Dungeons of Eternity turns three years old in a few days (October 5) and across all the various updates adding new weapons, enemies, limited-time events and expansions to the outposts, the three dungeon types have always been the constant. Collect souls to craft potions in green Soul Harvest dungeons. Build exo-points to unlock perks in blue Crystal Hunt dungeons. Pick up new weapons, armor, cosmetics, and other loot in the red Dungeon Raids.

Developer Othergate has offset this with new room designs, but the core objectives have really never changed. In that respect, the new Tomb Extraction mode is a breath of fresh air. Most of this article will focus on the new mode, but the update also added a lot of quality-of-life features you can read about here.

A new area of the main outpost introduces the rune system that generates your extraction dungeon. You enter a sequence of runes to determine the layout, loot, and difficulty for the run. The biggest change in extraction runs is your loadout, or rather, the lack of one. Tomb extractions are naked runs, with all of your inventory and weapon slots emptied out. Upon loading in, you enter a room with the five weapons available to you:

• The Crypt Keeper's Staff shoots out an orb of light that illuminates crystals to light the dark dungeons. Orbs can also be exploded by pressing the trigger for an effective AOE attack.
• The Tomb Breaker Hammer is needed to smash sealed tombs open for loot and is very useful against armored enemies.
• The Gravelight Bow also illuminates crystal lights and explodes on impact.
• The Necromancer Staff will charm an enemy, giving you an extra ally to fight with.
• Skull Daggers can be found throughout the tomb and are all-around weapons for combat.

This is a welcome change of pace and challenge compared to the other three dungeons, but it comes with two side effects. First, solo runs force you to pick up the bow or staff unless you want the extra challenge of feeling your way through an eerily pitch black map. I did this once and did not care for it. Also, unless you have unlocked a second shoulder slot or care to brave the darkness, you cannot also take the hammer to bust open sealed tombs and thus miss out on the loot contained within. For this reason alone, Tomb Extraction is significantly more enjoyable with a friend or three, more so than any other dungeon type except maybe Soul Harvest. Having most or all of the new weapons in the party makes for a more satisfying run.

Second, being limited to five weapons also restricts the combat. Exploding enemies with the orb staff was a lot of fun, but by my fifth run (two in co-op, three solo), it already started to wear thin with the daggers and hammer being the primary melee weapons. The enemy variety is pretty basic, mostly sticking to skeletons and the lone new enemy, the Crypt Guard. The guard is easily dispatched with daggers or the hammer, but DoE's signature breezy combat, excellent music, and sound design remain satisfying and fun.

The other new element of Tomb Extraction is the loot. You have two new slots, a ring for each hand. There are over thirty rings to be found in Tomb Extraction, each with their own perks to further expand DoE's already extensive player customization system. Rings can only be acquired in Tomb Extraction, offering a reason to grind this dungeon type, especially for tenured players who have most or all of everything else in the game unlocked. Also, it felt like extraction-run chests were more lucrative, with higher gold amounts than others. This might have just been my perception though.

You start with a handful of runes unlocked for dungeon generation. To get more and open up more extraction options, you have to complete Dungeon Raids (the red dungeons) and locate four runic blocks to insert into a special chest. Unlocking this chest gives a new rune type and a gem that must be inserted to activate the extraction run. These gems can be purchased in the outpost shop, but new runes can only be acquired from red dungeons. It's a smart, well-designed loop that gives new and old players a reason to run two dungeon types more often.

Dungeons of Eternity Tomb Extraction - The Final Verdict

A new dungeon type has felt long overdue for Dungeons of Eternity and the added wrinkles of player-driven tomb generation, naked runs, and lighting requirements make Tomb Extraction a fun change-up to the rest of the game. Tying Tomb Extraction to Dungeon Raid was a savvy decision to extend the longevity of the new content in the three-year-old roguelite overall. If you have not been back in Dungeons of Eternity for some time, Tomb Extraction is worth diving back in for.

Made by the developers of Human Fall Flat, Tiny Flock's cuteness is balanced by a fair challenge, and its clever, open-ended physics-based puzzles make the solution to each stage a joy to discover. It's the sort of game that's easy to jump into, difficult to stop playing, and almost impossible not to enjoy. By the time I reached the end, I was disappointed by just one thing: I wanted more.

Tiny Flock is a cute and cozy physics-based puzzle game that puts you in charge of a wayward flock of sheep. Across 21 gorgeous, themed diorama stages, your job is to guide your flock from its starting position to a small, lush pasture at the endpoint of the stage.

Between your flock and the delicious, grass-rich pasture that they so desperately crave is a veritable wilderness of obstacles to overcome. In the silly world of Tiny Flock, these obstacles might be as simple as a collapsed bridge or as outlandish as a broken-down sci-fi cargo train stationed to make deliveries to a lunar hydroponic garden.

These sheep get around.

Across the game's 21 stages, your sheep clomp their floppy hooves in the watery canals of Venice, the campgrounds of the California wilderness, across farmlands and shipping ports, in the sands of the Egyptian pyramids and the rocky shores of a lightkeeper's island, and many more themed locales. This variety is a big part of the fun, with each diorama unlocking after you've solved the previous puzzle, and each acting as its own little toy set packed with things to poke, prod, and explore.

Each stage is lovingly crafted, rich in detail, and alive with subtle touches. Most of them also contain optional collectables or hidden Easter eggs which completionists will enjoy discovering. For example, the back side of one stage revealed a hidden door, locked behind an unusual mechanism. A hidden coin discovered elsewhere in the stage could be dropped into a hidden slot, unlocking the door and revealing a cute, little good fortune cat.

There's no reason for these types of inclusions, except that the game designer(s) wanted to reward players' curiosity with delightful interactions. I appreciate it.

What's most remarkable about Tiny Flock, from a higher perspective, is that there's no right way to play it. The game's many mobility puzzles can be solved in several different ways, though some solutions will be easier or more obvious than others. But on the whole, you're simply given a goal and a collection of manipulatable objects and environments, and then left to sort out how to get your woolly friends from one place to another.

As a result of this open-endedness, and on account of the game's simply exceptional design, the total difficulty level is well-balanced. Some stages are breezy, while others make you stop and think. Importantly, no individual stage hassled me unfairly, and each was solvable by both me, a seasoned veteran of other mobility puzzlers like Echochrome and Crush (nobody remembers this one, right?), and my young daughters (who adore this game).

And this is a really important point. Tiny Flock is the sort of puzzle game that works for experienced players without making less experienced players feel like they're constantly being punished for not understanding how video games work, or how a game designer intended their game to be played. Sometimes the obvious answer comes immediately. Other times, you'll discover a solution that feels as though it shouldn't work, but somehow does. And because you're working with a tiny flock of unbearably cute fluffballs, watching the would-be solutions play out in real time is as fun and rewarding as completing a stage.

Presentation is wonderful, with each stage being a colorful little 3D diorama that you can reach out and touch. The scale works particularly well in headset, where leaning close to examine a stage (or simply pet your cute sheep), looking around or inside a building, and spotting details tucked away in its environment make each level feel like a physical toy come to life.

The sheep are a huge part of the appeal. They're expressive, floppy, and just a little bit stupid. Watching them stumble and bumble as they mindlessly chase your carrot-on-a-stick, as they bunch up around an impassable obstacle, or bleat in sprawling freefall off a cliff (how could you!) is endlessly fun. They're also, happily, invincible. Lead them into peril and they simply evaporate into a puffball, reappearing at their nearest last-occupied location, ready to try again.

Between the charming characters and the wonderful worlds they walk through, there's a constant signal broadcasting from Tiny Flock that the developers made these worlds and characters because they loved to make them. Everything feels handcrafted and made with care. The soundtrack, too, is special. A heartfelt cello weaves a blanket of sound, richly accompanying the game's cozy feel.

A couple hours into my playthrough, I had the revelation that Tiny Flock is simply a nice place to be.

The ability to switch between mixed reality and virtual reality modes simply by flicking a toggle switch in the pause menu is not unique in today’s VR landscape, but it’s as welcome here as anywhere.

When playing the game with my daughters (with one of the three of us playing and the rest watching via Meta’s phone app), we played in mixed reality mode. It’s a great way to make this single-player game a more communal experience. When playing by myself, I switched to the virtual environments, which are essentially skyboxes in which you and the diorama worlds float. Good stuff.

Tiny Flock Review - Final Verdict

There's a simplicity to Tiny Flock that's deceptive on multiple levels. To start, I am sure this game was not simple to make. Designing the diorama stages so that they're fundamentally functional, designing the sheep intelligence so that they do what they're supposed to, and imbuing the characters and environments with so much charm and whimsy as the developers have done must have been incredibly difficult.

But they did it.

Tiny Flock is a wonderful game, a fun and funny game full of perfectly balanced puzzles that make you want to keep playing just one more stage until you've finished the whole lot. Once that's done, you'll want to run through your favorites again and again.

It's an easy game to recommend to households with more than one generation of game enjoyers, too. And I challenge anyone not to fall in love with these cute, little sheep. Tiny Flock, we love ewe.

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

On the same day that Walkabout Mini Golf's next DLC course was announced, Lucas Martell released a statement on LinkedIn about Mighty Coconut's latest downsizing.

Here is the statement in full:

This is an incredibly hard message to write, but I want to continue to be transparent with the Walkabout community. Due to the current state of the games industry and especially VR, Mighty Coconut will need to downsize, and over the next several months we will be saying goodbye to 10 talented people who have helped make Walkabout what it is.

For anyone who has been following the games industry, VR in particular is going through a very rough time. I am confident that VR will continue to be an amazing medium, but it is going through a massive and rapid shift as funding, hardware and press attention have largely been diverted elsewhere. While we already downsized last January, I failed to anticipate just how rapidly and deeply this trajectory would continue. The amazing courses and worlds created by our talented team have allowed us to fare better than many studios who have had to close completely, but without a steady stream of new players coming into VR and Walkabout, the scale at which we've been operating is no longer sustainable.

For our fans, I just want to continue to reassure you that Walkabout isn’t going anywhere. We will continue to release courses, although these might be a little less often due to the reduced team size that returns us to the small and scrappy way we started. We also plan to continue work on Walkabout Dungeon Golfer and Grass as new games are the best way to diversify our revenue stream and stabilize things. While incredibly painful, this is the only course of action that allows us to keep the game alive, the servers active, and hold on to as much of our team as possible.

For anyone in the game industry looking to hire some of the best people around, we are putting together a reverse-recruiting list with several talented individuals who are looking for an opportunity. You won’t be disappointed.

https://lnkd.in/gsiyX228

The company cut twenty-five percent of its staff at the beginning of this year and raised the price of its paid DLC courses one dollar from $3.99 to $4.99. The standout tidbit in Martell's statement for me is "without a steady stream of new players coming into VR and Walkabout, the scale at which we've been operating is no longer sustainable." Mighty Coconut already reduced its number of DLC course releases to six this year, though we did get the Homestar Runner Pack this summer as a bonus add-on out of said course schedule.

Walkabout Mini Golf Studio Course Corrects With Layoffs, $1 More For Future DLC

Walkabout Mini Golf laid off some workers and announced a price increase for future DLC.

UploadVRIan Hamilton

That said, every game studio can see metrics like new user counts, concurrent players, purchasing trends, and so on. If these are on the decline, even for games like Walkabout that have recurring revenue in the form of regular DLC, decisions like this are sadly inevitable. Walkabout has already seen an expansion of its paid content with avatar packs, hole celebrations, and ball trails in conjunction with the new courses to increase the potential revenue per player. This is a savvy, shrewd business move in the face of declining numbers, but based on today's news, it is not enough to offset the decline we are seeing in VR and gaming as a whole. A decline that has seen other layoffs and studio closures dating back several years now.

Martell also says that the staff reduction may lead to a slower cadence of DLC course releases. Martell and other Mighty Coconut staff have told us that the course schedule was already set through 2027 prior to today's layoffs. Work will also continue on the spinoff Walkabout Dungeon Golfer and the team's work to help ship flatscreen lawn mowing simulator Grass.

If you're unfamiliar with the idea of an AI agent, it differs from a simple chatbot in that it can take actions, not just provide a response.

Meta launched Muse, its AI agent, earlier this month on smartphones and the web in the US, and it quickly rose up to the top of iPhone App Store downloads, with strong reviews from both journalists and regular users.

Powered by its Muse Spark AI model, Meta says the agent runs on a private persistent Linux virtual machine in the cloud, with its own web browser, filesystem, and terminal that continue to run regardless of whether your app is open. To achieve your goals, Muse can decide to write and run code, delegate work to multiple subagents, and create scheduled jobs. Muse can also produce documents, PDFs, websites and interactive tools such as spending trackers or dashboards.

Compared to other AI agents that primarily target developers and professionals, Muse is highly consumer-oriented, with a simplified instant messaging style interface and a friendly avatar character, alongside marketing focused on solving tasks related to daily life.

Meta says Muse can book travel, send emails, fill out forms and purchase products through websites. Meta also describes more involved tasks, such as negotiating a bill or helping sell a car, and it can even make phone calls.

To make payments, Muse uses Stripe’s Link, which provides virtual single-use per-payment cards so that the AI never sees your personal card or bank details. Meta says Shop Pay and 1Password support are coming.

For smart glasses specifically, Meta gives examples including booking appointments, checking flight prices, finding replacement parts, logging meals, providing workout guidance and helping buy products the wearer sees. You'll activate Muse by saying "Hey Muse", or the name of your Muse, and then making a request. It will then work in the background and check back when the task is finished.

Meta says it doesn't use Muse data for advertising, though will use it to train future models unless you opt out. Muse's current cloud Linux VM is isolated, but Meta can still access it if it wants. The company says it will launch a Confidential VM option later this year, which even it won't be able to access.

As for when Muse will arrive on smart glasses, Meta officially states "in the coming months", though on-stage at Connect 2026, Mark Zuckerberg said "in the coming weeks", while CTO Andrew Bosworth separately said "soon".

Mighty Coconut announced the new course on its social media channels with the following description:

Respond to a distress beacon on Planet Xylodon, a world lush with some of the most beautiful (and strange) plant life ever seen by humankind.

Given the time of year, the alien world setting may lend itself to some darker elements like in October 2025's Forgotten Fairyland and 2023's Widow's Walkabout.

The developer has not released a trailer for the course yet. We will update this article when that happens. We are currently getting a course walkthrough and interview scheduled with some of the Mighty Coconut team, as we do for all of Walkabout's new DLC. Look for that next week when the course releases. You can check out our interview covering August's Gloop Lair DLC course here.

Behind The Scenes Of Gloop Lair, Walkabout Mini Golf’s Love Letter to the 90s

Mighty Coconut took us behind the scenes of Gloop Lair, its newest Walkabout Mini Golf course that is an homage to the 90s.

UploadVRMike Johnson

Walkabout Mini Golf is available on Steam, PSVR2, Quest, Pico, and Samsung Galaxy XR. The game is also available as part of Meta's Horizon+ subscription service. Escape from Planet Xylodon releases on October 8 for all VR platforms.

What's most impressive is that the entire experience was developed by a lone developer, Aaron Cryderman, who spent most of his career at BlackBerry working with data. After a career shift that left him with more free time, he decided to follow his interests in digital music creation, photography, meditation, and space art, and combine them into a singular project. Additionally, Cryderman wanted to satisfy his desire to experience space travel after realizing the possibility of experiencing it for real was unlikely.

He taught himself Unity over several months and started working on Solara One as a passion project, finally releasing the app on Meta Quest in May 2024.

Since launch, he's updated the experience several times, both with new content and with performance and visual enhancements.

Solara One combines relaxing meditation, awe-inspiring space views, and sci-fi environments, while employing clever physics and haptics to enhance immersion. The beautiful visuals are accompanied by music that heightens the sense of awe you feel in space, providing a deeper ambient undertone.

Cue The Holodeck

Cryderman released the Arboretum update to Solara One in early September, adding a Holodeck-like experience to the app. You enter an empty, grid-defined space at first, and are presented with two choices: a lightly gamified "Quest" mode and a free-play "Explore" mode. Make your selection, and the Arboretum loads in. You find yourself in a forest environment, with a large Buddha statue, glowing crystals, and the same mood-setting ambient music.

I won't give away too many details of the Quest mode, but there are orbs and butterflies. The experience pays off with a special celebration that is memorable and surprisingly emotional.

The Arboretum was not originally in Cryderman's road map for Solara One. However, he was thinking often about the day-to-day reality of living in outer space, and how humans would eventually yearn for a more earthly environment, if even for a little while. And of course, Star Trek's Holodeck provided inspiration to the idea.

Once Cryderman had his environmental assets optimized to run smoothly on Quest, he had another challenge to solve: what would a user actually do in a forest? How would users achieve an awe-filled meditative experience in a forest environment, as opposed to floating in outer space above a rotating planet?

A Butterfly Flaps Its Wings In Space

The butterflies that inhabit the forest environment serve more than just a visual purpose.

Cryderman explained to me that he wanted the butterflies to help induce a meditative state similar to sitting around a campfire, staring at the flames.

He explains, “If you're sitting around a campfire, you're just sitting there and you're mesmerized by the fire movement...you go into a naturally meditative state, but it's effortless.”

He continued, “The butterflies were kind of like...the campfire part where that's the thing that moves and kind of draws you in and focuses your attention a bit."

In the forest the butterflies provide flashes of color against the dark night and become almost hypnotic as you follow them with your eyes.

Adding A Game To Solara One

"My target for my game, my experience, is gamers who are looking to kind of relax and chill out in outer space.", Cryderman told me. Adding a gamified mode was something he realized would be popular with his core audience and would add something new to the Solara One experience. He also chose to leave a clear way for a user to simply relax in the Arboretum if that's their preference.

In my time playing both the Quest and Explore modes, I found the overall experience to be tranquil and a welcome respite from the dark beyond of outer space that surrounds you in the other areas of the app. Quest mode keeps you busy, and the pay-off at the end is worth the effort. The forest has enough nooks and hidden areas to keep it interesting as a chill-out experience. I would love the ability to explore the upper levels and go farther afield.

The Arboretum update provides another compelling reason for users to return to Solara One frequently. Few VR experiences deliver across so many fronts: crisp visuals, sound design, haptics and mechanics, UI design, and more. In my opinion, Solara One delivers across them all, and remains one of my most-recommended VR apps.

Solara One is available on Meta Quest.

For realistic truck sims, PC VR players have had the well-regarded American Truck Simulator and Euro Truck Simulator 2 available with VR support for years while standalone VR users have been more limited in their choices. Carbon Studio (The Wizards) is aiming to change that.

Here's the trailer:

Carbon says the game offers a detailed trucking experience with over twenty-five hours of gameplay. Instead of simply driving between two points, you'll be responsible for cleaning, servicing, and refueling your truck while accepting jobs from different companies to build up your business. There are six different American and European trucks to choose from, each with different handling and physics, and over 350 items to customize the look and make it your own. Each truck also has an interactive cockpit, including a radio with multiple stations.

The map is inspired by the state of Arizona and is broken up into twelve regions and three biomes with dynamic weather and seasons changing road conditions as you drive. New regions can be unlocked by completing jobs, earning new licenses, and continuing to build your business. As you progress, you can hire NPC drivers to take on additional work, buy new trucks, and expand your headquarters. From appearances, it aims to be the type of slice-of-life simulator that has been successful on PC for years.

Arizona Truck Driver is expected to launch in Early Access on Quest in October and can be wishlisted here. A Steam release is planned for a later date.

The experience is from Tender Claws, the award-winning studio behind projects like Stranger Things VR, Face Jumping, The Under Presents: Tempest, Virtual Virtual Reality and more. They are often celebrated for how they leverage the unique features of XR hardware to immerse audiences into story worlds, like with eye tracking to swap character perspectives, and interactive live theatre. This is their first time developing an experience that uses AI glasses.

Winner of the SXSW 2026 XR Experience Jury Award and official selection of TIFF: The Market 2026, Body Proxy is worth highlighting because of its incredibly unique and engaging approach to using Ray-Ban Meta glasses for an entertainment experience. Danny Cannizzaro, who co-founded the studio and co-directed Body Proxy with Samantha Gorman, shares that there are “versions of Body Proxy” being developed for “free-roaming across a variety of spaces” with plans to tour it at more events this and next year.

How AI Glasses Turn Your Reality Into Part Of The Immersive Experience

The AI agents in the game monitor how tasks are being completed through the Ray-Ban Meta glasses being worn by the players. Through the glasses, the system watches, speaks and listens to players throughout the experience. They can make sense of and judge what is happening in the real world. Because of this, the real world space, with physical objects that can be used to try to complete some of the tasks, becomes a part of the story. The features of the Ray-Ban Meta glasses create the bridge between the story and the physical space, transitioning players into the reality of the Body Proxy world but without any sort of digital visual immersion. It is like a form of mixed reality where just the physical space and objects are real, but the experience is driven by the story and immersion through its understanding of what players are doing and the mutual ability to see, speak and listen.

Onlookers can watch players attempt tasks and try to guess which they are attempting based on the list of challenges on a physical screen in the space. The screen includes elements like their digital avatar, and how well they are performing as well.

Tender Claws is used to leaning into available hardware features to create new experiences. Not being VR, Cannizzaro explains that they looked to immersive theatre as inspiration when designing the Ray-Ban Meta experience. “Something like Sleep No More is highly immersive with minimal technology. We’ve framed Body Proxy as a kind of narrative recruiting and onboarding process for this fictional company ... Everything the user does happens within the context of this narrative experience, in which they take on a role and become part of the story…You are still completely interacting with a digital system, but for a large part of the experience there is no screen at all.”

Challenges That Reward Natural Human Creativity

What I love most about Body Proxy is how the experience requires your character to reject any preconceived notions of how one should act and be as playful as possible in order to succeed. Human creativity under pressure is rewarded. There are no options for typical day-to-day actions that have a high probability of being correct. This feels like a nice nod to the value we bring to collaborating with AI agents. The random, unserious challenges also make the experience feel fun instead of too close to where we may be headed.

In the current version of Body Proxy, there are around 100 unusual randomized tasks and variations of them, and a large selection of peculiar physical objects for players to choose and interact with to try to get the AI to accept as many tasks as possible. Often, the objects are switched up between locations where Body Proxy is available.

“One of the joys of watching lots of people play Body Proxy is seeing the creative and innovative ways they approach the same task” shares Producer J Noland. “You may see the same task completed dozens of times over the course of a festival, and then someone approaches it in a completely new and surprising way.”

