flat2VR Announces StartEngine Online Investment Campaign

Flat2VR Studios announced a StartEngine online investment initiative to help expand its publishing portfolio and grow the internal teams needed to bring more VR ports and original games to market. We'll have a more in-depth story on this soon.

New Game Reveal - High On Life VR

Speaking of Flat2VR, they weren't done yet in this showcase. Squanch Games' comedic first person shooter High On Life is getting a VR port for PC VR, PlayStation VR2 & Meta Quest.

High On Life VR Announced For PC VR, PlayStation VR2 & Meta Quest

Flat2VR Studios has announced they’re porting Squanch Games’ High On Life to PC VR, PSVR2, and Meta Quest.

UploadVRJames Tocchio

New Game Reveal - System Shock VR

The main show closed with the shocking reveal (pun fully intended) of Flat2VR's port of acclaimed 2023 sci-fi shooter System Shock. System Shock VR is also coming to PC VR, PlayStation VR2, and Meta Quest.

System Shock VR Announced For Meta Quest, PlayStation VR2, and PC VR

Flat2VR Studios announced System Shock VR coming to Quest, SteamVR, and PlayStation VR2 at today’s VR Games Showcase.

UploadVRMike Johnson

Prior to the main show fronted by Feltham, a pre-show hosted by Zeena Al-Obaidi dropped announcements for six additional games.

BrushHammer Gets A Release Date

Mixed reality miniature painting app BrushHammer Miniature Painter drops on Meta Quest on August 26.

BrushHammer Brings Miniature Model Painting To Quest This Summer

The mixed reality miniature figure painting app BrushHammer is coming to Quest this August.

UploadVRJames Tocchio

Vertigo Rush Lays Out Its Launch Roadmap

High speed VR racer Vertigo Rush charted its path to its planned Q4 2026 release in a new video.

Omega Pilot: Evolution Out Now On PlayStation VR2

Another showcase shadow drop, futuristic Wipeout-inspired racer Omega Pilot: Evolution is available now on PS VR2.

Omega Pilot Evolution Races Onto PlayStation VR2 Today

Omega Pilot Evolution, a high-speed VR futuristic racing game, blasts onto PlayStation VR2 today.

UploadVRJames Tocchio

BattleGroupVR2 Launches On Meta Quest This Month

Space real-time-strategy game BattleGroupVR2 comes to Meta Quest in Early Access on August 28. It previously launched, also in Early Access, for SteamVR late last year.

Interstellar RTS BattleGroupVR2 Launches On Meta Quest This Month

Outer space real time strategy game BattleGroupVR2 blasts off to Meta Quest later this month.

UploadVRMike Johnson

New Game Reveal - Stuffed: Two Foot Hero

Waving Bear Studio has announced Stuffed: Two Foot Hero, a new VR wave shooter coming to SteamVR and Meta Quest this fall.

Stuffed: Two Foot Hero Is A New VR Wave Shooter Coming To SteamVR & Meta Quest

Waving Bear Studio has announced Stuffed: Two Foot Hero, a new VR wave shooter coming to SteamVR and Meta Quest this fall.

UploadVRJames Tocchio

New Game Reveal - Grablings: Paint N' Seek

Triangle Factory and Triangle Labs have announced Grablings, a social hide and seek game coming to Meta Quest this summer.

Grablings: Paint ’N Seek Is A Chaotic Social VR Game From Triangle Factory’s New Triangle Labs Label

Triangle Factory and Triangle Labs have announced Grablings, a social hide and seek game coming to Meta Quest this Summer.

UploadVRJames Tocchio

Leading today's VR Games Showcase, developer Trigger Happy Interactive and publisher Apogee Entertainment have announced that Total Chaos VR is coming to SteamVR soon. A standalone version of the game is also coming to Meta Quest.

Total Chaos VR was revealed via a terrifying new trailer, which we've included here:

The flat screen version of Total Chaos, which debuted in 2025, is one of the creepiest and most effective psychological horror games of the last few years. It currently enjoys a Very Positive rating on Steam, collated from over 1,500 user reviews.

In Total Chaos, you play as a Coast Guard officer responding to a distress call from an ominous island. When a storm wrecks your boat upon the shore, you discover the island's dark past isn't totally forgotten. Compelled to explore the island by cryptic radio transmissions, you must delve ever deeper into this twisted and uncertain reality.

The standalone version of Total Chaos VR is in development as well, and will release on Meta's Horizon Store at a later date.

