Puzzling Places receives its 'Big Update' in time for today's Quest 3 launch, adding multiplayer, hand tracking support and more.
While Puzzling Places is available on most major VR headsets, the Big Update is currently only available on Quest. Alongside two-player online multiplayer, Quest will exclusively receive a local mixed-reality multiplayer mode that combines passthrough support with Meta’s Shared Spatial Anchors technology. Quest 1 users can also get involved through a manual setup feature.
On Quest 3, Puzzling Places now "runs at 1.5x the target rendering resolution with 4x MSAA anti-aliasing." A new rendering mode offers a 'Quality vs. Performance' setting, letting you prioritize higher frame rates or higher visual fidelity. Realities.io states higher rendering and higher frame rates are both maintained in most scenarios, though more "performance-hungry" modes like using MR or higher piece puzzles will use your preference.
This update also introduces hand tracking support with an in-game tutorial available. Similar to the PSVR 2 edition, Quest Pro now supports eye tracking for selecting pieces. Finally, the new French Chateaus DLC pack introduces 1000-piece puzzles for the first time on Quest, though the team advises Quest 1 players are limited to 400 pieces due to performance limitations.
Puzzling Places is out now on all major platforms. While the 'Big Update' is currently Quest exclusive, realities.io confirms in a press release that online multiplayer support is coming to Pico and PSVR 2 at a later date.
Ian Hamilton