Proving Your Value To AI Is A Fun, Replayable Spectator Sport (For Now)

Proving your value to AI may seem like a reality in our not-so-distant future, but the playfulness of Body Proxy, its simple onboarding, clear challenge, unique format and wide range of tasks made this something that I caught many people trying to replay. Plus, the players and their choices become the entertainment for others. Cannizzaro shares that the “installation itself has a vaguely Taskmaster, game-show-esque vibe to it that always attracts a crowd.” There is intrigue in what each player will attempt and how. Both the player and audience get to view an entertaining generated video report at the end of each playthrough that analyzes performance and what the performance says about each proxy.

Unlocking New Immersive Experiences With Smart Glasses

There are different versions of Body Proxy in development, including “versions of the project running off phones and webcams as well.” shares Cannizzaro. Tasks in the current version are human-generated in advance, but a “roaming version of this project that takes place in a less controlled environment could incorporate a step where we have AI generate tasks based on the objects it sees around you.” 

I hope that this experience inspires more game content for smart glasses. Story IP across genres could benefit from Tender Claws’ location-based entertainment concept.

Liminal: Walking Meditation is a new experience for Meta AI glasses which uses the camera to capture images as you walk and provides a spoken meditation experience based on what you see, in close to real time. The required smartphone app is slated for release in October on both iOS and Android.

The app is an example of what developers can build using Meta's Device Access Toolkit, which was just demonstrated during the Developer State of the Union at Meta Connect 2026.

I have been trying a prerelease version with my Ray-Ban Meta glasses ahead of Connect. After taking it for a walk around my neighborhood, I found that it feels quite different from simply listening to a meditation recording.

Your Surroundings Become Part Of The Meditation

To begin a Walking Meditation you launch the smartphone app which needs to be paired to your Meta AI glasses during the setup process, and select the theme, voice, and pacing that you would like. Once the walk begins you can pocket your phone and continue hands-free, listening through your glasses while the app uses images to describe what is around you and contextualize it for the meditation session.

On my first walk, I deliberately went outside at night to see how well it could make sense of a darker environment. At one point, it referred to my car sitting nearby and described it in the context of the scenery around me. Even though its vision was limited, it managed to call out details like the "amber streetlights" shining against the darkness.

Liminal co-founder and CEO Damian Moratti told me the company approached smartglasses by asking what they could actually add to the experience.

Moratti said Liminal has always used VR to create strong emotional responses through immersion. Smartglasses gave the team a chance to apply some of that thinking while keeping people engaged with the real world as well.

At launch the app will include twelve meditation themes. In my testing I utilized Presence, Wonder, and Gratitude. Each is guided differently to focus your thoughts in different ways. There are also eight voice and three pacing options.

Pacing does more than change the amount of silence between spoken sections. Liminal CTO Tin Nguyen told me the team is using the setting to shape how much narration you hear and the overall length of the experience. The shortest walks are expected to last around 10 to 13 minutes.

Deciding What Is Worth Talking About

It sounds simple enough, until you start thinking about everything a pair of glasses can see, even during a short walk.

A tree or a statue might be interesting. The garbage cans you have passed every Tuesday for the last ten years probably are not.

Moratti says figuring out that logic has become a major part of Liminal's testing.

During testing, an early version mentioned the garbage cans around eight times. Another noticed a glowing sign inside the window of an adult store and built an unintentionally enthusiastic narrative around it.

As funny as those examples are, they also show how difficult the problem is.

Nguyen says the app isn't constantly shooting and analyzing images. Instead, it periodically takes a look at the current scene as the walk progresses. In his description, it is more like single moments in time rather than a continuous photo stream.

In my testing the narration was very close to real time, with the app focusing on an object such as a particular tree as I would come up to it and pass by. It also would comment on the way the grass met the pavement or the bright sun against the blue sky. Somewhat general in certain ways, but also correctly observed.

The narration was separated by generous moments of silence, so I wasn't overwhelmed by a constant string of prompts. That also made the impact hit harder when a narration did arrive.

What Happens To The Images?

The obvious question with an app that repeatedly looks at your surroundings is where those images go.

Liminal says images captured for Walking Meditation use zero data retention. According to Nguyen, when the app needs context from the environment, an image from the glasses is sent through the phone for AI processing. Liminal is currently using Google Gemini for that processing with zero data retention enabled. Once the response is generated, the image is discarded.

The app also does not request access to the microphone, something Moratti said was a deliberate privacy decision. Users don't have to worry about their conversations being recorded or used a prompts for the meditation.

What About Safety?

Liminal says that the Walking Meditation app will not provide any navigation or route guidance, and that they purposely designed the experience to focus the user on what they see in their surroundings.

Moratti said that they considered whether to develop the ability alert the user to potential hazards, but the difficulty in building that reliably convinced them that the correct choice is to avoid navigation altogether, at least for now.

Liminal Is Moving Beyond The Headset

Walking Meditation is separate from the existing Liminal VR app on Meta Quest, but Moratti sees the two products as complementary, with the VR app providing escape from the real world, while Walking Meditation is built to focus attention on the real world as you walk through it.

I have listened to plenty of guided meditation through headphones, and this does feel different. The environment around you becomes part of the experience.

Adding wellness and meditation capability goes a long way toward improving the practical usefulness of Meta AI glasses. In my brief time testing the experience, I've found it pleasant and effective enough that I plan on continuing with it once it is fully released.

Launching in October

Liminal: Walking Meditation is planned to launch on iOS and Android in October for compatible Meta AI glasses. It will cost $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year, which includes 30 contextual walks per month, and unlimited access to offline scripted versions of each theme.

Announced at Meta Connect 2026, Ray-Ban Meta Audio are Meta's first smart glasses without a camera. Otherwise, they have the same functionality, offering Meta AI queries, listening to music, audiobooks, and podcasts, and taking calls.

Ray-Ban Meta Audio is available in two styles, Burbank and Clubmaster. Burbank looks a lot like the typical Wayfarer Ray-Ban Meta glasses but without the camera and LED, while Clubmaster is unlike any of Meta's other smart glasses.

The Clubmaster Ray-Ban Meta Audio is Meta's lightest smart glasses offering yet, at 43 grams for the standard size, while the Burbank takes second place at 47 grams.

The device comes after a widespread public backlash to the idea of smart glasses with a camera, driven by the nefarious use of the products by sleazy influencers and perverts recording people without their permission.

Of course, the vast majority of smart glasses owners do not use the devices for this, and a tool is not defined by its worst use. A knife can be used to prepare a delicious meal or kill someone. A fire can be used to warm a cave or burn down a forest. Further, Meta has been releasing firmware updates to make tampering with the recording LED more difficult, and running a PR campaign to inform the public that the LED exists in the first place.

Meta Is Improving Its Smart Glasses Privacy LED Tampering Detection

Meta says it’s improving the ability of its smart glasses to detect if the privacy LED has been tampered with and disable the camera, via a mandatory firmware update.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

But the growing association with wrongdoing will put some potential buyers off the idea of smart glasses with a camera entirely, and Ray-Ban Meta Audio can target this market.

Despite this, Meta told UploadVR that Ray-Ban Meta Audio has been in development for years, and that its development wasn't driven by the public backlash.

Ray-Ban Meta Audio is available to preorder for $349, and ships from October 13.

Online Ordering & International Expansion

When launching Meta-Ray-Ban Display at Connect 2025 last year, Meta originally said that the HUD glasses would come to the UK, France, Italy, and Canada in early 2026. But following "unprecedented demand and limited inventory", back in January, the company announced it was pausing that plan.

To buy the product, you also needed to secure a demo spot at select physical retail stores, at which an attendant would measure your wrist size to get the optimal Meta Neural Band size, as well as tailor your order to your prescription.

Meta Ray-Ban Display Sells Out As Early Adopters Struggle To Buy

Meta Ray-Ban Display is now sold out in almost every store it was available in. Restocks are “coming”, Meta says, and the company is doubling the number of stores offering the glasses.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

Now, Meta-Ray-Ban Display can be purchased online without a store demo, and it's also available both online and in select stores in the UK and Canada.

It will also be available to buy in France, Italy & Germany on October 13.

In the UK it starts at £749, in Canada at CA$1149, and in Europe €899.

Select stores in London, Vancouver, Toronto, Paris, Milan, Rome, Frankfurt, Hamburg, and Munich will offer in-store demos for prospective buyers.

Major Navigation Improvements

Meta is making the voice of the navigation feature on Meta-Ray-Ban Display far more natural. It will reference the world in front of you instead of robotic street names, for example “turn left at the yellow house ahead”, instead of “turn left at Third Street.”

It's also adding two new navigation types, cycling and public transport, in addition to the current on-foot navigation.

However, Meta's navigation feature remains only available in select cities, a major limitation compared to Snap Specs and the upcoming Samsung HUD glasses powered by Google's software.

Selective Phone Notifications

At launch, Meta Ray-Ban Display could not mirror your phone notifications at all, something we harshly criticized in our review. It would show notifications for built-in applets and features like your text messages, WhatsApp, and Messenger, but not for your other phone apps.

A few months ago, Meta added an optional phone notification mirroring feature. But this was arguably even worse, as it shows all notifications, with no customization.

Now, Meta says you'll be able to "control your notifications and choose the ones you want to turn off".

Third-Party App Explorer

Earlier this year, Meta rolled out the ability to develop visual web apps for Meta Ray-Ban Display, controlled by Meta Neural Band, and developers have already built amazing things.

But discovering these web apps requires following the right developers on social media or knowing about the best third-party aggregators.

Developers Are Building Impressive Apps For Meta Ray-Ban Display’s HUD & Neural Band

Meta rolled out the ability to develop visual apps for Meta Ray-Ban Display, controlled by Meta Neural Band, and developers are already building interesting things.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

To make web apps for Meta Ray-Ban Display discoverable, "later this year" Meta is adding an Explore app on the glasses, which will surface and recommend what the company considers to be the best experiences to try out.

Eventually, it's possible that this could expand to become a full-fledged app store, but Meta hasn't said anything about that.

'Hologram' Avatars

Currently, when taking video calls on Meta Ray-Ban Display, the other person sees either nothing or your first-person view, if you choose to share it.

Later this year, Meta says it will roll out its new Hologram realistic avatar to US Meta Ray-Ban Display owners enrolled in the Early Access program, for use in WhatsApp video calls.

Hologram: Meta Is Finally Set To Ship Realistic Avatars, And We Tried Them

Meta finally set a concrete timeline to ship realistic avatars, shoulders-up on Meta Ray-Ban Display and then full-body on Meta VR Glasses. We briefly tried both at Connect.

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You set up your Hologram by scanning your face and providing a minute or so of sample speech to the Meta AI app. Then, once your Hologram is set up, when you make or receive a WhatsApp video call on Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses, the other person will see this synthetic version of you, with its facial expressions entirely derived from the device's microphones.

You can find more details about Hologram, including our hands-on impressions, in our full Hologram coverage here.

Calendar App On Display

Meta is adding a dedicated Calendar app to Meta Ray-Ban Display, which will let you "see who’s attending a meeting, accept or decline invites, and join meetings, all from your glasses".

It expands on the calendar integration Meta first launched for its displayless glasses last year.

Meta AI On The Ray-Ban Glasses Can Now Access Your Calendar

Meta AI on Ray-Ban and Oakley smart glasses can now access and add events to your Google Calendar and Outlook Calendar.

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For now, the Calendar app on Meta Ray-Ban Display will only be available in the US.

Meta VR Start, previously called Meta Horizon Start and originally Oculus Start, is a program run by Meta that gives VR/MR developers direct access to Meta developer relations staff as well as a community Discord and "exclusive Meta events, advanced technical education, community mentorship, software credits, go-to-market guidance, and more."

The most recent competition was in late 2025 and focused on entertainment, lifestyle, and gaming apps.

Meta Launches $1.5 Million Competition For New Quest Apps & Significant Updates

Meta just launched a developer competition that will award new Quest apps and “significant” updates a total of $1.5 million in 32 prizes of up to $100,000.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

Now, as announced during the Meta Connect 2026 Developer State of the Union, the company is running a new competition for developers to build, adapt, or significantly update Quest and VR Glasses apps across entertainment, gaming, and productivity, with a focus on "hands-first apps that make interaction more natural and gameplay more intuitive than ever before."

The "Hard Requirements" are as follows:

• Hands-first: Your experience must be fully usable with hands, end-to-end. Controller support is welcome, but not required. The test is simple: can someone complete the entire experience without ever pairing a controller?
• Policy Compliance: Your experience must adhere to all relevant Meta VR/Start policies and terms (i.e., Meta VR Start Program Terms, Community Standards, Code of Conduct in VR Policy, Developer App Policies, Developer Content Guidelines, and all other Developer Policies).

Here is the list of awards and prizes:

• Best New Gaming Experience
  • $100,000 Winner
  • $50,000 Runner-up
• Best New Entertainment Experience
  • $100,000 Winner
  • $50,000 Runner-up
• Best New Productivity Experience
  • $70,000 Winner
  • $35,000 Runner-up
• Best Adapted / Significantly Updated Gaming Experience
  • $100,000 Winner
  • $50,000 Runner-up
• Best Adapted / Significantly Updated Entertainment Experience
  • $100,000 Winner
  • $50,000 Runner-up
• Best Adapted / Significantly Updated Productivity Experience
  • $70,000 Winner
  • $35,000 Runner-up
• Best Social & Multiplayer Experience
  • $25,000 Winner
• Best Reason to Come Back
  • $25,000 Winner
• Best Accessibility Forward Experience
  • $25,000 Winner
• Best Agentic Interaction
  • $25,000 Winner
• Best First Five Minutes
  • $25,000 Winner
• Boldest Original Concept
  • $25,000 Winner
• Judge's Choice
  • $20,000 each for 2 winners

Entries can be brand new or "adapted/significantly updated" apps. Meta says qualifying updates can include, but are not limited to:

"Implementing hand interactions as a new feature; adding multiplayer support; introducing a mixed reality (MR) interaction mode as a new feature; releasing a new user generated content creation tool."

The deadline for submitting a project is November 18, 2026, and interested developers can enter the competition on Devpost. If you're not already a Meta VR Start member, you'll need to apply first.

The competition comes shortly after Meta VR Glasses were announced at Connect 2026. Notably, the device does not come with controllers by default, instead focusing on Eye and Hand Tracking, with optional support for the Touch Plus controllers introduced with Quest 3 and 3S.

The device will ship in spring 2027, with a catalogue of apps and games optimized for its inputs and form factor.

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Per developer Realcast, this update was developed over the last year using player feedback and with added support from Meta, who now has a vested interest in seeing more games embrace hand tracking with the reveal of the controller-free Meta VR Glasses this week.

At the time of this article, we do not know if any of the features will be coming to the Steam version of the game.

Here's the trailer:

More Ways To Shoot

The main driver of this update is hand tracking, with the game offering improved hand tracking alongside different shooting methods to accommodate a wider swath of players.

Natural Shot is just what it sounds like. You reach out with your real hands, grab the ball, and physically shoot at the hoop. It sounds easy enough, but shooting, throwing, or otherwise ejecting an object from your hands in VR can prove tricky at times. Just Hoops accounts for this with optional assists. The scoring system rewards up to eight points per basket depending on the assists, incentivizing putting in the time to learn how to shoot well unassisted.

The assists available are as follows:

• Hand Tracking Grab Assist — pinch to grab the ball more easily.
• Controller Grab Assist — use a button to grab the ball.
• Aim Assist — helps guide shots toward the hoop.

Pointer Shot is a simpler, more relaxed method where you aim with your hand and shoot with a simple gesture (see the trailer above). This mode is more suited for casual, noncompetitive players and seated play. It awards two points per basket.

Multiplayer and Mixed Reality

You can compete against other players with online matchmaking or set up a private room for up to four players if you want to hoop with your friends.

The Trickshots mode turns your real environment into a basketball playground in mixed reality with the ability to place hoops and various obstacles around your room to create custom shots. I am dating myself here, but it gives vibes of the 90s Michael Jordan/Larry Bird "Nothing But Net" commercial.

Quality of Life & Customization Additions

The Zen Mode removes the timer to let you play at your pace, practicing shots and discovering levels in a relaxed environment without the scoring and time-limited pressure.

The 2.0 update also introduces a clearer path to unlocking new levels, series, and challenges, giving newer players more guidance and returning players new objectives.

The 2.0 update also adds a new 1970s-inspired retro environment in line with Just Hoops' arcade identity, more dynamic levels, updated tutorials, and a redesigned menu user interface.

The 2.0 update is available now for Just Hoops on Quest.

Medinah Country Club No. 3 is the latest real-world course added to GOLF+. Set twenty-five miles west of Chicago, Medinah and its gorgeous clubhouse have hosted three U.S. Opens, two PGA Championships, and a Ryder Cup. This week, it adds the Presidents Cup to its storied history.

Now VR golfers can shoot for the greens, as well.

Medinah Country Club No. 3 is available now in GOLF+ for $11.99. Players can also subscribe to the GOLF+ Pass service for $9.99 a month (or $99.99 per year) to get access to all courses.

GOLF+ is out now on Quest for $29.99 and comes with three original courses. It is also available as part of Meta's Horizon+ subscription service. It can be wishlisted on Steam now ahead of its upcoming release on that platform.

The environmental-puzzle psychological horror game drops on Quest on October 8 with a Steam launch also planned.

Here's the trailer from developer OSM Games:

In Shil, you will navigate a fractured, ever-changing world with unseen enemies built by an AI that serves as your guide. You are armed with a slingshot to fend off the invisible enemies and unlock more parts of the world as well as a magnet to assist with the puzzles.

Personally speaking, 'trippy' is the best word I would use to describe this game on paper. I love a good environmental puzzle game though, so this one I will follow up on next month with my thoughts after playing it.

Shil can be wishlisted now for Quest and Steam. It releases on Quest on October 8 for $14.99. The Steam release is unknown at the time of this article.

Developer Othergate also overhauled the game's lighting and rendering for better performance.

Here's the official trailer from Othergate:

Tomb Extraction Mode

The new Tomb Extraction mode brings the high-risk/high-reward gameplay of extraction shooters like Ghosts of Tabor to a fantasy combat setting. During Dungeon Raids, the 'red' dungeons in the run selection map, you will collect crypt runes. Those runes are used in a new crypt dialing device in the outpost to create a tomb run, determining the crypt layout and loot contained.

Tomb Extraction also introduces five new weapons:

• The Crypt Keeper's Staff shoots out an orb of light that can be exploded to help light the extremely dark dungeons.
• The Tomb Breaker Hammer can smash sealed tombs open to claim loot and is very useful against armored enemies.
• The Gravelight Bow illuminates crystal lights and explodes on impact.
• The Necromancer Staff will charm an enemy, giving you an extra ally to fight with.
• Skull Daggers can be found throughout the tomb and are all-around weapons for combat.

Finally, the Crypt Guard is a new enemy type that can hear your voice and magic. It will investigate any sounds and alert other enemies to your position.

Quality of Life & Performance Improvements

• Dungeons of Eternity is now Steam Frame verified for standalone play on Valve's new headset. This comes with finger tracking, the ability to rebind SteamVR input, and a separate graphics setting.
• The game has been overhauled to utilize directional lightmaps (a technique used in Half-Life: Alyx), faster dungeon loads, real-time lighting on standalone Quest, and graphics options for all platforms.
• Experimental OpenXR support for PC VR is available.
• Every player can now carry a torch in dark rooms with the lighting system overhaul.
• Damage numbers and multipliers now pop up for enemies. This can be toggled off for those who don't care for that feature.

New Equipment Slot, Loot & Weapon Classes

• You now have an equippable ring slot with over thirty rings available to find in your dungeon runs, each with its own special perk.
• There are two new weapon classes: Auric weapons shake coins from undead enemies and Spectral weapons 'echo' your damage a moment after you hit an enemy.

Last and arguably most important, there is a playable lute in the outpost with sixteen chords, fully networked so you can play songs (or just horrifically bad sounds in my case) for your friends.

Dungeons of Eternity is available now on Steam and Quest.

This playtest will be for both Quest and Steam players. James Tocchio and I participated in the limited-time August preview build and came away very impressed with Aces High overall.

Payday: Aces High Could Be The Next Go-To VR Shooter To Play With Friends

We went hands-on with Fast Travel Games’ Payday: Aces High, and we think it could be the next go-to VR shooter to play with friends.

UploadVRMike Johnson

That preview just included the base tutorial and first heist of the game. The October playtests will have two heists available for you to test. For clarity, the full game will launch with six heists and more to be added before the end of 2026.

How to Sign Up

• For Quest players, you need to sign up for the playtest build here.
• For Steam players, a public demo will be made available on the game's Steam page, so simply wishlist the game and you will get a notification when that demo goes live.

Anyone, like James and me, who participated in the August closed playtest will need to sign up again for October.

If you would like more information on Payday: Aces High, check out our interview with Fast Travel's Erik Odeldahl shortly after we played the game in August on the UploadVR Gamescast.

Fast Travel Games’ Erik Odeldahl On Building Payday: Aces High For VR

We played Payday: Aces High with Fast Travel Games and talked to Chief Creative Officer Erik Odeldahl about the VR design philosophies behind the co-op heist shooter.

UploadVRMike Johnson

Meta announced at Connect that the new independent Supernatural VR fitness app will launch this fall, and it will be supported on Meta Quest headsets and the newly announced Meta VR Glasses. Supernatural Health says that the app will be "a day one title on Meta VR Glasses".

The lightweight new Meta VR Glasses will enable the app to increase visual quality. According to Supernatural Health, this will include "real destinations rendered at a fidelity that wasn't possible until now, coaches who feel like they're exercising right in front of you, and hardware so light the only thing you feel is the workout."

According to Meta VP of Product Management Angela Chang during a video interview with Norman Chan on YouTube, the VR Glasses will offer optional light blockers for more immersion and a rear strap, similar to "croakies", that will secure the headset during more vigorous activities like exercise.

In a press release to UploadVR, Meta said that the new app will have "every point, streak, and badge intact". However, Supernatural Health later clarified that porting over existing user progress is something they are working on, but didn't directly confirm or deny whether it will be available at launch.

The new app will feel similar to the old version, but with "new higher-definition environments, workouts, and music, and a slate of improvements shipping this year and beyond", said Supernatural Health.

There appear to be several enhancements already in place, with updated visual design as seen above in the Flow exercise mode, adding color and design elements to what was a largely black and white target and bat color palette.

There also appears to be a new "hands-free" exercise mode that might signal hand tracking in Supernatural for the first time, enabling workouts without controllers required.