The shocking reveal was the final announcement at today's VR Games Showcase. Here's the trailer:

Flat2VR is partnering with original developer Nightdive Studios for this port. System Shock was a hit with players when it released in 2023 after multiple delays and a seven-year development cycle. It has steadily received updates since release, with the most recent being in March of this year.

System Shock was just one of several announcements from Flat2VR in the showcase. The company also announced a port of comedic first person shooter High on Life, plans to bring a 'vault' of new games to PlayStation VR2 including Drop Dead: The Cabin, and a new funding initiative to build bigger and better games.

System Shock VR can be wishlisted now on Steam, PS VR2, and Quest.

A surprise trailer during today's VR Games Showcase revealed that Flat2VR Studios and Squanch Games are bringing High On Life VR to headsets in 2027.

The trailer offers an in-depth look at what to expect from High On Life VR, including some behind-the-scenes moments with the game's developers, who explain the major overhauls that bringing some of the game's systems to VR has demanded. These include overhauls to the shop interactions, character beats around the city, as well as physical reload mechanics for the game's highly unique weaponry.

Check out the full trailer below.

Originally released in 2022, High On Life is an irreverent take on the FPS genre in which you join forces with a roster of hilarious talking guns to blast your way through a galaxy of alien invaders.

High On Life currently holds a Very Positive rating on Steam based on over 14,000 user reviews.

High On Life VR is expected to arrive in 2027. You can wishlist the game now for Meta Quest, PlayStation VR2, and on PC via SteamVR.

The announcement came at today's VR Games Showcase with a new gameplay trailer. Playtests start on August 20.

Here's the new trailer:

In Aces High, you and up to three friends take on the roles of The Aces, a group of highly skilled thieves framed by business titan Warren Jupiter. The Aces decide to seek revenge by looting locations tied to his business: banks, museums, and even his personal penthouse. Heists are always attempted in groups of four, with AI companions filling in any gaps on the team.

The game is slated to release later in 2026 and developer Fast Travel Games (Vampire: The Masquerade - Justice, Apex Construct) has already committed to a new post-release heist location as a free update before the end of the year.

Payday: Aces High can be wishlisted for Steam and Quest 3 headsets.

The release date was confirmed at today's VR Games Showcase alongside a new trailer showcasing never-before-seen gameplay footage:

We went hands on with an early build of the game, saying "you can feel the love for this game, this world, and what it means to the team behind it in all the subtle details in the town and world, the care and refinement in card art for weapons and abilities and in the art in the town, and how much it means."

Another round of playtests kicks off today and runs through August 16. Character Bank launched a successful Kickstarter campaign earlier this year, raising over 3.6M yen against a 1.5M yen goal, roughly $22,600 versus $9,400.

Knights of Fiona can be wishlisted now on the Meta Horizon Store and Steam. 

Spirit Ritual is a supernatural horror game, played in either mixed reality or virtual reality, in which you play as a psychic medium attempting to break a demonic curse. You'll use hand-tracking controls to conjure a spirit board to enter the spirit realm and equip your old-timey spirit camera to capture ghosts.

The game was announced via a trailer as part of today's VR Games Showcase.

Some of the more interesting features seen in the game's trailer include 3D FMV (full motion video) performances by real-life actors. We've seen this sort of presentation used to great and terrible effect at various times over the past thirty-odd years of gaming. Here, thankfully, it looks well-done and quite terrifying.

The game's native presentation is in mixed-reality, a mode which has "ghosts manifesting inside your own home," according to the developer. However there is also an optional virtual reality mode for users who prefer it.

Spirit Ritual is coming to PICO 4, SteamVR, and Meta Quest. A release date for this spooky Fatal Frame-like has not yet been revealed.

As part of today's VR Games Showcase, Triangle Factory and Triangle Labs have announced a new social hide-and-seek game called Grablings: Paint 'N Seek.

In Grablings: Paint 'N Seek, you play as the titular Grablings, creatures which the game's developers describe as "interdimensional creatures who live for mischief and chaos."

Essentially, you'll play silly games of hide and seek. Hiders paint themselves into wacky environments to avoid being found while the seekers aim to win by finding all the hidden Grablings.

A new trailer has been revealed which shows a sneak peek at Grablings' chaotic social gameplay.

The game comes from Triangle Labs, Triangle Factory's new label. The parent company is best known for its VR FPS Forefront and Breachers. The studio has also recently announced Breachers: Outbreak, a zombie-themed extraction shooter.

Grablings: Paint 'N Seek is coming to Meta Quest sometime this summer.