The new Supernatural app is available to wishlist now in the Meta Quest store. Subscriptions will run $19.99 monthly or $199.99 annually. Users can secure a discounted "founding member" rate of $180 for the first year by registering at the Supernatural Health website prior to launch.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The official launch window for the reborn Supernatural on Quest is this fall, not October, and the company's name is Supernatural Health, not Supernatural Fitness. This article has been corrected and UploadVR regrets our freelancer's errors.

Open Season is the first production released under the new Meta Presents banner.

The series follows the four-time NBA champion through six real therapy sessions with sports psychologist Dr. Carrie Hastings, captured at different points during Green's 2025-26 season with the Golden State Warriors, as Green deals with personal and professional struggles.

According to Meta, Open Season was shot specifically for VR in stereoscopic 3D 180° video using Blackmagic URSA cameras. The camera perspective places the viewer in the room alongside Green and Hastings during their conversations.

The series is produced by Skydance Sports, Green's production company The New Media, and Meta. Meta says the sessions are unscripted, with Green discussing pressures surrounding his basketball career in real time rather than recounting them later for the documentary.

Meta has been expanding its immersive entertainment lineup. At Connect, the company announced 3D movies from Disney+, new immersive sports broadcasts with "8K streaming and 180-degree views", the upcoming National Geographic: Beyond app with 180-degree 3D footage, and a 3D version of Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour concert film coming exclusively to Quest in November.

Meta VR Glasses are also set to arrive next spring, with the company positioning the lightweight headset around media consumption as a main use case.

Open Season will be available beginning September 29 through the TV app on Meta Quest.

UPDATE September 29: Open Season is now available.

It's now been more than seven years since Meta (then Facebook) first showed off a research prototype of realistic VR avatars, called Codec Avatars, and the company has repeatedly shown off improvements to this research in the years since. Yet throughout that time, its actual VR products you can buy have featured often-ridiculed cartoonish avatars instead.

With the release of Meta VR Glasses in spring 2027, that's finally set to change. However, to be clear, the launch version of Hologram will not be a truly volumetric implementation of Codec Avatars. It's something quite different.

Further, VR won't even be the first platform to get Holograms. A shoulders-up version of Hologram is coming to Meta Ray-Ban Display first. Then, a full-body version will launch with Meta VR Glasses.

I briefly tried both at Meta Connect 2026.

Hologram on Meta Ray-Ban Display

Meta will first bring Hologram to the Meta Ray-Ban Display HUD glasses, for WhatsApp video calls, in Early Access in the US this fall.

To set up your Hologram, you hold up your smartphone with the Meta AI app open. After getting you to turn your head up, down, and to each side, and then to smile, the app provides you with open-ended questions, and you provide long-form expressive answers. As you're speaking, the system captures the appearance of your facial expressions to condition the model. This includes incorporating your clothing and background, so you'll need to carefully pick what you want to be wearing in every Hologram call, and what you want your background to always be. After just a few minutes of server-side processing, your Hologram will be ready.

Once your Hologram is set up, when you make or receive a WhatsApp video call on Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses, the other person will see this synthetic version of you, with its facial expressions entirely derived from the device's microphones.

On a technical level, this is a real-time generative AI diffusion model running on Meta's servers, taking in your microphone audio stream and producing a generated 2D video stream that gets sent to the person you're calling.

I tried this at Meta Connect 2026, and was shocked by just how plausibly realistic what I saw was.

A Meta staffer, who had introduced himself a few minutes earlier, put on Meta Ray-Ban Display, walked to another room out of sight, and WhatsApp video called a phone in front of me. Upon picking up, for the first few seconds I assumed he simply hadn't put the glasses on yet. I thought I was seeing the view from his phone's selfie cam. But I wasn't. I was seeing his Hologram, driven entirely by his voice.

It's hard to shock me these days. I've seen a lot of impressive demos. But I let out a slight gasp at what I was seeing. It was entirely plausible.

Shortly after, I was able to try the other side. I wore the glasses, and Meta handed me the phone I was video calling. Being more familiar with my own appearance than that of the Meta staffer I had met only minutes ago, I could recognize the minor flaws here. The ways in which it didn't perfectly match me. But plausible is the key word. Hologram on Meta Ray-Ban Display does what it claims.

Still, I'm somewhat skeptical at the usefulness of this. Will your friends and loved ones really want to see a synthetic version of you on their phone screen, a surface where the advantages of spatial avatars don't apply?

Meta says that at some point in the future the model will be upgraded to incorporate the glasses' IMU chip as input, meaning the rotation of your Hologram's head will be driven by the gyroscope.

The company's engineers are also exploring the idea of sampling the camera on the glasses to generate a dynamic background for each call, instead of the current situation where the background is just where you set your Hologram up, and sampling the accelerometer so you look as if you're walking through this environment. They're even thinking about allowing you to change your clothes through a text prompt, rather than needing to set up Hologram again.

But still, even if it had these improvements, Hologram feels shoehorned into the HUD glasses, when the mediums that realistic avatars are truly useful for are VR and AR.

Hologram on Meta VR Glasses

On Meta VR Glasses, and eventually Quest 3 too, Hologram can be full-body at true scale, not just shoulders-up. And this version of Hologram is driven by the headset's tracking too, including face tracking via the downwards-facing cameras on the arms, not just audio.

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When one Meta VR Glasses user calls another on WhatsApp, they'll first see each other's Holograms in a 3D window. But by tapping a button at the side of this window, the call will switch to full-body mode, with the other person's Hologram appearing at true scale in front of you.

(Meta's demo clip below skips this step, likely for marketing reasons, though it's possible there'll be an option to launch into the full-body Hologram mode by default.)

I was able to try the full-body VR version of Hologram, though I wasn't able to create my own. Instead, I put on Meta VR Glasses and accepted an incoming call from a different Meta staffer that I had also met a few minutes before.

To be clear, this full-body Hologram is not a volumetric object. It is not a Gaussian splat or volume of any kind. And it's not a Codec Avatar either.

It's instead a stereoscopic 3D video pixel stream, masked out to exclude any kind of background. It's the same server-side AI diffusion approach as Hologram on Meta Ray-Ban Display, but stereoscopic 3D instead of 2D, full-body instead of shoulders-up, and masked-out instead of with a background.

Also, while I said "true scale" above, in the demo I tried the Hologram of the Meta staffer seemed to be slightly smaller than they were in person. This was almost certainly just a bug, though, as there's no technical reason the Hologram couldn't be scaled up, say, 10%.

A bigger problem was that fine details, such as the Hologram's eyes, looked quite blocky, as if on a low-bandwidth video call. The engineers told me this may be partially caused by Wi-Fi issues related to having thousands of guests on campus for Connect.

Beyond the minor scale and clarity issue, the 3D video full-body avatar approach worked pretty well if I stood still, or stayed seated. It's compelling to see the person you're talking to at (almost) true scale in 3D, especially given the fact that they could in theory be on the other side of the planet. Seeing them nod as I spoke or look off to the side when thinking made me almost feel as if I was in the room with them.

But the illusion completely broke when I leaned too far to the side or walked towards the Hologram, because it rotated to always face me, exactly like a billboard sprite in an old video game.

This is of course deeply ironic for a standing-up full-body avatar system. It works, sure, but not if you actually walk around. Huh?

There is seemingly light at the end of the tunnel, though. Meta told me that while this is how Hologram will work at launch, it won't always be the case. Some time later, but with no specific timeline, the company plans to upgrade Hologram on Meta VR Glasses to be truly volumetric, delivering the real dream of Codec Avatars and enabling true co-presence, including group conversations. At this point, Meta says, it will also be available to developers to integrate into their VR apps, and supersede the cartoon Meta Avatars SDK, which is no longer being developed.

In the shorter term, I'm surprised Meta didn't demo the VR version of Hologram as a seated, but still full-body, experience. Meta VR Glasses are primarily designed and marketed as a seated experience anyways. I didn't get to see whether a seated VR version of Hologram exists yet, or if the Hologram dynamically sits down if you do. To me, this would seem like the obvious short-term workaround.

I'll be bringing you my impressions of Meta VR Glasses, beyond just the Holograms feature, soon. Stay tuned.

The big announcement at Meta Connect 2026 is the spring 2027 release of Meta VR Glasses, a new VR device in a comfortable glasses form factor that Meta describes as "a cinema, workspace, and console in one." From a gaming perspective, Meta's new device seems a mix of promising possibility and obvious compromise.

Meta VR Glasses runs the same OS as Quest, and every Quest game will be playable on Meta VR Glasses. That instantly gives it a very large library of games. The primary SKU doesn't come with controllers, which is a bummer, but bundles with controllers will be available through some retail channels, and it works with Meta's Touch Plus controllers (which can be also purchased separately). Okay, fair enough.

Compromises noted, I’ve always held that the one thing limiting widespread adoption of VR gaming is the simple fact that headsets are too big and heavy, too apt to mess up your hair, and too goofy looking for the average consumer. This device solves almost all of those issues. Sure, this thing won’t be as powerful as a gaming rig. But that’s not needed, strictly speaking, from a market growth perspective.

A slew of new games and updates for existing ones was announced alongside the hardware reveal. Here are all of the newly announced games coming to Meta's next VR device:

Beat Saber: Flux is the biggest update ever released for one of the most popular VR games ever made. It brings a new hand-tracking game mode to Beat Saber, allowing the entire game to be playable without controllers. Beat Saber: Flux launches with 35 songs, and optional controller support. The update also revises the game's campaign and progression and rewards systems, adding earnable sabers, notes, and profile badges.

Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies VR is a VR adaptation of Capcom's long-running series. Dual Destinies VR puts players in the shoes of the titular Ace Attorneys Phoenix Wright, Apollo Justice, and Athena Cykes, through whom you'll investigate immersive 3D crime scenes, build your case, and then take it to court. Hand-tracking gestures will allow you to present evidence, point at witnesses to catch them in lies, and voice-activation will hear when you shout "Objection!!" Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies VR is coming in 2027 to Meta VR Glasses and to Meta Quest.

Tetris Effect: Mixed Realities is a hand-controlled, room-aware mixed reality version of Tetris Effect. Coming in 2027, Tetris Effect: Mixed Realities makes ample use of Meta VR Glasses' more interesting features, using the geometry of your room, lighting, visual effects, and passthrough camera to transform the world around you as you engage with no-controllers-required Tetris. It's coming in 2027.

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Two Point Hospital VR is a VR re-imagining of the award-winning hospital sim game. You'll build your hospital, treat patients, make money, and cure strange diseases. The game features an intuitive advanced hand-tracking interface on Meta VR Glasses, and it's coming to Quest 3 and 3S, too.

Dragon Grove is a charming and cozy hand-tracking VR puzzle game in which you partner with dragons to solve 3D matching puzzles. Designed for Meta VR Glasses and launching alongside the new device, Dragon Grove prioritizes hand-tracked interactions with the game's puzzles, dragons, and world. It's launching on Meta Quest 3 and 3S as well, where it will be fully playable without controllers.

Story of Seasons - Your Wonderful Life is a cozy farm management game coming to Meta VR Glasses, Quest 3, and 3S.

Cardmada is a pirate-themed card battle game coming to Meta VR Glasses, Quest 3, and 3S.

Dice Throne Digital is a free-to-play digital tabletop card game coming to Meta VR Glasses, Quest 3, and 3S. It will be cross-play compatible with the mobile and PC versions, too.

In addition to the newly announced games, Meta Connect 2026 brings news of upcoming game updates, release dates, and more. Here are those details:

PAYDAY: Aces High is getting an open playtest on Quest 3 and 3S on October 19. Joining the playtest will reward players with an exclusive in-game mask.

Supernatural, the popular fitness app which Meta previously owned, developed, and from which it recently divested, is re-launching under independent ownership this fall, and it will be a day-one title on Meta VR Glasses.

The announcement comes during a busy period for VR enthusiasts. Valve has finally released their Steam Frame, a gaming and streaming-first VR headset that works with your Steam library and is capable of running standalone games, and which has just begun arriving in the hands of early buyers. Steam Frame costs $1059 for the 256GB model and $1299 for the 1TB model.

Meta VR Glasses are set to launch in spring 2027 with an MSRP of $1299.

Our comprehensive breakdown of Meta's new headset, as well as how it compares with the latest competing products, is live now.

Meta VR Glasses Officially Announced, Shipping Spring 2027 For $1300

Meta VR Glasses have 2.4K micro-OLED displays, weigh 100 grams, and are powered by a tethered puck with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Reality Elite chipset.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

Announced during Meta Connect, developer Beat Games will deliver the biggest update it's ever produced for one of VR's most popular games. Here's the trailer:

There's a lot of new content coming, so let's break it down one by one.

Flux, A New Game Mode

Flux is a new game mode that dispenses with the titular sabers and turns your hands into weapons. You will use new techniques like the Flux Tether, which channels power between your hands to slice through notes in time with the beat of the track. The tether also powers each hand separately to punch through other note targets and build up Jolt energy. When enough energy is built up, you can squeeze your fists while slicing notes to trigger Jolt and a score boost.

Flux will launch for the newly announced Meta VR Glasses and Quest with thirty-five songs curated from Beat Saber's existing catalog of original soundtracks (OSTs) and Anniversary packs, including tracks from Lindsey Stirling, Teminite, Camellia, and Boom Kitty alongside in-house tracks from Jaroslav Beck and Zakka G.

Flux is primarily intended for hand tracking, but will have Touch controller support as well for those who prefer it. More Flux songs are planned for post-launch updates.

A Refreshed Single-Player Campaign & User Interface

Beat Games has revamped Beat Saber's original single-player campaign, introducing a 'light narrative element' to follow as your note-slicing skills are progressively tested. You will be faced with new barriers and missions to complete and unlock exclusive in-game rewards.

Beat Saber's user interface also gets a refresh to get players into game modes or browsing the new content faster. An improved first-time player experience will teach newbies the ropes of Beat Saber to help them start chasing the leaderboards.

For The First Time Ever, A Rewards System & Enhanced Progression

A new rewards system will grant players brand new cosmetics like different sabers and notes. You can also display your achievements and customize your profile with new profile badges and banners.

All of this is contained in a new inventory system allowing you to quickly swap things in and out to further make your Beat Saber experience your own.

No Controllers Required

The Flux update emphasizes a new change for Beat Saber. The entire game will be playable with hand tracking.

This move would have been unthinkable a few short years ago when hand tracking accuracy was not yet good enough to keep up with rapid hand movements. The new Meta VR Glasses will not ship with controllers, so a flagship title like Beat Saber being unplayable on it would not have been a good look. This does not change or replace Beat Saber's traditional controller support.

This update will drop in Spring 2027 for Meta VR Glasses and Quest.

Tetris Effect: Mixed Realities is a new hand-controlled and room-aware mixed reality version of Tetris Effect that was announced today. The game will launch on Meta's newest VR device, Meta VR Glasses.

The new Tetris seeks to take advantage of Meta VR Glasses' key features, allowing you to control the entire game with your hands, while the device's passthrough cameras use the geometry of your room, lighting and visual effects to transform the world around you.

From Pong To VR: Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s Quest To Make Games That Move You

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UploadVRJames Tocchio

Tetris Effect is a modern reimagining of Tetris designed by Tetsuya Mizuguchi and his team at Enhance, Resonair, and Monstars, which combines traditional Tetris gameplay with reactive music, particle effects, and environments that respond to the player's actions.

Originally released on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation VR in 2018, it came to Quest in 2020. An updated version with multiplayer called Tetris Effect: Connected was released on Steam in 2021, while a free update was made available for the existing PlayStation VR, Epic Games Store, and Quest releases. A PlayStation 5 / PSVR2 release followed in 2023.

Tetris Effect: Mixed Realities is coming to Meta VR Glasses, Quest 3 and 3S in 2027.

Announced today alongside the new Meta VR Glasses, Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies VR is a new made-for-VR release in Capcom's popular Ace Attorney series.

In Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies VR, you'll use the unique capabilities of VR to examine crime scenes, build your case, and take it to court. The game uses hand-tracking to present evidence and point at or call out witnesses. Voice-activation control allows players to shout the series' infamous "Objection!!"

A trailer was released during Meta's keynote, and that's embedded below:

Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies VR is the first VR game in the long-running series, which began life in 2001 on Nintendo's Game Boy Advance before finding worldwide sales success with subsequent releases on the Nintendo DS. Since then, 11 games have been released in the Ace Attorney series.

Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies was originally released for the Nintendo 3DS in 2013, and was the fifth main entry in the series. It was also released for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows in 2024 as part of the Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy compilation.

Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies VR is coming to Meta VR Glasses and Quest in 2027.

Announced today alongside Meta VR Glasses, Two Point Hospital Mixed Reality Edition is a VR reimagining of the comedic hospital management game Two Point Hospital.

In Two Point Hospital, you will build and manage a hospital full of silly, suffering patients, maximize the hospital's efficiency (and profit margins), and cure strange diseases. The new game, which was announced alongside Meta's newest VR device, is making use of that device's tech. It uses eye-tracking and hand-tracking to offer an intuitive and seamless gameplay experience.

Originally released in 2018, Two Point Hospital is a hospital management sim in which you take control of a run-down medical facility and try to turn it into a thriving hospital. As the hospital grows, so does the complexity of running it, with nurses, doctors, and staff requiring training, facilities needing expansion, and a wide range of ridiculous patients arriving with increasingly bizarre ailments.

Much of the game's charm comes from its delightful sense of humor. But even though Two Point Hospital's creators are obviously invested in making you laugh, they've also built a surprisingly detailed management game. No doubt this same sensibility will carry over to the series' first VR release.

Two Point Hospital Mixed Reality Edition is coming to Meta VR Glasses and Quest 3 and 3S in spring 2027.

The new game from veteran developer Schell Games (Among Us 3D, I Expect You To Die) will launch free-to-play with in-app purchases. Dragon Grove was announced at Meta Connect today.

Here's the trailer:

In Dragon Grove, you will match and grow magical dragon plants and unlock dragon abilities from a puzzle-box-like structure in mixed reality with full hand tracking support. You can also interact with your adorable pet dragon.

The 3D puzzles will ramp up in difficulty as you progress, introducing new mechanics and plant types the deeper you go into the game.

The game will launch for free with all of the expected elements that come with a free-to-play title including daily streak rewards and in-app purchases including hats, accessories, and power-ups for your dragon.

Dragon Grove can be wishlisted now on the Meta Horizon Store. It launches in Spring 2027 for Meta VR Glasses and Quest 3.

Here's the trailer:

Cozy life-simulation gamers have been vastly underserved in VR, with only a handful of games like Garden of the Sea and Medieval Dynasty: New Settlement available to scratch that itch and the latter title features a healthy dose of combat. Meanwhile, games like Stardew Valley, The Sims, and recently Nintendo's Pokopia have collectively sold tens of millions of units across their respective platforms.

In other words, it is a largely untapped market that can serve to make VR/MR more appealing to a wider audience that remains uninterested in combat or chasing leaderboards. Story of Seasons aims to help fill in that gap. The game is single-player only and is said to be launching with fifty hours of content.

In Story of Seasons, you will tend to your fields, care for your animals including cow-milking and sheep-shearing minigames, harvest crops, and head into town to fill requests and get to know your local residents. As shown in the trailer, you can also meet a partner and start a family.

Story of Seasons - Your Wonderful Life can be wishlisted now for Meta VR Glasses and Quest 3 on the Horizon Store.

Said to be 'designed from the ground up for natural hand and eye interaction,' Cardmada has you take command of a pirate ship, recruiting a crew of misfits to combat rival captains in head-to-head battles. You will build poker-inspired combinations of cards to trigger cannon attacks and outmaneuver your opponents to victory.

There was not a lot of additional information provided, but looking through the provided screenshots (see below), the game clearly has mixed reality support and the unlockable rewards you would expect to see in a free-to-play title.

Concept art provided by Meta depicts different ship types and three character archetypes: Skullywags, Queen's Armada, and Whisperwakes.

Cardmada can be wishlisted now on the Meta Horizon store for Meta VR Glasses and Quest 3.

Announced at Meta Connect today, Dice Throne Digital spatializes the popular dice-and-card game, which has sold over 1.5M physical copies worldwide and raised over $18M across multiple crowdfunding campaigns.

You will compete with other players in a fantasy-based battle, embodying your chosen heroes and rolling dice to trigger their special abilities and playing cards to manipulate dice rolls in your favor. Attacks will play out in front of you on a mixed reality tabletop board.

The original tabletop game has forty-five different heroes as of July 2026, spread across multiple seasons and crossovers with Marvel including the X-Men, Black Panther, Black Widow, Deadpool, Captain Marvel, and Doctor Strange. We do not know if these will carry over to Dice Throne Digital. The images provided to us show several original characters pictured below.

With the game being free-to-play, we expect new cards, dice, and characters to be unlockable through a combination of playtime rewards and in-app purchases.

You can wishlist Dice Throne Digital on the Meta Horizon store now.

The puck runs the same operating system as Quest 3, and supports all the same content, rendered at notably higher resolution thanks to a combination of the more powerful chipset (essentially an XR2 Gen 3 by a different name) and eye-tracked foveated rendering. It features 12GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, and there's a microSD slot in the puck to expand it.

The caveat to the content compatibility is that Meta VR Glasses will not come with controllers by default, but you'll be able to buy Touch Plus controllers separately (available in a new all-black color), or pair the controllers from your existing Quest 3 or Quest 3S, and there'll be a bundle with controllers "in some retail channels".

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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

The stark difference between Meta VR Glasses and any Quest, however, is the split architecture, and the dramatic reduction in weight and bulk this enables.

Meta VR Glasses have no onboard computing, not even a tracking coprocessor, and thus entirely rely on the 300-gram puck, which is roughly the size of two phones stuck together and provides both power and data over a thin and flexible hybrid fiber optic cable.

Meta VR Glasses have an open-periphery design, so you naturally see the real world to your sides and below you. The frame is built with a magnesium alloy that minimizes weight while also enabling a fanless, passively cooled design that weighs "around" 100 grams.

Another key difference is the display and field of view. With dual 120Hz 2412×2288 HDR micro-OLED displays, Meta VR Glasses have the highest resolution of any Meta headset to date, and are the company's first non-LCD headset since the original Oculus Quest in 2019.

The device supports the Dolby Vision HDR format, and Meta says it's the first VR product to be IMAX Enhanced certified.

The form factor brings a major optical compromise, though: the field of view. Meta advertises 70° horizontal × 66° vertical compared to the roughly 110° horizontal × 96° vertical of Quest 3.

The narrower field of view makes Meta VR Glasses feel far less immersive than a Quest headset when the optional light blockers are attached for fully immersive experiences. But, somewhat ironically given the name of the product, Meta VR Glasses should shine without the light blockers in passthrough mixed reality, where a natural view of your periphery is often preferable to darkness.

Meta plans to market the product as "a private cinema, multiple monitor workspace, and game console in one device that fits in your bag".

Essentially, Meta VR Glasses at its core is the same market proposition as the Xreal Aura Android XR device but with a VR-style passthrough display system that offers a larger field of view (Xreal Aura is around 60°× 40°), higher resolution, and full opacity, alongside the inclusion of eye tracking, face tracking, and optional tracked controllers. We do not yet know the price of Xreal Aura.

To expand the library of content available to Meta VR Glasses owners who don't buy Touch Plus controllers, Meta announced a swathe of new hand tracking VR and mixed reality games, including a new hand-tracked Beat Saber mode called Flux. You can read about the gaming announcements here.

For the first time for a Meta standalone device, you can also plug in any USB-C DisplayPort device to the puck, including a phone, laptop, or gaming handheld, and have it shown as a virtual screen, without the need for a capture card.

Every New Game & Game Update Announced For Meta VR Glasses

Several new games are coming to Meta VR Glasses as early as Spring 2027, alongside major updates to existing games.

UploadVRJames Tocchio

Meta VR Glasses will also feature the first implementation of Hologram, the company's realistic avatar tech. Similar to Apple Vision Pro's Personas, it will both let you join flatscreen WhatsApp video calls as a photorealistic face-tracked avatar, and appear as a full-scale realistic avatar in calls with other Meta VR Glasses (and eventually Quest 3) owners.

However, at launch in spring, your spatial Hologram will be a stereoscopic video stream, not volumetric. It displays at true scale, but is only seen as a front-angle view. Even if you change your perspective, the Hologram will stay as a head-on perspective, like billboarded assets in a video game. Meta says it plans to evolve Hologram over time post-launch to become a truly 6DoF 3D system, at which point it will become the default platform-level avatar experience for its VR platform, effectively superseding the cartoon Meta Avatars.

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UploadVRDavid Heaney

Developer Anton Hand made the announcement in a new video on his YouTube channel with an updated trailer:

We first heard about Hot Dogs, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades 2 (H3VR2), the sequel to the award-winning VR sandbox FPS, during the Creature Feature & Friends Showcase in May, with plans for a PC VR and Quest 3 launch. Per Hand's video, the Quest version drops this November and the Steam version will follow in the second half of 2027 with enhanced graphics, 'comprehensive' hardware and a dedicated framework for modding. Rust Ltd. will be assembling a testing team from its community to ensure all PC VR-compatible devices are properly verified.

H3VR2 expands on its predecessor with multiple gameplay modes to be more accessible to a wider variety of players. Its primary mode, 'Facility', is an extraction-style campaign where you battle enemies and loot resources in a procedurally generated megastructure. Hand said the game will run as a "pseudo-live service" with biomes planned to be added at a rate of two new ones per year. New game modes, sandbox packs, and licensed content will be sold as paid DLC.

Hot Dogs, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades 2 can be pre-ordered now for Quest 3 at a 10% discount. The Steam version can be wishlisted now ahead of its 2027 launch.

Android XR Bridge (AXRB) is an experimental software runtime for Windows which allows you to run Android-based VR applications made for Meta Quest on your PC. It's notable in that it allows you to play Quest exclusives in 4K (per eye) and high frames per second using the full power of your gaming PC.

While early versions of the program yielded pretty terrible results, recent updates have enabled 4K per eye rendering at 120 FPS, as demonstrated in a recent social media post from AXRB's developer, which shows Pinball FX VR running at said specs.

Android XR Bridge is designed to work with legal copies of Quest games. It operates like a traditional emulator to remove hardware restrictions, after which the game runs on OpenXR. You must own legal game files to play them.

AXRB's Early Access launch, which was originally planned for Monday, September 21, has been delayed. AXRB's developer announced today via the app's Discord that the delay stems from issues with the installer failing, the emulator failing to launch games, and a lack of overall game support leading to "a lot of the untested games fail[ing] most of the time."

Nevertheless, AXRB represents an interesting possibility: that PC VR users may soon be able to access Meta's Quest library of exclusives and run them on a PC with very little (or no) modification to the original Android-based builds.

If you're unfamiliar: Snap Specs are standalone true AR glasses, meaning they have physically transparent see-through optics and can position virtual objects and interfaces in real space, while having no tether or external computing hardware. Revealed back in June, when the company opened preorders, the $2195 Specs are set to be the first fully standalone true AR glasses outside China, and the most advanced on the planet that you can actually buy, beating companies like Meta and Apple to market.

For disclosure, Snap paid for my flights and accommodation for its "launch" event, which I put in scare quotes because it didn't actually launch the glasses. It did announce that Specs will have a built-in cross-platform agentic AI assistant, and an optional cellular case for on-the-go connectivity. CEO Evan Spiegel also demoed the glasses live on stage, a welcome respite compared to the usual prerecorded tech launches.

But while Spiegel's demo was inarguably impressive, the problem with Specs is that, through the lenses, it simply doesn't actually look like the casted and recorded views.

Watch Snap’s CEO Demo Specs True AR Glasses Live On Stage

Snap’s CEO demoed the soon-to-launch Specs standalone true AR glasses live on stage, including an official Harry Potter experience from HBO.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

As soon as you put on Specs, you'll notice a number of optical artifacts. There is a rainbow pattern over the display area, which has poor color uniformity in general. You'll also see blue streaks from reflections of real-world light around the edges of the lens. This is not the crisp image you'll be used to in a VR headset, nor is it even anywhere near as clear and uniform as the Meta Ray-Ban Display HUD.

The bigger problem though, as with every optically transparent AR device to ever ship, is the field of view. At 51 degrees diagonal, it's roughly the same as HoloLens 2. What's strange (and misleading) is that Specs renders and records a larger field of view than what it can actually display, so what you see in Snap's promotional videos, and any recorded Specs content shared on social media, is very different to what you see in the device.

(For comparison, passthrough VR-style headsets like Quest 3 and Apple Vision Pro have a diagonal field of view over 100°.)

In practice, what you see as you look around is a rectangular slice of the virtual content that should be surrounding you. As I've written about many times before, this breaks object permanence, and leaves you constantly searching for where each virtual object went.

This is not a dealbreaker for all use cases. And it's not Snap's fault – it's essentially impossible today to build a glasses-size transparent AR device with a field of view much larger than this. Meta's Orion prototype famously used an exotic expensive material with no existing non-military supply chain to achieve 70 degrees, for example. But it's something I sorely wish that companies building transparent AR devices had been more honest about for the past decade of this industry. Because the inevitable result is that people are disappointed when they put the thing on their face and see only a sliver of the content.

Some experiences cleverly design around the field of view, and for others it doesn't matter at all. This is where Specs shines. But many experiences seem to ignore it, to the detriment of usability, as if building for a future device that doesn't yet exist.

And while it's impressive that Specs is able to be a fully standalone device in glasses form factor, no pucks or tethers required, this feat does not come without tradeoffs. While I do describe Specs as glasses form factor, at 134 grams it sits right at the very boundary of earning that description. It is comfortable, thanks to its outwards-flexing arms (an ergonomic feature of all good recent smart glasses), but the bulk looks somewhat comical to regular bystanders. Even Spiegel admitted as much by acknowledging the memes around the form factor.

Specs also seems to render at a far lower frame rate compared to other VR devices. While Snap wouldn't say the exact rate, rendering in many experiences felt to be nowhere near the 72FPS minimum of other XR systems. Fitting a higher-performance spatial computer into a glasses arm is simply beyond the technology of 2026.

The lack of eye tracking on Specs is also a major miss, as it quickly became tiring to raise my hand to point-and-pinch. Apple Vision Pro has established eye tracking as absolutely essential for any serious XR device interaction other than active gaming. I am convinced that Specs will be one of the last major devices in this space without eye tracking.

My description of Specs so far has been rather negative, but what I've really been trying to do is just establish a realistic picture of what to expect, beyond the hype and expectations that have built up around true AR glasses and Snap's marketing. But that's not to say that Specs isn't a viable first-generation product for early adopters.

What's most impressive about Specs is its computer vision tech. Even in low light when the sun went down, with dozens of people walking nearby, Specs' positional tracking and hand tracking remained rock solid. It even features real-time continuous scene meshing with occlusion, so real-world geometry will block virtual content. To do this at such a low power envelope, in the arm of glasses, is groundbreaking. Not even Quest 3 does this!

I was also struck by how much better having 6DoF augmented reality makes key use cases I already use on Meta Ray-Ban Display feel, such as translation and navigation. It's significantly more comfortable to have translated captions anchored to the person speaking to you rather than awkwardly on a fixed display in the lower-right of your view, and to have a huge map at chest height in front of you rather than a tiny one to the right.

Specs' core software is also well-made, with relatively fast loading times for both interfaces and apps. While it's not high frame rate, it never feels sluggish. This is thanks to Snap's years of work on a highly optimized software stack that runs from the OS to the "Lenses" (apps) built in the highly managed Lens Studio development software on PC. This is a mature well-crafted software stack, not some lazy Android fork.

Snap is also pushing Specs as a computer for virtual monitors and browser interfaces. While I can definitely see a device like Specs being a highly portable way to privately watch YouTube on a bus, train, or plane without holding up your phone, the display artifacts and limited field of view make me highly skeptical of its use for serious productivity. The coming wave of ultralight passthrough VR headsets will likely be strongly preferable for this, and even prism optic devices like Xreal Aura will offer a wider field of view and clearer image.

Snap Specs is exactly what I expected from first-generation standalone true AR glasses in 2026. It's as if a company tried to make an iPhone in the late 90s. The idea is there, and for what tech it has to work with, Snap's implementation of the idea is actually excellent. But the fundamental display tech is the problem. Even with well-designed software, an iPhone in 1999 just wouldn't be the iPhone of 2007. If you're a tech enthusiast who understands that, and can temper your expectations, Specs is like nothing else out there, and delivers an experience absolutely no other device can match. But if you're a general consumer hoping for a highly refined consumer true AR experience, you'll need to wait for the 2030s like everyone else.

In our initial review of Battlemarked, we said that it "packs more expansive campaigns, better difficulty balancing with enemy spawns, lovely visuals, and a greater story focus that better complements these gameplay systems." Twilight's End carries that forward and improves on the first two campaigns with more interesting combat and a final act storyline that properly ramps up from the first two campaigns.

Demeo x Dungeons & Dragons: Battlemarked Review

Demeo x Dungeons & Dragons: Battlemarked is a mostly natural crossover and a fitting evolution for the VR tabletop RPG.

UploadVRHenry Stockdale

The first two campaigns of Battlemarked, though self-contained stories in their own right, have an overarching plotline running through both of them. As you are adventuring through Neverwinter Woods in Embers of Chaos and Icewind Dale in Crown of Frost, you occasionally encounter a slaad, a toad-like monster with a connection to both stories. Twilight's End puts the slaad species front and center while also tying in the other various communities and tribes you have encountered to this point.

There is no formal recap of the first two campaigns to kick off Twilight's End, but as long as you remember how to actually play the game, the NPCs will mostly fill in the blanks. Also, if you are like me and spent time between campaigns leveling up your characters, you may want to consider a higher difficulty to keep combat interesting. I have nearly all eight playable characters up to the max level of 19, so enemy mobs on standard difficulty are quickly wiped out in one or two rounds when I do any one-shot dungeons. For Twilight's End, I kicked the difficulty up to hard and found it challenging enough for a fully leveled party without being too overbearing.

The two new multi-floor dungeons are excellent with unique boss fights that address one of my small complaints about the first two campaigns. The original Demeo, which we loved and voted as our VR Game of the Year in 2021, had five very distinctly unique boss fights. The Elven Queen had minions that cast spells to make her impervious to damage. The Rat King scurried away after attacking, forcing you to corner him while dealing with dozens of vermin surrounding you. High Priest Umbal started hidden and had to be revealed while navigating three giant serpents.

By contrast, only two boss fights in the first two campaigns of Battlemarked had similar ancillary mechanics involved beyond repositioning to avoid AOE (area of effect) attacks and neither were required to defeat the boss if you just attacked often enough. In other words, you can brute force your way to victory.

Twilight's End's bosses all force you to think strategically to win, throwing twists that make you think strategically. Party members switched roles in multiple rounds with some of their attacks being completely nullified depending on the conditions. What good is a powerful sorcerer against an enemy totally immune to spell attacks for several rounds? How can my fighter contend with an enemy who counterattacks every melee attack? Strategy is at the heart of a good turn-based combat system and Twilight's End emphasizes that.

The standard enemies also level up in Twilight's End. The slaad and other newcomers prove to be very formidable, a notable step up from the goblins, kobolds, myconids and such in the first two campaigns, some of whom return in this final chapter. They come with new status ailments and other wrinkles that keep you on your toes. All of it makes for a satisfying journey in the nine hours it took me to complete the campaign. After completing two full dungeons, you unlock each as a separate one-shot dungeon and new dice that match the theme of each. There are also several shorter missions that hopefully get added as additional one-shots in future updates.

Visually, Twilight's End is less interesting than the first two campaigns, mostly due to the recycling of locations instead of a consistent theme like the forestry of Neverwinter Woods and the snow-covered Icewind Dale. The Silver Marches, the primary setting for Twilight's End, is visually less interesting by comparison. The music is a standout though as it always has been in Demeo. Even with some tracks of the rousing orchestral fantasy score carrying over from earlier campaigns, the new additions might be the best of the entire series and that is a high mark to clear.

As far as downsides, I am at a loss to name any. The game is clean with no noticeable performance issues or bugs, though I will mention one personal disappointment. Battlemarked now has more playable characters (eight) than the original game (seven), but the final two, warlock Azruss Drevontir and orc druid Gruda Razortusk, were added in updates between the game's launch and Twilight's End. Comparatively, the original game introduced its final three characters with each successive new dungeon. There are no new playable characters in Twilight's End, though you can gain AI-controlled allies depending on choices made during your journey.

Demeo X DnD: Battlemarked Twilight's End - The Final Verdict

Twilight's End is a fitting and highly entertaining conclusion to Battlemarked's story, more than justifying its $9.99 cost with the best boss battles in the entire game, a slew of new foes to contend with, and a high fantasy endgame plot that RPG fans rarely get in a VR game. Even with the recycling of previous locations, anyone hesitant about whether Twilight's End offers enough value for its price can rest assured. It is worth every penny and is easily one of the best experiences I have had in a headset this year.

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

The Kickstarter campaign launched last month, and concluded over the weekend after reaching $1,288,712. By "VR-style" I mean that it uses pancake lenses placed between your eyes and the displays, and you see the physical world via the passthrough cameras on the front.

URXR One achieves its 93-gram weight mainly by not having much compute onboard and lacking a battery. It features the GravityXR G-X100 coprocessor chipset announced back in December, and is essentially an implementation of GravityXR's reference design. The chip handles positional head tracking, optical hand tracking, and camera passthrough using very little power and generating very little heat, leaving the rendering to an external device.

It features dual 2448×2064 micro-OLED displays magnified by pancake lenses to a field of view of 80° horizontal × 56° vertical (around 90° diagonal) at up to 90Hz refresh rate.

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You plug it into a laptop, phone, or other device that supports USB-C DisplayPort out (including handhelds like Steam Deck, ROG Ally, Legion Go) and it displays the input as a 6DoF virtual monitor floating in front of you positionally. The device accepts a 2560×1440 signal at 90Hz.

Essentially, URXR One as a product is the same proposition as Xreal and Viture glasses, a virtual monitor for your existing devices, but with a VR-style display system with passthrough instead of transparent prism optics, offering a much wider field of view. Even Xreal's upcoming Aura device reaches only 70° diagonal, and other Xreal and Viture devices have a diagonal field of view of less than 70°, compared to the roughly 90° of URXR One.

On Windows and Mac, URXR's software enables multiple virtual monitors alongside hand tracking controls for positioning them in space.

XRXR One does not feature eye tracking or face tracking.

Unseen Reality claims URXR One will start shipping to backers in October, and to new buyers in November, priced at $999. To display a connected smartphone, you'll need the $69 Power Hub accessory, set to ship in December.

Some time after launch, Unseen Reality plans to add support for PC VR, letting it act as a SteamVR headset, but that functionality won't be ready for when the device ships.

Of course, URXR One's campaign is somewhat overshadowed by the repeated leaks of Meta's next headset, codenamed Phoenix, which appears to have a similar form factor and may even be shown at Connect tomorrow. How exactly Meta's headset will compare on price, and when it might launch, remains to be seen. But what seems clear is that URXR One won't be alone in having this ultralight form factor.

One very important note: developer Selkies Interactive released two different versions of the game, a cheaper version that is flatscreen only for $14.99 and the VR version for $17.99 that supports both VR and flatscreen. If you want to play in VR, be sure to get the correct version.

Selkies, a team of three German master's students, describes Echoes of Mora as a 2-3-hour exploration of a flooded Italian village to help the titular Mora find out what happened to her missing brother. Portals offer glimpses into the past before the village was underwater. It's a gentle experience with no fail states (i.e. game over scenarios), combat, or peril, so you are free to play the game at your pace. The game has two endings, depending on a choice you make at the game's conclusion, and other choices in dialogue during the game can make some scenes play out in a different order.

Echoes was delayed from its spring release as Selkies was in negotiations with a potential publisher. That deal 'came and went' according to a developer's post on Steam.

Echoes of Mora VR is available now on Steam. I am currently playing the game and will have a full review soon. There is a VR-supported demo available as well.

Apple TV, Amplium, Fovii, Primary: News in Depth and Theatre apps are just a selection of apps available depending on your content objectives and fit. Acute Immersive is empowering businesses to have their own immersive video destination through their publishing platform.

Since launching last year, Acute Immersive has helped bring the 2026 Apple Design Award winner for Social Impact, Primary: News in Depth, and Blue Frog Immersive to market for Apple Vision Pro. Their Acute Pro app was also developed for private content reviews. The team plans to expand the reach that the immersive video content can have through apps that they power, with upcoming Android XR support including XREAL Aura glasses.

Your Own Branded Destination For Immersive Video

Acute Immersive builds semi-custom white-label immersive video apps, while its backend provides publishing, monetization and analytics tools. The platform is focusing primarily on content shot with Blackmagic’s URSA Cine Immersive camera, but it also supports standard 16:9 video, 3D movies, mono or stereo 180 and 360 video, and Spatial Video shot on iPhone.

Studios who may prefer focusing on creating immersive stories more than managing an app therefore have the choice of relying on other platforms to house their content, which sometimes helps with discoverability, or directly publishing it themselves. Elements like the user experience through to pricing can also be fully controlled, and analytics accessed directly. 

As immersive video becomes easier to produce, this could be a solution to get more entertainment and lifestyle brands and content into the still low library of accessible immersive videos available.

Useful Platform Features, No Built-In Audience

The Acute Immersive platform lets its users simply upload and organize files into playlists, review the immersive video in-headset, add elements like titles and thumbnails, and publish new content without submitting a new version of the app.

What excites me most as a marketer is the platform’s direct access to communicating with and learning about its audiences. App user notifications for things like new content uploads can be triggered. The audience behavior data available can help to support decisions about new content, through to how to improve app engagement. Everything from video consumption metrics to marketing metrics such as traffic attribution through deep links and thumbnail conversion is available. Conversion from deep link click through to video playback is possible, which can help strengthen marketing creative, targeting and even specific online marketing tactic choices to generate further audience growth.

Being in charge of an app requires ongoing audience-centric insights-based marketing. Content creators choosing to distribute immersive video on other apps do still need to support marketing, but efforts should also be supported by the platform it's being distributed to - on and off the platform to targeted existing and new users.

How Acute Immersive And Its Clients Make Money

How immersive video content is monetized, or not, is up to each client using the Acute Immersive platform. Individual videos, bundles or subscriptions are all possible. In addition, companies who are curating content that they do not own can strike their own deals with the content owners.

Acute Immersive supports app clients for a licensing fee, while bandwidth is charged separately. The team also takes on app customizations for a service fee.

I've been using VR for fitness almost daily for the last few years, and I've tried a lot of different ways to deal with those problems. Over time, I've figured out what works best for me. Some solutions cost money, and others are things you might already have around the house.

Your Hands Get Tired And Sweaty: Knuckle Grips

Knuckle grips are probably the most critical piece of equipment for me, aside from the headset itself.

The standard wrist tethers included with Quest controllers will keep a controller from flying across the room, but I've never liked using them for fitness. Knuckle grips give me the same security without requiring me to constantly hold onto the controllers. I can relax my grip or open my hands completely and the controllers stay put, reducing strain during longer workouts.

That feels much more natural when a workout moves between punching and more open-handed dance, flow, stretching or Tai Chi-like movements.

There's also the simple matter of sweat. The added grippiness of the material feels better in my hands once they get sweaty, and when I'm throwing punches or making fast movements, the combination of the textured grip and knuckle strap means I'm not thinking about whether a controller is about to go flying.

I've had very good luck with the KIWI Design G4 Pro grips. BOBOVR, Best Buy's Insignia and others make their own versions, but the KIWI grips are the ones I've personally put through a lot of workouts.

Glasses Get In The Way: Prescription Lens Inserts

If you need corrective lenses, prescription inserts are a must-have for VR fitness.

I don't want glasses on my face when I'm ducking, weaving, squatting and moving around inside a headset. They can shift, press against my face and potentially come into contact with the headset's lenses.

Prescription inserts get rid of all of that. I put on the headset and I can see. There's nothing else to adjust before or during the workout.

I've had very good luck with Zenni's prescription lens inserts, which are made in partnership with Meta. They snap into place over the Quest's lenses and pop back out just as easily when someone else wants to use the headset.

Zenni is far from the only option. Other companies make prescription inserts with different attachment systems, including magnetic designs. I've found Zenni's snap-in design easy to install and remove, and they stay securely in place while I'm moving.

There's also a nice side benefit I didn't really buy them for. The inserts sit over the Quest's actual lenses, giving those expensive optics another physical layer of protection. I still clean the inserts with a microfiber cloth suitable for eyeglasses, but having them there means I don't worry quite as much about accidentally brushing the actual lenses while I'm wiping sweat from the rest of the headset.

The Headset Is Front-Heavy: A Battery Head Strap

Quest headsets carry most of their hardware at the front of your face. I notice that weight a lot more when I'm ducking, weaving and moving my head quickly than I do when I'm sitting down playing a game.

I previously used a KIWI Design elite-style battery strap. For about the past year, I've been using the BOBOVR S3 Pro, which uses a halo-style design. Both have been substantial upgrades over the stock cloth Quest head strap.

The two designs feel different. An elite-style strap holds the headset more directly against my face, while the halo design shifts more of the load onto my forehead and around my head. I've worked out extensively with both and haven't found either approach to be a clear winner. A lot of this comes down to what feels better on your own head.

What I do highly recommend is getting a strap with a battery mounted at the rear.

Yes, it provides more battery life, but that's only part of the reason. The battery adds weight behind my head, which helps counterbalance the Quest hanging off the front. My complete setup actually weighs more because of it, yet it feels better balanced and more comfortable.

The BOBOVR's hot-swappable batteries are another feature I've come to appreciate. I can pull off a depleted battery, snap on a charged one and keep going. As long as I have another battery ready, play time effectively stops being an issue.

VR Fitness Gets Hot: Use A Fan

Working out gets hot. Put a computer on your face while you're doing it and things get uncomfortable pretty quickly.

My solution isn't sophisticated. I use a fan.

I point a regular room fan toward my workout area and let it move air across my body while I'm exercising. It makes a noticeable difference during harder sessions, especially when the room is already warm.

The BOBOVR S3 Pro also has a small fan built into the front of the strap that blows air across my forehead. I like it, and it was one of the reasons I switched to the S3 Pro, but it doesn't replace the room fan. I use both.

The room fan has an unexpected secondary benefit. Because the air is always coming from the same direction, I can sometimes sense which way I'm facing in the physical room without seeing it. I don't rely on that for safety or use it instead of a boundary. It's simply another physical cue that remains available while I'm immersed.

You don't need a special "VR fan." You just need moving air. Any household fan will suffice.

Sweat Gets Everywhere: Wear A Sweatband

If you're getting a good workout in VR, you're going to sweat.

A basic sweatband has become part of my normal routine. It keeps sweat from running down my forehead and into my eyes, and less of it ends up on the headset.

That's really all there is to it.

I own several and rotate them between workouts. They cost next to nothing, require no setup and do exactly what I need them to do. I'd notice immediately if I forgot to put one on.

I also keep baby wipes nearby and give the headset and controllers a quick wipe after I'm finished. I clean the lenses separately with a microfiber cloth suitable for eyeglasses.

Your Facial Interface Absorbs Sweat: Replace It

A sweatband helps, but during a hard workout some sweat is inevitably going to reach the headset. That's where an aftermarket facial interface has made a big difference for me.

The stock Meta Quest 3 and 3S facial interface uses a fabric face pad that can absorb sweat. For VR fitness, I prefer synthetic leather, which doesn't soak up moisture the same way and can simply be wiped clean when I'm finished.

I currently use two different options across my Quest 3 headset fleet. The KIWI Design V3 has a fixed facial interface with a synthetic leather pad, while I also use the BOBOVR F3, which also uses synthetic leather but adds adjustability. Both are very comfortable, have held up well through plenty of sweaty workouts, and are easy to clean afterward.

The F3's adjustability gives it another advantage because I can change the position of the interface to get the fit I want with my headset and head strap.

For me, an aftermarket facial interface and a sweatband work together. The sweatband keeps much of the moisture from reaching the headset in the first place, while the synthetic leather interface makes whatever gets through much easier to deal with.

Staying Centered: A Workout Mat

It's surprisingly easy to move around a room without realizing you're doing it in VR.

I can start a workout exactly where I want to be, then spend the next half hour punching, ducking and moving laterally. Inside the headset, nothing has changed. In the real room, I may have gradually wandered away from where I started.

A mat gives my feet something the virtual world can't: a physical reference point. I can tell when I'm moving away from center without switching to passthrough or waiting for a virtual boundary to appear.

You don't need a specialized VR mat to get that benefit, but I use the ProxiMat 42" Classic. Mine carries Supernatural branding because I bought it through Supernatural's former online store, but it's made by ProxiMat. The mat has tactile center and directional markers that I can identify with my feet, allowing me to find both the center of my workout space and which direction I'm facing while remaining immersed.

Like any mat, it doesn't replace Quest's boundary system or the need for adequate clearance around your workout space. For fitness, I recommend using a stationary boundary. I'm generally trying to stay centered in one workout area rather than move around the room, and the combination of the stationary boundary and the tactile feedback from the mat helps keep me there.

You Don't Need To Spend A Fortune

I've accumulated this gear over years of working out in VR. I wouldn't tell someone buying their first headset to immediately go out and buy all of it.

Some fixes are ridiculously simple. A sweatband costs a few dollars. There's a good chance you already own a fan. Other problems may justify spending more, especially if you're exercising often enough that you're encountering them every day.

That's how most of these accessories ended up in my setup in the first place. I had something that annoyed me, found a way to fix it and kept using the solution.

That's become my standard for VR fitness accessories. If something solves a problem well enough that I eventually stop thinking about the problem, it has earned a place in my setup.

Revealed back in June, when the company opened preorders, the $2195 Specs are set to be the first fully standalone true AR glasses outside China, and the most advanced on the planet that you can actually buy, beating companies like Meta and Apple to market.

Snap Opens Preorders For Specs, True AR Glasses Shipping This Fall For $2195

Snap just officially revealed and opened preorders for Specs, fully standalone true AR glasses shipping this fall in the US, UK, and France for $2195.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

This week, Snap announced that Specs will have a cross-platform AI agent and an optional cellular charging case for on-the-go connectivity.

But arguably more importantly, CEO Evan Spiegel showed off the glasses on-stage in a live demo of their capabilities, something more useful to potential buyers than any pre-rendered marketing videos ever could be.

During the presentation, Spiegel demonstrates:

• The main Snap OS interface. Shortcuts to Specs Intelligence, the home screen, and quick controls are available on your palms, poked by a finger from your other hand. Opening home brings up a floating window launched in front of you, which you interact with by pointing and pinching.
• The Snapchat app on Specs, including taking and sending pictures by snapping your fingers, and making video calls where the other person sees your first-person view.
• YouTube in the web browser, including launching into it via asking Specs Intelligence.
• A Shopify-backed AR shopping experience, wherein you can place the product into your physical environment at true scale and buy it with a tap.
• A port of the Quest app Pencil, teaching you to draw by showing a path outline.
• HBO's official Harry Potter experience, including receiving a Hogwarts acceptance letter from an owl and casting the Wingardium Leviosa spell.

Snap Opens Preorders For Specs, True AR Glasses Shipping This Fall For $2195

Snap just officially revealed and opened preorders for Specs, fully standalone true AR glasses shipping this fall in the US, UK, and France for $2195.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

You can watch our supercut of the on-stage live demos here, or the full hour-long launch event here.

Snap Opens Preorders For Specs, True AR Glasses Shipping This Fall For $2195

Snap just officially revealed and opened preorders for Specs, fully standalone true AR glasses shipping this fall in the US, UK, and France for $2195.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

At a launch event in LA this week, the company revealed Specs Intelligence as a core feature of the $2195 device, which it formally announced and opened preorders for back in June. Specs is still set to be the first fully standalone true AR glasses outside China, and the most advanced on the planet that you can actually buy, beating companies like Meta and Apple to market.

If you're unfamiliar with the term AI agent, it's distinct from the idea of an AI chatbot in that agents can take actions, rather than just providing a response. AI coding agents such as OpenAI's Codex and Anthropic's Claude Code have become a core tool for software engineers, while Meta's consumer AI agent Muse recently shot up to the top of the iPhone App Store with a focus on managing your email, calendar, bookings, and other online tasks. Specs Intelligence seems to be taking on the same market.

"SPECS Intelligence is designed to anticipate when help would be useful and surface relevant information and actions without waiting for a prompt. Before a meeting, it could highlight decisions to make, questions to ask, and things to remember. For an upcoming trip, it could bring together flight, hotel, and dinner plans while flagging a work deadline that falls during the visit."

Specs Intelligence will support iPhone, Mac and Specs. While it will eventually allow for a wide range of agentic actions, with Snap giving examples such as booking hotels and buying cinema tickets, the initial preview release will be far more limited. On iPhone, the US-only public preview simply provides "insights" from your Gmail and Google Calendar, while the fuller experience on macOS is "invite-only".

Snap won't say what model provider it's using to power Specs Intelligence, nor is it revealing what its business model will be after the free preview period.

The other major announcement of Snap's launch event was that it will offer a cellular charging case option, as an upgrade to the included regular charging case, in all three launch countries via partnerships with local carriers. A bundle with the cellular charging case will be priced at $2395, meaning a $200 premium over the regular SKU.

The lack of cellular connectivity was something we harshly criticized in our review of Meta Ray-Ban Display, as depending on a connected smartphone simply isn't reliable. We suspect cellular will be as essential for mainstream HUD and AR glasses as it is today for smartphones.

In the US, Specs cellular connectivity will be offered via Verizon, starting at $10/month if you use Verizon for your phone or $20/month otherwise, while in the UK it will be via EE and in France via Orange.

These carriers will also offer finance plans for those unwilling to drop the two thousand dollars outright, and let prospective buyers try on the AR glasses to experience them in select stores.

Snap will also be publicly demoing Specs from October 1 at the Westfield Century City mall in Los Angeles, confirming that it will offer this experience through at least the holiday season.

There's still no concrete date for the Specs AR glasses to ship, despite the event being positioned as a launch. We'll let you know as soon as Snap announces one.

All of Meta's smart glasses feature a white LED at the end of one temple that flashes when the wearer captures an image and pulses while they're recording. For every model except the failed Ray-Ban Stories from 2021, the glasses will not capture imagery if you try to cover the light, as detected by an ambient light sensor in the LED.

But many regular people still aren't aware that glasses with a camera are even a thing, and because of this, the light can be hard to notice outdoors in daylight. This has led to nefarious wearers recording people with neither their consent nor knowledge that they're on camera.

Worse, a market has cropped up for physically taking the glasses apart to remove the LED. Meta has rolled out firmware updates to disable the camera on glasses where it detects the LED has been tampered with, but as with all such measures, it's a game of cat-and-mouse between Meta and the hackers.

Meta claims that less than 0.1% of its sold smart glasses have been tampered with, but that would still equate to around 10 thousand units, given that the company and its partner EssilorLuxottica have sold over 10 million units now.

The nefarious use of the camera on Meta's smart glasses, whether to make social media video content, for reasons of personal perversion, or, in rare cases, to covertly record police and other authorities, has led to relatively widespread backlash against the entire form factor. Some people now brand them "pervert glasses" or "creep glasses", and even call for them to be banned in law:

• Some gyms, including Planet Fitness, ban smart glasses on their premises, regardless of whether they’re recording.
• Bars, pubs and clubs in the US, UK and Canada have banned wearing them. New York’s BASEMENT even bans carrying them in a bag. Wetherspoons (the UK's largest pub chain) prohibits recording customers or staff without permission, but not merely wearing the glasses.
• Cruise ship companies Royal Caribbean and Carnival allow them aboard but prohibit their use in casinos, toilets, changing rooms and other sensitive areas. MSC bans them throughout its ships’ public areas.
• Courts in England and Wales, and US court systems including New York’s, require the glasses to be surrendered on entry. New York explicitly includes prescription pairs.
• Bans also cover conventions and festivals including DEF CON and Body Movements, and schools in Oslo. SAT exams prohibit them during testing and breaks, subject to approved accommodations, while the US Air Force bans wearing them in uniform.

Lost in this outcry, of course, is the fact that the vast majority of smart glasses owners do not use the devices for nefarious purposes. A knife can be used to prepare a delicious meal or kill someone. A fire can be used to warm a cave or burn down a forest. Should a tool be defined by its worst use?

Some of the smart glasses backlash appears to be driven by the misconception that Meta's smart glasses are always recording (a technical impossibility, given battery and thermal limitations) and by a lack of awareness of the recording LED's existence. In response to this, Meta has now launched a widespread PR campaign of videos and posters highlighting the recording LED and its function.

Meta Could Demo Next-Gen Headset At Connect With Full-Body Codec Avatars

Meta could demo its upcoming ultralight headset next week at Connect with photorealistic full-body Codec Avatars, The Information reports.

UploadVRLuna

If The Information's report is to be believed, though, Meta plans to launch a new range of smart glasses at Connect 2026 next week that lack cameras entirely. The glasses will still have microphones and speakers, and the button that starts recording on its current range will, on these new glasses, start a conversation with the Meta AI chatbot or Muse, the company's recently launched AI agent. However, without cameras, the AI will be unable to see what you see, limiting its usefulness.

The report also suggests that dropping the cameras will allow for a sleeker design with slimmer temples, making the glasses look more like ordinary glasses. That could make them preferable for buyers looking for a more comfortable experience, while others may just want to avoid the social backlash of wearing a camera. It should also enable a lower price point.

The same report also claims Meta could demo its next-generation headset at Connect with full-body Codec Avatars.

UploadVR will be on-site at Meta Connect 2026 to bring you full coverage of whatever the company ends up announcing.

Multiple reputable sources have reported that Meta is working on a premium, ultralight, open-periphery headset with a tethered compute puck, intended to occupy a similar high-end position to Meta Quest Pro, but in a much sleeker form factor. The project and its underlying layers have appeared under the codenames Phoenix, Stanley, and Loma.

UploadVR published an extensive report on the device last month, and I highly recommend that you read it if you wish to know more. Official visuals of the device were also found in Horizon OS firmware earlier this month.

Everything We Know (So Far) About Meta’s Next Headset

Here’s everything we know (so far) about Project Phoenix, Meta’s next headset.

UploadVRLuna

First Clear Visuals Of Meta’s Next Headset Found In Quest Firmware

The first visuals of Meta’s Project Phoenix headset have been found in Horizon OS firmware, revealing a slim design with a tether for the compute puck.

UploadVRLuna

Now, The Information's Jyoti Mann reports that Meta could showcase Phoenix during the Connect 2026 keynote alongside a full-body hologram call experience using Codec Avatars.

The report describes Phoenix as a "productivity and entertainment tool" consisting of glasses and a puck, and says Meta wants to market it for virtual screens and watching films.

It also appears to incorrectly describe Phoenix as "augmented reality glasses", as UploadVR's own reporting, previous reporting from The Information, and other reputable sources indicate that, on a technical level, Phoenix is a glasses-like Passthrough VR (Mixed Reality) headset, operating on the same basic principle as Meta Quest 3 and 3S. The company may choose to market it differently, though. Some firmware strings even refer to the device as "VR Glasses", although that terminology is non-final.

The report also claims that earlier this month Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and CTO Andrew Bosworth reviewed the company's work on hologram-like video calls. It says Meta has since decided to showcase "a full-body, photorealistic hologram call experience during a live Phoenix demo in the keynote speech at Connect next week, with Bosworth appearing as the hologram", assuming Meta's plans do not change. The experience would be powered by Codec Avatars.

Codec Avatars are Meta's long-running research project aimed at achieving photorealistic spatial telepresence via Face Tracking sensors on VR/MR headsets and eventually glasses, broadly similar to Personas on visionOS and Likeness on Android XR.

Meta has showcased various versions of this work over the years, with the most well-known example being Mark Zuckerberg's VR interview with Lex Fridman, where both used Meta's prototype photorealistic Codec Avatars.

Watch Zuckerberg Interviewed In VR With Photoreal Avatars

Watch Mark Zuckerberg being interviewed in VR with prototype photorealistic Codec Avatars:

UploadVRDavid Heaney

The versions used in the interview were captured via a specialized rig and rendered on high-end computers, but Meta has since demonstrated approaches to generating Codec Avatars from relatively sparse photos as well as running them on mobile-class hardware like Quest 3.

Earlier this year, the company expanded on this, publishing a research paper titled "Large-scale Codec Avatars: The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Large-scale Avatar Pretraining", which showcased a model that can generate full-body Codec Avatars from limited input and drive them via inward-facing and SLAM sensors on a headset.

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, and the name Hologram appears to be heavily associated with this direction.

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.

Meta Connect 2026 takes place next week, September 23-24, and is set to showcase the company's "latest breakthroughs in AI technologies, AI glasses and VR".

Developed around Apple's new on-device music intelligence, Flow Chaser analyzes the structure of music and uses that information to automatically generate levels.

visionOS 27 Launched For Apple Vision Pro Headsets, Bringing Siri AI & More

Apple launched visionOS 27 for Vision Pro headsets this week. Read our extensive rundown of all the biggest features & improvements.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

The game comes with 140 original tracks totaling over 7.5 hours of music from a variety of genres, but the real trick is that players can also import their own DRM-free songs. The game will then analyze those tracks and generate levels based on the song's characteristics.

Gameplay takes place in either the player's physical surroundings or in fully immersive environments, and follows a formula that players of Beat Saber and other VR and mixed reality rhythm games will find familiar. Slice the blocks or bonk the orbs as they shoot toward you along with the music.

A trailer has been released, embedded below:

The idea of a game that can instantly create a level based on the structure of any piece of music was first dreamed up by Masaya Matsuura, creator of PaRappa the Rapper, way back in the late 1990s.

Matsuura and his colleagues at his studio, NanaOn-sha, developed Vib Ribbon, a game that pioneered this tech by allowing players to swap the game disc for virtually any music CD. Through some incredibly inventive code, the game and PlayStation hardware would then create a totally unique level based on whatever song was playing.

So innovative was Vib Ribbon and its underlying technology that Sony patented the technique.

Flow Chaser is available now on Apple Vision Pro for $14.99.

Spymaster is the latest project from Innerspace, best known for the A Fisherman's Tale games. You take control of two different operatives in extraction-like action scenarios. The goal is to run, jump, zipline, and shoot both agents to the end of the scenario with optional objectives along the way. If you mess up and one agent is out of position or killed in action, you can rewind time via a wristwatch device to correct your mistakes or fine-tune an already successful run.

The full release will come with three new missions, including a finale featuring all three of Spymaster's agents (instead of the two agents in prior missions). I played Spymaster at the Game Developers Conference in March and again when the game released in Early Access this spring. In both cases, Innerspace's signature charm and quirky gameplay found in their previous VR titles were ever present with the missions triggering my inner perfectionist's need to get everything just right. I play a lot of puzzle games and rarely replay them because the magic is often lost when I know the solution, but Spymaster managed to circumvent that.

Spymaster Early Access Review: Equal Parts Charming & Thrilling

Spymaster is a character hot-swapping time manipulating spy thriller with developer Innerspace’s signature charm.

UploadVRMike Johnson

Spymaster is available now in Early Access on Quest and Steam.

visionOS 27 is the fourth major operating system version for Apple Vision Pro headsets.

Despite the relative lack of fanfare, visionOS 27 is actually one of the biggest upgrades yet, with (preconfigured) held object tracking, an IR LED tracked accessories framework, high-quality unfoveated screen recording, and a range of other major improvements.

visionOS 27 is available for both the M2 and M5 models of Apple Vision Pro.

visionOS 27

Siri AI & Visual Intelligence

Siri AI, Apple's LLM-powered overhaul of its digital assistant, is now rolling out in beta on visionOS 27 for both M2 and M5 Apple Vision Pro headsets.

Access requires joining a waitlist in the visionOS Settings. Apple says wait times vary, and the feature will start downloading automatically once access is granted.

Siri AI is currently available only in English, with the device and Siri languages set to the same supported English option.

Siri AI is powered by the next-generation Apple Foundation Models, which were co-developed with Google and based on its Gemini models (reportedly via a $1 billion/year deal). As has always been the case with Apple Intelligence, some tasks run on a small on-device model, while more complex tasks are handed off to Apple's Private Cloud Compute system.

Apple says Siri AI is a "profoundly more capable and conversational assistant" than traditional Siri, with "personal context understanding, broad world knowledge, and more".

In visionOS, Siri AI takes the form of a persistent orb that you can pin to a physical spot in your room. You can start speaking to Siri AI by simply looking at the orb and speaking, bypassing the need to say "Siri", though you can still do that if you want.

Siri AI on visionOS also supports Apple's Visual Intelligence feature, letting you "search, ask questions, and take action" relating to your physical and virtual surroundings. In terms of capabilities, it seems to sit somewhere between Meta AI on Quest 3's Horizon OS and Gemini on Samsung Galaxy XR's Android XR.

visionOS 27 also includes a dedicated Siri app, letting you access previous conversations, and offering a preinstalled alternative to third-party AI chatbot apps like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Grok, and Meta AI.

Apple also announced the following features powered by the next-generation Apple Foundation Models:

• Significantly more realistic image generation in Image Playground.
• Automatic bookmarks and Reading List organization in Safari.
• The ability to upgrade the strength of your saved passwords with a single tap (coming in a future visionOS 27 version).
• Personalized Smart Replies in Messages.

On the M5 Vision Pro, Siri also has a more realistic and expressive voice, which you can customize.

Spatial Panorama Environments

visionOS 2 brought the ability to add synthetic stereoscopy to 2D images, and then visionOS 26 brought the ability to turn 2D images into limited-perspective volumetric spatial scenes, enabled by Gaussian splatting.

visionOS 27 extends this spatial scene concept to your iPhone-captured panoramas.

You can also set these spatial panoramas as your visionOS home environment, meaning they can be the background for your windows and volumes in the Shared Space.

Higher Frequency Object Tracking

Back in visionOS 2, Apple added the ability for Vision Pro to track specific real-world 3D objects that app developers prespecify.

Developers provide a 3D model of the object they want to be tracked to the Create ML tool on their Mac before app compilation, and over the course of several hours it trains a neural network for the object and bakes it into the app.

While genuinely useful for enterprise applications, the visionOS 2 object tracking system was only designed to be used for static objects, mainly in order to anchor virtual content to them, and responded very slowly if the object moved.

visionOS 27 adds a high-frame-rate object tracking mode that is suitable for moving and held objects. While Apple doesn't say exactly what the update rate is, initial reports from developers suggest it may be around 30Hz.

To track held objects, Apple strongly recommends using the new Extended Training mode, which greatly improves tracking performance though also "significantly" increases the machine learning model training time. XR enthusiast Brad Lynch found that it took around 18 hours to train a fish toy, for example.

While high frame rate object tracking is leagues better than what came before, it's important to note that it still has a significantly lower update rate, and thus higher latency, than hand tracking or tracked accessories. And speaking of tracked accessories, this update opens the door to more of them.

IR LED Tracked Accessories

For visionOS 26 last year, Apple worked closely with Sony and Logitech to add hardcoded support for the PlayStation VR2 Sense controllers and Muse digital stylus, which both have a constellation of infrared LEDs under the plastic of their bodies.

With visionOS 27, Apple has opened this process up to any interested company by adding the necessary APIs to enable them to make their own IR LED tracked accessories for Vision Pro, similar to how any company can make SteamVR "Lighthouse" Tracking accessories on PC.

Optical tracking runs at 90Hz, and this is fused with the IMU accelerometer and gyroscope data from the object, enabling the same quality of tracking you'd expect from PlayStation VR2 Sense controllers.

There are two possible software support paths available:

• Companion App: The hardware maker can release a visionOS companion app for the hardware, essentially an installer for it, that registers the shape of the object and configuration of its IR LEDs with visionOS so that other apps can use them. This path would be highly suitable for a consumer device.
• Built Into App: Alternatively, a developer can build the object details into an app that utilizes the accessory, negating the need for a separate device companion app. This path would be ideal for enterprise.

DFRobot and MikroE announced reference hardware and developer kits for this, with the DFRobot hardware available to purchase now. Companies can use these directly, or as the basis of their own accessories, lowering the barrier to entry compared to building from scratch.

Thórsmörk Environment

visionOS 27 brings a new environment option for the Shared Space: Iceland's Thórsmörk valley. It translates as Thor's Valley, and it's widely considered one of the most scenic places on the planet.

Apple's environments all have day and night modes, and Thórsmörk's nighttime variant features a dramatic aurora borealis.

Thórsmörk is the 10th virtual environment for visionOS, following the addition of Jupiter from Amalthea in visionOS 26.

Unfoveated Screen Recording

At all times in the Shared Space, and in many Full Space apps too, Apple Vision Pro uses always-on eye-tracked foveated rendering, only rendering the region of the image you're currently looking at in full resolution.

This maximizes visual quality and performance, and is essential to how Apple Vision Pro headsets make good use of their 4K micro-OLED panels, but it has the tradeoff of meaning that in screen recordings, everywhere you're not looking is a low-resolution blur.

It was already possible in previous versions of visionOS to record unfoveated footage via a connected Mac, but not standalone on the headset.

visionOS 27 adds a High Quality Recording option, which records up to 3 minutes of unfoveated 4K footage, completely on the headset, no Mac required.

It can make it much easier for developers, journalists, influencers, and content creators of all kinds to show off visionOS, and was one of the most highly requested features for Vision Pro.

Mac 3D Object Preview API

When connected to your Mac via Mac Virtual Display, macOS 27 adds an API to spawn a 3D object on visionOS 27, letting you preview objects in 3D space.

Apple's built-in Preview macOS app supports it, meaning you can open a 3D object from Finder and preview it in seconds. And developers can add it to their own Mac apps too.

This API essentially lets developers add Vision Pro support to their 3D creation Mac apps with just a few lines of code, and without the need to build a visionOS app.

It even supports editing the model on the visionOS side using gaze-and-pinch controls, and these edits are then reflected on the macOS side. It's a two-way API. SharePlay is supported too, for collaborative spatial editing with Personas.

Apple said Cinema 4D and SketchUp were working on integrating the API. With macOS 27 and visionOS 27 now available, other Mac apps can add support too.

Microsoft Announces Windows Volumetric Apps For Quest

Microsoft announced Windows Volumetric Apps, a new API for extending elements of PC applications, streamed to Meta Quest headsets, into 3D space.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

Microsoft and Meta announced something similar for Windows 11 and Horizon OS back in 2024, but as far as we're aware, it has yet to ship.

New Control Center Look

visionOS 27 updates the look of Control Center, moving it into three panels for a larger and less crowded total space for the interface.

• The left panel shows the date, time, battery level, Wi-Fi status, and playing notifications.
• The center panel shows shortcuts to Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, AirPlay and Airplane Mode, as well as a volume slider and quick controls like Mac Virtual Display, Mirroring, Guest Mode, and Travel Mode.
• The right panel controls the environment, including its day/night mode and the spectrum between full passthrough and full enclosure in the virtual environment, as you would with the Digital Crown physical control.

Mac Device Hub

Xcode 27 for macOS brings a Device Hub app for developers.

For developers, Device Hub can make running Apple Vision Pro demos much smoother, as instead of needing to guide the guest through the visionOS gaze-and-pinch interface, they can instead just remotely launch an experience.

It's a significant addition because the iPhone and iPad companion apps for Vision Pro cannot launch apps, for some reason.

3x Faster Wi-Fi Initialization

The M5 Apple Vision Pro is a very fast-feeling device, and in my several months with it I've experienced no slowdowns.

Before visionOS 27, there was one strange exception, though. After booting up the device, for the first 20 seconds or so there was no internet connection. It took an unusually long time, compared to all of the other devices I own, to fully connect to Wi-Fi.

It seems that Apple is not unaware of this, as in visionOS 27, the company claims Vision Pro headsets connect to Wi-Fi up to three times faster.

Curved Windows In Safari, Freeform & Multiview

Before visionOS 27, all windows were flat, with the exception of Mac Virtual Display's wide and ultrawide modes which are curved.

visionOS 27 adds curved windows support to Safari, Freeform, and Multiview on Apple TV. Safari also makes use of this for a curved tab browsing experience that somewhat wraps around you, as does the Multiview mode of Apple TV.

Unfortunately, this is a private API for first-party Apple apps. Third party developers cannot make their windows curved – at least not in the Shared Space. In a Full Space, developers can implement a custom rendering solution for this, but this comes with significant tradeoffs in terms of API support and OS consistency.

Extra-Small 'Accessory Widgets'

One of the biggest additions in visionOS 26 was Widgets, bringing persistent mini-windows you can pin to your physical space, including Clock, Weather, Music, and Photos, alongside an API for developers to build their own.

visionOS 27 adds a new kind of extra small widget called accessory widgets. They're smaller than visionOS 26's widgets and can be used for things like a battery level, countdown or timer, a stock price, smart home control button, or shortcut into an app.

The smart home button possibility seems particularly promising. You could, in theory given an app that supports this, add accessory widgets around your home on your physical devices, letting you just look at them and pinch to activate or deactivate them.

Apple has added a first-party accessory widget for Mac Virtual Display, which launches a Mac Virtual Display session for a given Mac, even when it's locked. While visionOS already creates a button above your MacBook, this could be particularly useful for Mac mini and Mac Studio, letting you just sit down at your desk and tap a virtual button to connect.

Web Environments In Safari

Safari in visionOS 27 adds support for Web Environments, letting developers specify a 3D environment for their webpage that users can optionally enable to surround them.

This is separate from WebXR, leveraging a requestImmersive() JavaScript API on a HTML <model> element.

Gaze-Expanding Notifications

In visionOS 27, notifications can expand when you simply look at them, exposing more information and available actions without the need to pinch.

It's another example of using eye tracking to reduce user interface friction.

Auto Subtitles For Videos

visionOS 27 adds an Accessibility feature to automatically generate subtitles for any video, using an on-device speech recognition model.

Vehicle Motion Cues

visionOS 27 brings the Vehicle Motion Cues feature that Apple added to its other major operating systems in 2024.

Motion cues appear as animated dots around the edge of your view that move in response to the acceleration, braking, and turning of the vehicle you're in, with the intention of reducing travel sickness.

Eye-Controlled Power Wheelchairs

visionOS 27 adds the ability to natively control select power wheelchairs using eye tracking.

Apple announced the feature with support for Tolt and LUCI alternative drive systems in the US, including both Bluetooth and wired connections.

The company says it "will continue to work with developers to expand support for more wheelchair drive systems".

Major RealityKit Upgrades

visionOS 27 also brings major upgrades to RealityKit, Apple's built-in "engine" that powers all experiences in the Shared Space and many Full Space apps too.

RealityKit allows developers to build high-quality VR and mixed reality experiences on Vision Pro without a heavy engine like Unity or Unreal, with consistent rendering, physics, audio, and interactions.

Here are the key upgrades to RealityKit in visionOS 27:

Physical Space Lighting

Apps can now cast virtual light on your physical environment.

RealityKit already automatically has virtual objects and interfaces cast shadows into your physical space, based on where it estimates your real lighting is coming from, and this has been a key feature since visionOS. What's new in visionOS 27 is the ability to cast light too.

Under the hood, the feature leverages Vision Pro's LiDAR-scanned 3D mesh of your room, alongside the reading from the ambient light sensor. The rest is clever software.

Developers can add both point and spot lights to the scene, with support for projective textures to add a pattern (optionally animated) to spot lights for effects such as stained glass, underwater caustics, projected stars, or patterned stage lighting.

Native Gaussian Splat Rendering

Over the past few years, to use an analogy, Gaussian splatting – fitting millions of semitransparent colored blobs (Gaussians) in 3D space so that arbitrary viewpoints can be rendered realistically in real-time – has done for 3D reconstruction what transformers did for AI.

We've seen developers do amazing things with it, such as Gracia's streamable moving volumetric captures. Apple itself uses the technology for the spatial scenes feature of visionOS, and it's behind the massive upgrade in visual realism we saw from Personas in visionOS 26.

RealityKit in visionOS 27 adds native support for rendering Gaussian splats, removing the requirement for developers to implement the code for this themselves.

Realtime Cloth Simulation

RealityKit in visionOS 27 adds integrated real-time deformable-fabric simulation.

Developers can create fabric that drapes under gravity, folds and wrinkles, collides with objects, responds to movement, and can be pulled or otherwise interacted with. The stiffness, friction, and material parameters can be set to change how the cloth behaves.

Immersive Audio Upgrades

RealityKit on visionOS 27 adds a Reverb Mesh API, letting apps describe the geometry and acoustic properties of virtual environments.

Developers assign materials to surfaces to specify how each affects sound, including frequency-dependent absorption, frequency-dependent scattering, and reflection and reverberation behavior.

RealityKit then simulates how sound travels and reverberates through that modeled space, making audio correspond more believably to the VR environment you see.

Many of these features were present in Meta's XR Audio SDK for Quest headsets, which the company put "on freeze" earlier this year. Valve's Steam Audio SDK also has many of these features, and Valve continues to update it.

Count yours truly among those who got the dreaded waitlist email for the Steam Frame, as shown in this image:

Despite Valve's best efforts to mitigate scalpers via the same registration system used for the Steam Machine, listings have been popping up on secondary markets like eBay since Frame registration first opened on September 14. Those listings are, of course, ridiculous as anyone not in possession of a Steam Frame dev kit could not possibly have the device confirmed and available to sell. This is the type of highly anticipated release that scammers and scalpers live for, hoping to take advantage of disappointed buyers who received the same email I did earlier today.

However, as waitlist emails go out today, a new wave of listings is popping up with potential scalpers posting images of reservation queue confirmations, hoping to flip their purchases for profit. The same happened, and continues to happen, with the Steam Controller. eBay listings for the $100 accessory are priced as high as $300 from a quick search as some potential buyers have been told by Valve they are waitlisted until 2027.

As always, we strongly advise extreme caution if you are considering going this route to acquire Valve's new headset. Screenshots of reservation queue confirmations can easily be copied from the internet and altered to give the appearance of a legitimate seller for anyone desperate or gullible enough to pay twice the retail price or more.

But getting there can be surprisingly confusing. Some viewers browse cloud libraries, while others need files transferred onto the headset. Some let you share, but others restrict viewing to one account. For each viewer, the experience varies considerably.

I tested several options on my Meta Quest 3 to describe what works best. Hyperscape gave me the best overall viewing experience, but AirVis is my strongest recommendation for combining quality, convenient controls, and sharing. I also explored generated worlds in Marble and moving subjects in Gracia, which show that splats can offer more than still captures.

AirVis: Best, Most Flexible Option

AirVis created an excellent native Quest app. I can browse public cloud scenes or open my own AirVis uploads. Currently, 5GB of cloud storage is free, with a subscription required for more.

The controls feel responsive, almost like flying a drone through the splat. I can also physically walk through the scene. AirVis consistently delivered crisp details, good frame rates, and intuitive controls. Medium quality worked well, and many scenes ran comfortably at the highest setting.

I also like that AirVis provides multiple ways to capture splats: phones, drones, and 360 video, along with a sizable community-driven library of scenes to explore.

PC Streaming

I won’t delve into all PC streaming options, but I did try AirVis’s solution. Setup was quick. In the PC app, I selected CloudXR Server under Profile Settings, chose a locally stored splat, and entered the server’s IP address in the Quest app.

The result looked comparable to viewing the cloud content, with a nice speed boost from my desktop graphics card. The PC reported 30 to 40 frames per second for a 5M splat scene, running on my Nvidia RTX 4070 Super.

That’s a useful extra if you already have a fast GPU, but AirVis’s standalone app is a good starting point.

SuperSplat: Largest Library

SuperSplat runs through the Quest browser. I could teleport, physically walk, or fly through scenes, although flying felt less smooth than in AirVis. The community library is large, making it a good resource when I’m looking for more than AirVis offers.

While the variety and quality are impressive, my headset struggled with many scenes. I had to switch to SuperSplat’s performance mode to get tolerable frame rates. Even then, lag was sometimes bad enough to cause motion sickness.

The quality was good, but its weakness was maintaining smooth movement with demanding content. Meta’s best headset is now three years old, and the aging Quest 3 hardware struggles with larger, unoptimized scenes.

GSVision: Displays Local Splats

The GSVision viewer was my best option for files stored directly on the Quest, which I transferred from my PC over USB. Larger scenes required reducing the splat count. The app recommends 700,000, and lag became noticeable around 1.2 million. There are several quality and performance adjustments. Setting Sort Every Nth Frame to 20 improved smoothness by updating the drawing order less frequently.

The controls made sense once I imagined positioning and rotating the splat rather than moving through it. I could even tilt it upside down. Unfortunately, a fixed gray platform obscured parts of the scene, and I couldn’t disable it. Reducing the culling distance to 0.2 meters stopped nearby details from disappearing so soon.

The bigger issue is the splat count limitation that leaves visible holes while viewing. I also tried Splatviewer VR, but it didn't improve those issues and I had to sideload it.

Into The Scaniverse: See Mobile Splats

Into the Scaniverse connects a phone capture app with Quest viewing and community sharing like AirVis but isn't as full-featured. It ran without noticeable lag in my tests, but scenes tended to lack detail. Still, I captured some good splats with my phone to view and share on Quest.

Scaniverse launched in 2021, before Gaussian splats were common. The Quest app is relatively new but feels like it needs a refresh. Its hot air balloon interface and globe metaphor feel awkward beside the clean thumbnail browsers of other viewers.

Niantic Spatial developed a newer processing system, which offers better quality and accepts video from nearly any source, but the company told me it wasn’t actively developing Quest support for this improved system. Into the Scaniverse can only view scenes captured with phones, using the older technology.

Hyperscape: Looks Best, But Has Limits

Horizon Hyperscape produced the best combination of quality and smoothness for me. Navigation was straightforward, although I could only teleport or physically walk. There was no way to fly higher.

The bigger limitations are capture and sharing. I have to wear a Quest 3 or 3S to capture a scene, and I can’t share my personal captures with other people.

Meta previously let users invite friends into captures, but removed sharing and shared visits in May 2026. Capturing and revisiting spaces in your own account remain possible. That’s frustrating since sharing a scene or location is such a compelling reason to make a splat.

Generated Worlds And Moving Splats

Marble’s generated worlds offer a different kind of splat viewing. These AI-generated environments aren’t necessarily faithful captures of real places, but there’s plenty of community content to explore.

In my Quest browser, most scenes performed well and the controls felt good. I’ll revisit Marble in my splat creation article.

Gracia’s moving splats are also worth trying. Its optimized, subject-focused captures delivered impressive streaming quality in my Quest browser.

The content selection is limited, but being able to look around an animated subject adds something different from exploring a static scene. It’s worth checking back as the library grows.

Where To Start

After weeks of research, AirVis is my choice for flexible viewing and sharing, while Hyperscape offers excellent results within its restrictions. GSVision is useful to get a look at local files in VR. SuperSplat offers browser convenience, and Into the Scaniverse remains useful as an alternative to AirVis.

For something different, I’d explore Marble’s generated worlds or try Gracia’s moving subjects. Both worked well in my Quest browser and show how much more splats can offer beyond still captures.

Here is the exact wording from developer CM Immersive's email:

During the final certification stage, we identified a few things that still need attention. We want to use this time to make sure the PS VR2 version is in the best possible shape before players enter the Radius.

From speaking to developers, Sony's certification and approval process has been said to be considerably more rigorous than that of Meta or Steam. Into the Radius 2 left Early Access on Steam and Quest earlier this year, paving the way for a PS VR2 version to come to market, as Sony's platform has traditionally not favored the Early Access process.

Into The Radius 2 Coming To PlayStation VR2 In September

Into the Radius 2 lands on PlayStation VR2 on September 24. It takes full advantage of the headset’s features, but co-op support will come later this year.

UploadVRMike Johnson

We previously reported that the game will run at a native 90fps and utilize PS VR2's features like eye-tracked dynamic foveated rendering, headset haptics, and the controllers' adaptive triggers. However, co-op gameplay mode was announced to come sometime in Q4 2026.

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

Developer Triangle Factory referred to the jets as an 'experimental vehicle' after initially ruling out adding them to the game. You can spawn it from the spawn menu and get into dogfights including lock-on missiles. The jets also support VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) and a choice of physical or arcade controls.

The jets are only available on the two maps: Karst, the newest map that comes with this update and a Paradise map variant.

The Karst map is centered on a Vietnamese fishing village surrounded by limestone cliffs. Within the lore of the game's world, the O.R.E. (Orpiment Renewable Energy) corporation discovered that the inhabitants of the formerly peaceful village have been trading large amounts of Red Orpiment, the clean energy source O.R.E. maintains worldwide control over. As such, an invasion was ordered and met with resistance from the Coalition Force.

Forefront has continually received content updates since its 1.0 release earlier this year, including multiple new maps, weapons, and graphical improvements on PC VR. The Fighter Jets update is available now on all supported platforms for free.

Forefront is available now on Quest, Steam, and Pico.

I've played my fair share of roguelikes in VR, both solo and in co-op. Sol Protocol is the first one I've played that emphasizes co-op play to such an extent that if you have no interest in multiplayer, Sol Protocol will offer virtually nothing for you.

This isn't a fault or a demerit to the game. If anything, it's a strength. The majority of your playtime will be centered around your ship. The cockpit features three seats: one for the captain, one for the pilot, and one for the gunner. The captain allocates the ship's available energy for the various sub-systems: shields, the engine, the warp drive, and the weapons.

As of right now, the gameplay loop is incredibly simple. Check the star map for sectors with promising points of interest, then allocate enough energy to your warp drive and align your ship before activating the warp. Once in a new galaxy, search for resources and structures while watching out for enemies. Resources include repair materials for the ship, additional weapons or supplementary ship systems - such as extra shields - or even energy cells that can be installed in the ship's hold to increase the maximum available energy.

Your goal is simply to slowly strengthen your ship and proceed to more perilous regions. Ship combat requires your entire team working in tandem, with the pilot avoiding attacks while the gunner tracks and fires at enemies with a head-tracking visor.

Once it comes time to gather resources, this is where the game's primary movement mechanics come into play. In zero gravity, you strafe without changing elevations with the left analog stick, and use boosters to adjust your elevations with the right stick. The left Quest controller's face buttons allow you to adjust your rotation forward and back, while clicking in either the left or right analog stick allows you to rotate clockwise or counterclockwise.

Entering a structure, you may find some randomly generated movement puzzles that incorporate zero gravity movement quite heavily. This naturally makes sense, since you're out in the expanse of space. Here you'll enter structures and salvage valuables from wrecked crafts or satellites. During this extravehicular ambulation, you'll have to watch your oxygen and health levels, verified with a peek at your left wrist.

All in all, I enjoyed my time with the Early Access build of the game, even if what the game currently offers is a bit sparse in terms of scope. Performance also left a lot to be desired on Quest 3, as I noticed some gnarly frame drops and some obvious reprojection artifacts. The game looks good, but not exactly impressive enough to overlook those dips, so hopefully things will get ironed out over the coming months.

For now, Sol Protocol is a promising co-op title we'll be sure to keep our eyes on. Sol Protocol releases September 19 on Quest with a Steam version planned for October.

When the developers of Dream Hackers VR sent me a preview build of their upcoming game back in August, I didn't know what to expect. I'd never heard of Dream Hackers VR. After two hours playing the rogue-lite VR shooter, it became the game I'm most looking forward to in 2027.

Now, the Dream Hackers VR team has released a publicly available demo on Steam, giving everyone a chance to shoot and puzzle their way through the game's surreal dreamscapes.

Dream Hackers VR Is The Game I’m Most Excited For In 2027

In Dream Hackers VR, it took just minutes for us to realize we were playing something truly special.

UploadVRJames Tocchio

What you can expect to find is about 1.5-2 hours of Dream Hackers VR gameplay. You'll explore incredible dreamscapes full of strange architecture, odd characters, and terrifying nightmares. When these nightmares attack, it's up to you (and an arsenal of imaginative weaponry) to blast them back to oblivion.

Dream Hackers VR is coming sometime in 2027. The demo has released today on SteamVR.

Incisiv, the developers of CleanSheet Soccer 2, have released their goaltending arcade game on Meta Quest today. The game had previously been available on PlayStation VR2 only. Interestingly, the Quest version costs $24.99, which is $10 less than the PlayStation VR2 release.

CleanSheet Soccer 2 approaches the ball from a different angle, both literally and figuratively. Rather than chase the fantasy of scoring spectacular goals, here 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.

We reviewed CleanSheet Soccer 2 when it debuted on PlayStation VR2 earlier this year, and found it to be "a simple idea, executed very well [and] a focused, energetic, and surprisingly authentic goalkeeper experience that feels perfectly suited to VR."

CleanSheet Soccer 2 is available on PlayStation VR2 and, starting now, Meta Quest.

Kacey Musgraves had just finished a cover of George Strait's "All My Ex's Live in Texas," and for a split second my brain apparently forgot that I was sitting alone wearing a Quest 3. I was immersed enough in the performance that clapping felt like the natural thing to do.

I had no idea who Kacey Musgraves was before putting on the headset.

Kacey Musgraves Middle of Nowhere: An Immersive Experience is a made-for-VR concert filmed at Billy Bob's Texas in Fort Worth. Meta says the production was built from the ground up for stereoscopic 3D VR180, with the staging, choreography, lighting and camera placement all designed around someone watching in a headset.

The 49-minute experience moves through several areas of Billy Bob's rather than just filming a conventional concert from a few different seats. It was produced and creatively directed by Untold Studios, with MediaMonks and 7 Cinematics co-producing. Meta says it was shot using Blackmagic URSA cameras.

Inside Billy Bob’s

The experience opens with Musgraves arriving at Billy Bob's on horseback before moving inside the famous Texas honky-tonk. Billy Bob's itself is enormous, but the way this concert is set up feels much more intimate than the theater used for the Goo Goo Dolls immersive concert I previously watched on Quest.

From the first song, "Dry Spell," the cameras put you very close to Musgraves and her band. At times you're standing on the floor looking slightly up toward the stage with members of the audience around you. Another camera sits farther back behind the crowd. There's also a camera placed onstage between the keyboard player and drummer, looking back out toward the audience.

There aren't a huge number of camera positions, but with a venue like this, there really don't need to be.

Musgraves also spends a good amount of time performing toward the camera. During parts of "Dry Spell," she's only a few feet away and appears to be singing almost directly to you.

Then the view cuts back into the crowd. One moment you feel like another person inside Billy Bob's watching the show. The next, it almost feels like Musgraves is giving you a private concert.

The stereoscopic presentation on Quest 3 is excellent. Depth feels natural, people look like they're the right size, and I didn't experience any noticeable eye strain. I watched using the "4K" quality setting over hotel Wi-Fi, and the image still looked impressively clear.

The audio mix sounded terrific too. I can't say the spatial presentation itself stood out to me, but the music came through loud, clear and very well mixed.

VR180 feels like a great fit for a concert like this. The immersion is terrific, and with almost all of the action happening in front of you, there really isn't much reason to turn completely around.

Inside The Performance

Later, the camera sits farther back while people fill the dance floor in front of the stage. Musgraves and an accordion player then walk out among them while the camera moves backward.

Suddenly you're right in the middle of it. People are dancing all around you while Musgraves and the accordion player move through the crowd only a few feet away. That was one of the first moments where I stopped thinking about the camera placement and just enjoyed being there.

Her cover of Brooks & Dunn's "Neon Moon" was another highlight for me. During the guitar solo, the close camera placement lets you watch the band interacting in a way you probably wouldn't get from almost any normal concert seat. Musgraves is once again close enough that it can feel like she's singing directly to you.

The concert also breaks things up with a few short Texas-themed scenes. Musgraves rides a mechanical bull. A cowboy performs lasso tricks. At one point enormous Texas Longhorn cattle walk directly toward the camera.

Seeing a Longhorn walking toward you in stereoscopic 3D really gives you a sense of just how big those animals are. If you're fully immersed, having one coming straight at you can be a little startling.

About halfway through, the experience moves into the dirt-floored rodeo inside Billy Bob's. The building dates back to 1910, when it was used as an open-air barn for prize cattle at the Fort Worth Stock Show. A former livestock auction ring inside the building is now used for bull riding.

Musgraves sits on the bleachers between two guitarists with no crowd around them. You're positioned directly in front of the trio.

During the next song, Musgraves picks up her own guitar, talks with the other musicians a little and explains some of what the song means to her before the three start playing together.

This was one of my favorite parts of the whole experience. The 3D and close camera position make it feel like you're sitting right there with them while they talk and play. There is no crowd, no spectacle and nothing interactive going on. You're just sitting a few feet away from three musicians playing together, and the simplicity of it works incredibly well.

The rest of the band eventually joins Musgraves on the dirt floor of the rodeo, with the audience surrounding them.

"Cardinal” is a particularly fun change of pace. After all the country atmosphere, the song takes on a more mystical feel, with a driving beat, darker chords and a strong guitar solo. The dirt-floored rodeo is a great setting for it. The band is playing in the middle of the space with people gathered around them, and the whole scene feels loose and alive.

From there, the set moves through "Justified" before Musgraves heads back toward classic country with "All My Ex's Live in Texas."

That's the performance that got me.

I knew the George Strait song, and I was enjoying it enough that when it ended, my first impulse was to applaud.

For a moment, I wasn't thinking about watching immersive video. I was just reacting to the performance.

The show closes by bringing things back around to the way it started. Musgraves leaves Billy Bob's in the back of a pickup truck, except this time you're riding away with her from a camera positioned in the truck bed.

It's a simple ending, but it works really well.

A Fan Is Born

Again, I had no idea who Kacey Musgraves was when I started watching. By the end, I'd already added a few of her songs to my Apple Music library.

Spending nearly an hour this close to an artist, hearing her talk about her music and watching the musicians interact is a very different way to discover someone than watching a music video or streaming a few songs on your phone.

It immediately made me wonder what this would be like with artists I already love. Middle of Nowhere turned me into a fan of someone I knew nothing about going in, and I'd really like to see more artists get this kind of immersive treatment.

Experiences like this also feel like one of the clearest use cases for VR. Quest 3 is already very good at delivering this kind of immersive video, and the lighter headsets with higher-resolution displays now starting to emerge should make experiences like this even more comfortable to watch and easier for more people to embrace. If that audience grows, hopefully more artists will meet them there.

Kacey Musgraves Middle of Nowhere: An Immersive Experience is available now on Meta Quest through the Meta Quest TV app.

While Redux adds some minor gameplay improvements for its Meta headset release, the overall experience is bland, visually downgraded, and disappointingly unpolished.

Beyond Reality Redux is a fairly straightforward on-rails shooter. For those who may not be familiar with the term, think of games like Virtua Cop, Time Crisis, and The House of the Dead. As in those venerable arcade classics, Transformers: Beyond Reality Redux has you moving automatically through a series of environments while enemies appear in front of and around you. Your job is to shoot them until they explode. At the end of each of the game’s six stages, there’s a boss battle.

In games like these, the only action you can really take is to shoot stuff. In House of the Dead, shooting stuff makes zombie heads explode, which is satisfying. In Time Crisis’ arcade cabinet, shooting stuff makes a real-life gun recoil, which is exciting. In Transformers: Beyond Reality Redux, shooting stuff does almost nothing.

Sure, enemies explode, bosses flop, and you eventually beat the game. But nothing about shooting stuff in Transformers is very engrossing. You hold down the trigger and your weapon fires continually with all the speed and power of a little, green inchworm. There’s almost no sense of destructive force or feedback when your shots connect. It’s deeply humdrum.

There are too few enemy types, and the differences between them aren't significant enough to make encounters feel varied or interesting. All-too-similar, if not identical, enemies appear stage after stage to absorb a handful of shots and disappear in a small explosion. Occasionally they'll fire back at you, requiring you to dodge their attacks, block them with a shield, or deflect them with a sword. But none of these mechanics are particularly fun, either!

Rather than feeling like an action hero caught in the middle of a Transformers battle, I often felt like I was giving the worst PowerPoint presentation of all time. I simply pointed my laser gun at whatever Decepticon had floated into my periphery while holding my shield up to deflect any lasers that happened to be shot my way.

There's almost no challenge, no strategy, and no satisfying aural, visual, or haptic feedback to make any of it feel worthwhile. There's no sense of weight or force behind the game’s action, which is especially disappointing in a game set in a world where giant robots habitually punch each other in the face.

This disappointment extends to the visuals, too, with this Quest port looking substantially worse than the earlier PSVR2 release. Textures appear to be missing entirely, and character models and environments are noticeably lacking in detail. Lighting is bland, environments are generic, and visual effects are weak. Given the relatively simple nature of the gameplay, the visual downgrade is particularly difficult to overlook.

There are moments when the Transformers license provides a little magic. When one of the giant Transformers appears in front of you, there's something undeniably exciting about seeing these big burly ‘bots rendered at such an enormous scale. Unfortunately, the novelty wears off almost immediately because the Transformers themselves don't get to do very much.

A typical encounter goes like this: A recognizable bad-guy Transformer appears and says something snarky. A recognizable good-guy Transformer appears and says “Oh, no you don’t!” The two Transformers have a six-second wrestling match, and then they fall off a cliff, or fly away, or run off down a corridor, shouting “Human, save the day!”

It's a fun premise in theory; you’re humanity’s last hope because Optimus Prime has a concussion. But despite the game ostensibly trying its darnedest to make you feel important, nothing in the gameplay reinforces that.

It doesn't help that the story is similarly uninspiring. The narrative exists largely to move you from one shooting gallery to the next, and the dialogue and exposition aren't compelling enough to get or keep me invested in what happens. By the time the third or fourth Transformer shows up, I wasn't thinking about how I could help save the planet. I was thinking about taking off my headset.

Transformers: Beyond Reality Redux Review - Final Verdict

There's nothing inherently wrong with a simple arcade shooter. Especially in VR, on-rail shooters can be great. But arcade shooters live or die on the quality of their moment-to-moment action. The weapons need to feel fun to use, enemies need to be satisfying to destroy, and encounters need to provide some combination of tension, spectacle, challenge, or surprise. Transformers: Beyond Reality Redux doesn't deliver any of that.

Instead, there‘s one main weapon, a couple of super weapons (which are equally unsatisfying to use), six all-too-similar campaign stages and a seemingly endless arcade mode, none of which really compels you to play or to keep playing.

Fans of the 'bots may find some appeal in being able to see their favorite characters up close, to hear the iconic voice actors, and watch Optimus Prime and Megatron duke it out for a few moments at full scale. But fans who have access to PSVR2 are better served to buy the original game rather than this subpar Quest port. And for Quest-only players, there are many other more satisfying ways to spend twenty bucks and a couple of hours in a Quest headset.

Halfway through my complete playthrough of Transformers: Beyond Reality Redux’s campaign, I wasn't really having any fun. Instead, I found myself wondering what exactly was stopping me from shaking off the headset, firing up my PlayStation 2, and playing Time Crisis.

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

This game is the second release, after FlatOut 4: Total Insanity VR, from the Flat2VR Spark program. Spark is an initiative pairing developers (Strange Scaffold in this case) with experienced VR modders to do an official VR port. Based on what I have played of I Am Your Beast thus far, the Spark program is batting a thousand.

You play as Alphonse Harding, a retired secret agent asked by your former employer, the Covert Operations Initiative (COI), to return for the proverbial "one last job," a notion that Harding rejects while hilariously pointing out that there have already been several "one last jobs" in the past. Your handler drops the "you're not being a team player" guilt-trip of a line anyone who has worked in the service industry has heard before sending a death squad of COI agents to take you out.

What follows is a series of over twenty missions comprised of contained, objective-focused sandbox combat scenarios. Objectives are typically fairly straightforward (kill all the enemies, destroy satellites, find the escape point) and each mission has a time limit. Speed and efficiency are at the core of I Am Your Beast's gameplay, very similar to Innerspace's Spymaster, but with more brutal combat. Every mission is graded from D to S-rank based on your time, with time being shaved off for things like head shots and completing optional objectives.

The action here is absolutely stellar and after understanding and scheming the ideal path, it feels fast and fluid as you tear through enemies on the way to your mission-ending escape hatch. For example, there is no reloading in this game. When a weapon runs out of ammo, simply chuck it at an enemy so it still has some use, pick up their dropped weapon, and keep it moving.

Between missions, you listen to recorded conversations in what is presumably Harding's bunker, with subtitles displayed over a video of the wilderness the game is set in. This brings up the conundrum of playing a VR game that was ported from flatscreen. After playing, I watched a YouTube video to see how these interludes were delivered in the original game and the only difference in VR was the bunker. If I were playing a native VR game, this is something I would bristle at, as I did in Discovery: Rogue Planet, because it is a poor use of the VR medium. Being a port of a flatscreen game, it is adapted well enough by putting the player in an actual virtual space instead of a black void, but if anything bears a reimagining for VR rather than a one-to-one adaption, it is these moments. Something as simple as picking up a walkie-talkie to have the conversation could have helped.

Extend that conundrum to the interactions. I Am Your Beast is not a very tactile game, which may turn away players who champion a heavy dose of VR interactions and physics-based systems. To climb, even though clear grab points are on trees and rock walls, you simply press up on your analog stick. The only things you truly touch are weapons whereas things like health refills and laptops are activated by hitting grab when your hand brushes over them. All of that works though because you are constantly racing against the clock. Physics inevitably introduces jank and jank would absolutely slow this game down and hurt your mission times. I did not mind this one bit, but it should be noted for players who deeply care about such things.

You can fail a mission if you take too long. There is an option to turn this off and make each run a no-fail mission, but you get points counted off for the assist and likely end up with a D rank. That rank is important because later missions are unlocked based on your performance in previous missions. For instance, one mission only unlocks when you get a ranking of B in a previous one. It's not a mechanic I care for as it artificially extends a presumably short game (and I stink at speedruns), but again, this is a faithful carryover from the source material. So that's a personal issue with the game itself and not necessarily the porting work done by Spark. Without the ranking system and missions being locked by rank and performance, this game would be done in less than an hour. None of the individual missions I have completed thus far have been challenging, but completing them quickly and efficiently is.

Visually, I Am Your Beast has a heavily cel-shaded art style that I think looks great in the headset. This comes at the cost of detailed environments, but I did not really care how intricate the foliage and weapons looked once the clock started ticking and the excellent in-your-face pulse-pounding musical score kicks in. It could benefit from some stronger work with haptic feedback in the controller to pair with the musical score, but the overall presentation still works.

I Am Your Beast VR - Current Verdict

I Am Your Beast VR is gleefully entertaining with a specific action thriller vibe that everything in terms of visuals, music, level design and interactions plays into. That said, it feels more like a very strong VR mod than a native VR game and its general lack of some VR-specific mechanics will likely turn some players away. I will apply a final score when I complete the game, but from where I am now, I would happily recommend it to action junkie VR gamers, particularly those who enjoy a short-form, roguelike-style gameplay loop.

UploadVR uses a 5-Star rating system for our game reviews – you can read a breakdown of each star rating in our review guidelines. As a review-in-progress, this is currently unscored, and we'll revisit this review at full release.

Gaming and skateboarding have a rich history together thanks to landmark franchises like Tony Hawk and Skate. There have even been a few VR skating games, like the aptly titled VR Skater and Virtual Skate. Now Georgia-based VR studio Pokodzima is throwing its own board onto the track with Bomb the Hill, which looks to capture the rebellious spirit of 70s skater culture through immersive gameplay and a history-based narrative.

It began life as a prototype funded by the Oculus Publishing Ignition program, and was even featured during the UploadVR Showcase earlier this summer. An open beta test was offered on Meta Quest a few months ahead of Bomb the Hill’s September 10 Early Access release on that platform. Bomb the Hill will also launch for PC VR sometime later this year.

Bomb the Hill features a narrative campaign inspired by the stories of real-life skaters of the 70s. This story is told in 15 chapters (or Episodes), with the main character receiving messages from an old tape recording he found. Along the way, he will explore the hills and canyons of the Midwest United States, dodge the police, and share insights about his family and why he wants to reconnect with skateboarding as he enters the titular Bomb the Hill competition.

Overall, Bomb the Hill's story takes a nostalgic tone, both in recalling the good times people have while sharing their love of skateboarding and the regret in how life's challenges can drive people apart. At the end of the game, you see actual photos and captions explaining some of the first skating competitions, which is pretty fascinating and touching in itself.

Bomb the Hill can be played either standing up or sitting down. While standing, controlling your skateboard requires you to stand sideways with one foot in front of the other, just like a real skater. You build speed by swiping your arms forward, brake by holding your arms out to catch the wind, and steer by leaning from one side to the other.

You can slide by pressing down on the grip triggers and steering your controller like a driving wheel (though I honestly rarely used this after the introductory tutorial level), and crouch down for extra speed by either ducking your head or pressing the A button (you will be using this a lot in the more timed/speed-focused tracks). It can be tricky at first, and if you aren’t careful, you can find yourself tripping and spinning in your play area.

If you find the standing motions too difficult to pull off, or you can’t stand up for whatever reason, you can also play the game while sitting. Bomb the Hill automatically adjusts for this whenever you load an Episode, and the controls are more or less the same. I played this way most of the time, as I found it easier to steer. Either way you choose, the controls are fairly intuitive and it isn’t long before you are gliding down the slopes like a pro.

As you shred your way downhill, you build up points by bumping through smaller obstacles, pulling off impressive jumps, and going long distances at top speed. Keep in mind that if you go too far off the road or bump into a larger obstacle like a car, you’ll wipe out and have to restart from a checkpoint – or, depending on which Episode you’re on, the beginning of the course.

Episodes vary between timed runs where you have to reach the end of the course without wiping out too much, races with CPU-controlled skaters, and even a few speed runs that require you to hit a certain target speed before you reach the finish line. Oddly enough, many of the earlier, tutorial-like levels feel more difficult than the later races – though there are a few tense runs toward the end.

Many of the courses give you branching options in the form of ramps and shortcuts. You can choose to play it safe and stick to the main road, or take the risk of a wipeout in exchange for an impressive jump and some extra points. Flying through the air after a jump is quite a rush, though landing without spinning out of control takes a lot of trial and error.

Bomb the Hill looks pretty good. While most of the scenery is the same canyon landscape, there are plenty of different buildings and landmarks littering each course to keep things fresh. Some Episodes take place at night, making it even more challenging to navigate, and these are also more visually striking due to lit street signs and glowing trails behind the rival racers.

The music is a fun mix of high-energy punk rock and relaxing jazz that matches the overall skate-culture feel. The sound effects also do a great job of making you feel like you’re rolling along a blacktop road, especially when paired with the rumble feedback in your controllers.

Aside from the volume controls for the music, voices, and sound effects, there is a field-narrowing comfort setting that reduces your field of vision into a single oval looking straight ahead. This is for people with motion sickness and difficulty with the wider display, but I personally found it too distracting.

Bomb the Hill Review - The Final Verdict

Overall, Bomb the Hill is a fun experience that captures the speed of racing down the highway in virtual reality, and its story paints a surprisingly touching picture of nostalgia, community, and the ups and downs of an ever-changing world. Skateboarding fans will definitely want to check it out, and it might make for a fun workout if you wish to play it standing up. Just be careful not to wipe out for real.

You can check it out on Meta Quest now, or wait until it comes to PC VR sometime later this year.

UploadVR uses a 5-Star rating system for our game reviews – you can read a breakdown of each star rating in our review guidelines. As an early access release, this review is unscored.

Publisher Impact Inked and developer Play XD have announced a beta for their comedic card battle game Primal Rumble.

During the beta, players will be able to get an early look at Primal Rumble's slapstick comedy card battling gameplay, collect and compete with the game's Primals, try new moves, experiment with card decks, and help the developers shape the game prior to launch.

Primal Rumble is a card battler that can be played in VR and mixed reality, with the latter mode transforming your real world space into a living playground full of vinyl-statue-esque "Primals." Players collect cute, funny creatures called 'Primals' and compete against up to three other collectors in a mixed reality arena. Each card represents a move for a Primal, played one by one in a familiar turn-based game loop.

A trailer embedded below shares a bit of what to expect from Primal Rumble.

Beta spots are limited. You can find out how to join via the game's Discord server.

Primal Rumble can be wishlisted on Quest now.

If you missed it: Valve announced the price of Steam Frame and opened registrations, as well as confirming that it comes with Half-Life: Alyx, which is now standalone-capable.

Out of the box, Steam Frame has monochrome passthrough, grayscale with a configurable tint, that in terms of angular resolution feels sharper than Quest 2 but significantly blurrier than Quest 3, as well as lacking color.

To solve this, Valve has closely partnered with Arcturus Vision (formerly Arcturus Industries), a startup making a $149 addon that attaches to Steam Frame's PCI-E expansion port.

Arcturus, you may remember, was also one of the companies that worked with Valve to add a depth-correct 3D passthrough mode to the Index headset in 2020. Six years later, it's now providing an even bigger upgrade for Frame.

Arcturus Vision Camera connects to Steam Frame's PCI-E expansion slot, affixing to the headset, and automatically upgrades the headset's passthrough in both the home environment and all mixed reality games, including Cubism, Puzzling Places, and Table Space.

Arcturus Vision Camera features two 32 megapixel Sony RGB sensors spaced 64mm apart (around the average IPD), though for passthrough it uses only around a quarter of this resolution. There are two modes you can choose from:

• Full Resolution: 2464×2464 (6MP) per eye at up to 72Hz (60Hz default)
• Half Resolution: 1232×1232 (1.5MP) per eye at up to 144Hz (experimental)

Passthrough runs at 60fps by default. Arcturus warns that higher refresh rates can exhibit flickering or banding under artificial lighting, so are best used with natural lighting.

Arcturus Vision Camera doesn't just upgrade Steam Frame's passthrough, though. It also turns Frame into a spatial recording device, capable of capturing tracked stereoscopic videos.

Tracked 3D Video Capture

Capturing stereoscopic video has been a core feature of every new standalone headset since Apple Vision Pro, and Arcturus Vision Camera adds this capability to Steam Frame, plus a unique twist.

The Arcturus Vision Camera app on Steam captures 2464×2464 per eye (6MP) 10-bit HLG HDR video at 60fps or 1232×1232 (1.5MP) at 120fps. But unlike with other headsets, Arcturus also saves the tracked position of the headset throughout the recording.

Saving the tracked position of each frame enables a novel playback mode only possible in VR: Stabilized Immersive Playback.

During Stabilized Immersive Playback, the tracked 3D video itself will move around you to match the tracked position of each frame. Having briefly tried it out, it's the best way I've seen yet to watch first-person 3D video.

The startup also offers an Arcturus Vision Sync tool that lets you easily convert the captured file to play on Apple Vision Pro, Meta Quest, and other VR headsets, though this of course lacks the Stabilized Immersive Playback feature.

Arcturus Gaussian Splat Viewer

Having the tracked pose for each recorded frame is also incredibly useful for using the footage to generate a Gaussian splat.

Arcturus doesn't today offer a simple, streamlined GUI pipeline for generating Gaussian splats. If you're expecting a Steam Frame version of Meta's Horizon Hyperscape, that's not what this is.

What the company does offer is a Gaussian splat viewer highly optimized to run on-device on Steam Frame, called Arcturus Vision Gaussian XR. It automatically discovers and lists PLY and SOG files on your Steam Frame and lets you explore them in VR.

To actually generate a new splat using footage captured by Arcturus Vision Camera, the startup provides a recommended workflow involving open-source tools on a Linux workstation PC with an Nvidia GPU.

An Essential Accessory?

UploadVR has an Arcturus Vision Camera for evaluation and, while we'll be fully assessing it in our coming Steam Frame review, we can already declare it an essential addition to Steam Frame.

Even if you have no interest in mixed reality, being able to clearly see your surroundings while in the home interface or playing a flatscreen game is sorely missing from Steam Frame, and Arcturus Vision Camera seamlessly solves it.

It does, however, have a battery life tradeoff while active. And as we'll cover in our review, the battery life will already leave you wanting.

The Great On Frame page, similar to the Steam Deck's Great On Deck label, is a quick way for Steam Frame owners to quickly browse Frame-compatible games and a visibility boost for developers who choose to support the new hardware.

This list is ever-growing and subject to change. We are aware of multiple other developers planning Steam Frame builds for their games and will either update this article or do separate coverage as those games get the official Great On Frame label.

Steam Frame Is $1059 & Comes With Standalone Half-Life: Alyx, Reservations Open Now

BREAKING: Steam Frame starts at $1059 for the 256GB model and comes with standalone-capable Half-Life: Alyx. Reservations are open right now.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

Here is our current list:

• Action Hero
• Airport Security Guard Deluxe
• Ancient Dungeon
• Aperture Hand Lab
• Arizona Sunshine Remake
• Arizona Sunshine 2
• Beat Saber
• Boxing Underdog
• Budget Cuts Ultimate
• Climbey
• Cook-Out
• Crystal Commanders
• Crystal Rift
• Cubism
• Deadly Delivery
• Deisim
• Dimensional Double Shift
• Dungeons of Eternity
• Eleven Table Tennis
• Enigmo
• Escape Simulator
• Floor Plan 2
• Forefront
• Fruit Golf
• Gorilla Tag
• Gorn 2
• Growrilla
• Gun Club VR
• Gunman Contracts - Stand Alone
• Hard Bullet
• I Expect You To Die
• I Expect You To Die 2: The Spy and the Liar
• I Expect You To Die 3: Cog in the Machine
• Into Black
• Iron Rebellion
• Job Simulator
• Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes
• Little Nightmares VR: Altered Echoes
• Mini Motor Racing X
• Moss VR
• Moss II VR
• Noun Town: VR Language Learning
• Open Brush
• Pavlov Shack
• Pistol Whip
• Puzzling Places
• Quest for Runia
• Racket Fury: Table Tennis VR
• Real VR Fishing
• Red Matter
• Red Matter 2
• Resist
• Richie's Plank Experience
• Rumble
• Shave & Stuff
• SimplePlanes VR
• Space Control
• Space Pirate Trainer
• Star Drone: Sling Star
• Stellar Cafe
• Superhot VR
• Sushi Ben
• Sweet Surrender
• Synth Riders
• Table Space
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City
• The Last Clockwinder
• The Light Brigade
• The Room VR: A Dark Matter
• The Thrill of the Fight - VR Boxing
• The Thrill of the Fight 2
• Thrasher
• Thumper
• Titan Isles
• Underdogs
• Underworld Overseer
• Unseen Diplomacy 2
• Vacation Simulator
• Vail
• Vendetta Forever
• Virtual Fighter Maneuvers
• VR Giants
• Walkabout Mini Golf
• Waltz of the Wizard
• Windlands

First revealed 10 months ago, Steam Frame is a "streaming-first" standalone VR headset with a USB dongle in the box that creates a point-to-point wireless connection between your PC and the headset.

Like Steam Deck and Steam Machine, the headset runs Valve’s Linux-based SteamOS, adapted here for VR. It can run compatible Linux and Windows games locally, including SteamVR titles, using Proton for Windows compatibility and FEX to translate x86 code for its ARM processor. Android games run through a separate compatibility layer called Lepton, with developers able to distribute their mobile-optimized Android builds directly through Steam.

The headset does not require or support base stations. It tracks itself and its included controllers using four onboard grayscale tracking cameras, two of which can be used for monochrome passthrough, and it also has eye tracking for foveated streaming.

Steam Frame Hands-On: UploadVR’s Impressions Of Valve’s New Headset

UploadVR’s David Heaney and Ian Hamilton went hands-on with Steam Frame at Valve HQ, trying both standalone use and PC VR.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

UploadVR has a Steam Frame review unit, and we're currently working on a review. In the meantime, you can read our Steam Frame specs rundown from its announcement and our hands-on impressions from the reveal event.

Price & Ergonomic Kit

Steam Frame comes in two storage variants, a 256GB model for $1059 or a 1TB model for $1299.

Both storage SKUs come with the headset, tracked controllers, and USB dongle.

To be clear, though, the headset has a microSD card slot, so you aren't limited to the onboard storage.

For improved comfort, Valve is selling an Ergonomic Accessories Kit at $59.

The Ergonomic Accessories Kit includes a headset top strap as well as Index-like controller hand grip straps, and an extended light blocker that attaches to the nose to reduce light leak.

Valve also sells two other more minor accessories:

• PSU: Steam Frame charges via USB-C, but, as with many USB-C powered tech today, does not come with a charger. Valve will sell you one for $29, if you want a Valve-branded one for some reason.
• Accessory Replacement Kit: if you damage or lose the included accessories, Valve will sell you a kit for $49 that includes a face gasket, head cushion, and light blocker.

Half-Life: Alyx Standalone

Other than the price, Valve's bombshell announcement today is that it has a native ARM build of Half-Life: Alyx optimized to run standalone on the headset. That means you can play Alyx on Steam Frame without a PC.

The company says fully integrating eye-tracked foveated rendering was the key breakthrough that made standalone Alyx viable, combined with over a year of Vulkan graphics driver, SteamVR tweaks, and optimizations to Alyx that will also carry over to the Windows PC build, including depth reprojection.

Crucially, Valve says it didn't make any content changes to the game, and thus Workshop items automatically work. Steam Cloud support for saves mean you can even switch between standalone and PC VR streaming at will.

Half-Life: Alyx is included with every Steam Frame for those who don't already own it.

70 Other 'Steam Frame Verified' VR Titles

Additionally, Valve has already tested and confirmed 70 other VR titles that run and perform well standalone on Steam Frame, earning them the 'Steam Frame Verified' tag:

• Action Hero
• Ancient Dungeon
• Arizona Sunshine VR 2
• Arizona Sunshine VR Remake
• Beat Saber
• Boxing Underdog
• Climbey
• Crystal Rift
• Cubism
• Deadly Delivery
• Deisim
• Dungeons of Eternity
• Eleven Table Tennis
• Enigmo
• Escape Simulator
• Floor Plan 2 VR
• Forefront
• Fruit Golf
• GrowRilla VR
• Gun Club VR
• Half-Life 2: VR Mod
• HARD BULLET
• I Expect You To Die
• I Expect You To Die 2: The Spy and the Liar
• I Expect You To Die 3: Cog in the Machine
• Into Black
• IRON REBELLION
• Job Simulator
• Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes
• Little Nightmares VR: Altered Echoes
• Mini Motor Racing X
• Moss II VR
• Moss VR
• Noun Town: VR Language Learning
• Pavlov Shack
• Pistol Whip
• Puzzling Places – 3D Jigsaw Sim
• Quest for Runia
• Racket Fury: Table Tennis VR
• Real VR Fishing
• Red Matter
• Red Matter 2
• Resist
• RUMBLE
• Shave & Stuff
• SimplePlanes VR
• Space Control
• Space Pirate Trainer
• StarDrone: Sling Star (with VR mode)
• Stellar Cafe
• SUPERHOT VR
• Sushi Ben
• Sweet Surrender VR
• Synth Riders
• Table Space: Board and Card Game Sandbox
• The Last Clockwinder
• The Light Brigade: Definitive Edition
• The Room VR: A Dark Matter
• THRASHER
• Thumper
• Titan Isles
• UNDERDOGS
• Underworld Overseer
• Vacation Simulator
• VAIL
• Vendetta Forever
• Virtual Fighter Maneuvers
• Walkabout Mini Golf VR
• Waltz of the Wizard
• Windlands

Of course, you can also play any and all PC VR content via streaming from your PC, provided your PC is powerful enough.

Arcturus Vision Color Passthrough Addon

Out of the box, Steam Frame has monochrome passthrough, grayscale with a configurable tint, that in terms of angular resolution feels sharper than Quest 2 but significantly blurrier than Quest 3, as well as lacking color.

Arcturus Vision: $150 Accessory Adds Color Passthrough To Steam Frame

The $149 Arcturus Vision Camera, weighing just 10 grams, adds 6 megapixel per eye color passthrough to Steam Frame and captures tracked 3D HDR video.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

To solve this, Valve has closely partnered with Arcturus Vision (formerly Arcturus Industries), a startup making a $149 addon that attaches to Steam Frame's PCI-E expansion port.

The Arcturus Vision Camera weighs just 10 grams, and features dual 32-megapixel Sony RGB sensors, adding high-quality color passthrough to Steam Frame. It automatically works across all apps that use passthrough.

Arcturus also has two apps on Steam, one that lets you capture 5K HDR stereo footage using the camera, and another that lets you capture and explore photorealistic Gaussian splats of your physical surroundings.

Arcturus Vision Camera will go on sale when Steam Frame starts to ship, priced at $149 or equivalent in the US, Canada, the EU, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea.

PC VR Streaming Improvements

Since we last tried Steam Frame back in November, Valve has made some key improvements to the wireless PC VR streaming tech, which we already found to be excellent at the time.

As you will know by now, Steam Frame creates a direct 6GHz Wi-Fi 6E connection between itself and the included USB dongle connected to your PC. It also uses foveated streaming

Since the reveal, Valve has added two other technologies to improve the stability and quality of wireless PC VR:

• Multi-Link Streaming: this uses the adapter and your local Wi-Fi network simultaneously, choosing the lowest latency connection per packet so that neither USB nor local network issues can interrupt your VR gaming.
• PC-Side Contrast Adaptive Sharpening: uses AMD's open-source image sharpening algorithm to improve the quality of the visuals.

Reservation: How To Get A Steam Frame

Unfortunately, you can't just place a conventional preorder for Steam Frame. Due to some combination of the production scale and expected demand, as well as the company's desire to limit reselling scalpers, Valve is using a similar reservation system to what it had for Steam Machine's launch.

You can register right now, choosing which storage SKU you want.

Then, on Thursday at 10am Pacific Time, exactly 72 hours from now, Valve will randomize the order of existing reservations to assign each a position in a virtual queue. This means as long as you reserve within 72 hours, you have the same chance as anyone else.

Later on Thursday, Valve will send out the first purchase offer emails to those whose position in the queue is less than or equal to the number of units the company has produced so far. Everyone else will be on an automatic waitlist until units become available, and new registrations will go to the back of this queue.

Valve isn't disclosing how many units it has made so far, nor how many it's producing on an ongoing basis.

Aces of Thunder has just received a major update. Titled "One Sky For All," the update introduces crossplay between PC and PlayStation 5 players, as well as new aircraft, missions, and a broad range of improvements to gameplay, presentation, UI, and VR-specific adjustments.

The update's major addition, crossplay, allows PC and PS5 players to share the same multiplayer matchmaking queues by default (though it should be noted that PlayStation 5 players have the ability to opt out of crossplay in the game's settings).

Three new aircraft join the squadron as separate DLC packs: these are the Ju 87 D-5, I-16 Type 27, and Bf 109 Z-1 Zwilling. Multiplayer and custom battles get new operations and locations, while additional single-player missions have been added, too. There are also new control options, gameplay fixes, and VR adjustments designed to provide better and more realistic and comfortable head positions across several aircraft.

The full patch notes can be seen on Aces of Thunder's game page.

We reviewed Aces of Thunder when it released earlier this year, and found it to be "one of the most thrilling venues for combat that VR gaming has to offer and a fitting callback to the classic flight sims of yesteryear."

Aces of Thunder is out now on PlayStation VR2 and Steam.

I’ve spent a few years using VR and writing about it, so I have a pretty good sense of what feels natural inside a headset. Building those experiences was something I had always left to people who actually knew how to code.

I don’t know C#. My Unity experience was minimal. I had never built an APK for Quest or submitted an app to the Meta Quest Store.

After watching how quickly AI coding tools were improving, I started wondering how much of that gap I could cross without becoming a programmer first.

So I decided to try.

I intentionally chose a very simple idea. Punchable Face is about as straightforward as the name suggests. You stand in front of an obnoxious carnival barker and punch him. Your punches are scored based on velocity, his head reacts when you hit him, his face gets redder as he takes more punishment, and the whole thing happens inside a small carnival environment.

Punchable Face was deliberately small enough that I could keep the problem bounded.

I wasn’t trying to prove I could suddenly become a game developer. I wanted to see whether I could take a simple VR idea all the way from an empty Unity project to something people could actually download from the Quest Store.

That meant getting through the entire process, including development, testing on a real headset, creating the store assets, submitting the app to Meta and getting it approved.

Starting With Almost No Development Experience

I started Punchable Face on the morning of Saturday, September 5.

My hardware was an M2 MacBook Air and a Quest 3. The project was built in Unity 6.3 LTS using Unity’s OpenXR plugin with Meta XR SDK components for Quest-specific functionality. I also tested the finished app on Quest 2.

I used ChatGPT throughout the project to help plan what I wanted to build, work through problems and make design decisions. Codex handled most of the code changes and Unity project modifications.

I mostly used GPT-5.6 Sol at Medium reasoning for day-to-day work, and switched to GPT-6 Astra Medium when I hit harder problems, including a persistent XR positioning issue.

That created a development process I had never experienced before.

I would describe what I wanted Codex to build. It would modify the project. I would run a new build, put on the Quest and try it.

Then I would take the headset off and tell it what was wrong.

There was usually something.

The character was too low. The gloves were pointing in the wrong direction. Punches didn’t feel strong enough. A sound effect didn’t have enough impact. A UI element needed to move.

Then I would prompt it again.

Most of the project followed the same basic loop:

Prompt. Wait. Build. Test in the headset. Give feedback. Repeat.

I wasn’t writing the code. Codex was doing a huge amount of work that I simply didn’t know how to do.

But I was spending a lot of time deciding whether what it built was actually any good.

Building It Piece By Piece

The first version of Punchable Face was barely anything.

There were placeholder hands, a target and basic punch detection. If I swung a controller fast enough and made contact, the app recognized it as a punch.

That was enough to tell me the basic idea worked.

From there, I kept adding one thing at a time.

The first target became the carnival barker. His head started reacting to punches with a spring-like motion. I added blinking, stronger haptics and visible damage feedback. Repeated punches caused his face to become increasingly red before slowly returning to normal.

I also used Meshy during character development, generating 3D mockups for both the Barker and the second target character, the Flexer, while I worked through their visual direction before settling on the versions used in the app.

The punch sound went through several versions. At one point I asked Codex to create something more elaborate and ended up liking the earlier, simpler sound better. I had it revert the change.

That happened more than once.

Codex could implement an idea very quickly. Sometimes I would put on the headset, try it and immediately decide the previous version was better.

The placeholder hands eventually became simple boxing gloves generated during the development process. I could have bought a more polished 3D asset, but for this first experiment I wanted to see how far I could get without adding paid art assets. The generated gloves worked well enough for what I was trying to learn, so I kept them and moved on.

I added an Impact Score ranging from 100 to 999 based on punch velocity, along with a Session Best score and an About panel explaining how the system worked.

Eventually I had a functioning punching mechanic and a character floating in space.

He needed somewhere to live, so I built out a carnival environment around him with a boardwalk, booths, lights, a Ferris wheel, coaster elements and a marquee. The Flexer got his own unique car meet environment. I kept both intentionally low-poly and simple, with the focus on the character. The environment just sets the right tone.

That expansion brought another set of problems.

You Still Have To Put The Headset On

This was probably the biggest lesson from the entire project.

Something can work exactly as implemented and still feel wrong in VR.

Character height became a surprisingly annoying example. The barker kept appearing too low when I put on the headset. Codex tried compensating for headset height before eventually tracing part of the problem to the XR Origin camera offset.

That was one of the points where I switched over to GPT-6 Astra Medium because the problem involved several pieces of the XR setup interacting with each other.

A sound could trigger correctly every time and still sound bad.

A boxing glove could be positioned correctly and still look wrong attached to my hand.

Those were things I could only really judge by putting on the Quest.

That was also where my own experience with VR became useful. I didn’t know how to write the systems underneath the experience, but I knew what I wanted those systems to feel like.

I could tell when a punch felt weak. I could tell when something was positioned awkwardly in three-dimensional space. I could tell when an effect was distracting or when an interaction felt natural.

My role in the development process was telling Codex what I wanted the experience to do, then repeatedly judging the result and translating what I experienced in VR into human terms I could feed back to Codex for refinements or changes.

From Saturday To Tuesday Night

By Tuesday night, September 8, I had a version of Punchable Face that I considered ready to submit.

That was essentially four days after I started.

I hesitate to say I “built a game in four days” because that makes it sound like I spent four full days sitting in front of Unity.

I didn’t.

It was Labor Day weekend. I was doing family things and living my normal life. Most of the development happened in blocks of several hours, often in the evening.

I also didn’t keep a time sheet, so I’m not going to guess at an exact number of development hours afterward.

A surprising amount of the process involved waiting.

I would wait for Codex to finish. Then I would run another Unity build. Then I would put on the headset, test it, take the headset off and explain what I wanted changed.

Then the cycle started again.

By Tuesday night, though, I had gone from almost no software development experience to an app I was willing to submit to Meta.

Then I Had To Actually Publish It

Finishing the app was only part of what I wanted to learn.

I still had to figure out how to release it.

That meant creating the store listing, making the app icon, thumbnail and key art, preparing the Android release build and working through Meta’s submission process.

Then I waited for Meta to review it.

Punchable Face was approved.

On September 13, eight days after I started the project, it went live on the Meta Quest Store for $1.99.

For the first time, something I had started building the previous weekend was publicly available on the Quest Store.

Anyone could buy it. Seeing it live on the Quest Store was genuinely exciting, and a little nerve-racking.

What This Actually Showed Me

I still can’t sit down and write Punchable Face from scratch in C#.

I didn’t become a programmer in eight days.

There are pieces of the Unity project that I understand far better now than I did when I started, but there are also plenty of things Codex handled that I would struggle to reproduce on my own.

What changed was what I could attempt.

Before this, having an idea for a VR experience and actually turning it into software felt like two very different things. The technical barrier between them was high enough that I would have stopped at the idea.

Using ChatGPT and Codex lowered that barrier enough for me to get through it.

I still had to decide what to build.

I still had to decide what looked good.

I still had to decide whether an interaction felt right.

I still had to recognize when something Codex produced wasn’t working and explain what I wanted instead.

And I still had to eventually stop tweaking things and decide the app was finished.

What I didn’t have to do was spend months learning enough C# and Unity programming to get to the point where I could start testing the idea.

The experiment also made the gap between “working” and “well built” much more obvious to me.

I could get a simple idea running surprisingly quickly, but I was still relying on a tool to make technical decisions I didn’t fully understand. On a larger project, questions around architecture, performance, maintainability, interaction design and production would become much harder to navigate without deeper development experience.

With Punchable Face, I could keep the scope small, lean on my experience as a VR user and tester, and make judgment calls about what felt good enough to ship. That does not mean the same workflow would scale cleanly to a much more ambitious game.

Eight days after I opened the project, Punchable Face was on the Quest Store.

And by then I had learned something else.

I had built the entire app without using several newer tools that can give AI coding agents more direct access to Unity and a running XR application.

So for my next VR project, I decided to try a very different workflow.

Stay tuned.

Gurman reported the layoffs in a series of two reports near the end of August. In the second report, he said the layoffs also affected some people working on headset security, spatial audio engineering, spatial Siri integration, and visionOS itself.

Apple provided an official statement to Bloomberg when asked about the layoffs:

“While we will create new roles as part of this change, it will also impact a limited number of existing roles”

“We are grateful to these team members for their contributions, and we are committed to supporting them throughout their transition, including opportunities to apply for other roles at Apple.”

No, Apple Didn’t Cancel The Vision Headset Line Forever - Here’s What’s Happening

Multiple reports this year claimed that Apple, and particularly its incoming CEO John Ternus, has canceled the Vision headset line altogether. But that just isn’t true.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

However, this does not mean that Apple is exiting the VR/MR space.

According to Gurman, Apple executives told staff that Vision Pro headsets and the visionOS operating system are not going away.

The shutdown of Apple's spatial gaming unit, Gurman explains, is due to the fact that the device is rarely used for gaming. Vision Pro does have support for PlayStation VR2 controllers, but the $250 addon hasn't seen much uptake among owners, and only a tiny fraction of VR games are available natively on visionOS. It's just not what people use Vision Pro for in practice.

Meanwhile, the reduction in the immersive video team is related to the extreme cost of producing each video relative to the number of Vision Pro owners. Each episode can cost millions of dollars to make, and third-party creators are now leveraging Blackmagic's immersive camera and DaVinci Resolve's support for the format to build out a content ecosystem without Apple.

visionOS 27 Is A Much Bigger Update Than Apple’s Keynote Suggested

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UploadVRDavid Heaney

Gurman also reiterated his claim from his May report that the company is still working on a "slimmer and lighter" headset to succeed Vision Pro that could launch in late 2028. But if the wider headset market, such as Meta's next headset, hasn't gained traction by then, the new CEO John Ternus is "open" to canceling the device. Executives below Ternus have been trying to convince him to continue investing in visionOS, Gurman writes, with a view to the longer-term potential of the platform.

Apple's primary wearable focus remains its upcoming screenless smart glasses, intended to take on Meta Glasses and Ray-Ban Meta next year.

I'm back writing on UploadVR again (for real this time), and this article is part of a series rounding up what happened in XR over the summer.

Lynx founder and CEO Stan Larroque confirmed in July that EssilorLuxottica acquired the company, including its intellectual property, assets and most of its team.

The acquisition comes after Lynx entered compulsory liquidation in March.

Lynx Has Entered Liquidation, Meaning Its R2 Headset Won’t Launch

French XR startup Lynx has entered compulsory liquidation, meaning it must shut down and its R2 headset will not be launching.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

The French-Italian giant EssilorLuxottica is the largest eyewear company in the world by far. It owns iconic brands like Ray-Ban, Oakley, Oliver Peoples, and Persol, and has exclusive licenses with major fashion companies like Prada, Armani, Burberry, and Chanel. It also owns Sunglass Hut, and has more than 18,000 retail stores in total worldwide.

Meta owns a 3% stake in EssilorLuxottica, which it has partnered with for all of its smart glasses so far.

Larroque is not joining EssilorLuxottica, instead moving to a leadership role at French drone manufacturer Parrot. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Lynx-R2 Has 126° Field Of View Via Aspheric Pancake Lenses

Lynx-R2, coming “this summer”, is set to have the widest field of view of any standalone headset to date.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

Announced early this year, Lynx-R2 was set to be powered by the same XR2 Gen 2 chipset as Quest 3 and Pico 4 Ultra, have similar displays and sensors, but feature aspheric pancake lenses, developed in partnership with Israeli startup Hypervision, that would have offered a field of view of 126° horizontal and 103° vertical. That would have made it one of the widest field of view VR headsets to ship as a product anyone can buy, and by far the widest standalone of any kind.

Larroque's email to backers stated that "it might take a few months for the operations to be smooth again, pending all legal approvals."

Whether EssilorLuxottica will revive the headset, or simply leverage the IP and expertise of the Lynx team, remains to be seen. It seems quite unlikely.

I'm back writing on UploadVR again (for real this time), and this article is part of a series rounding up what happened in XR over the summer.