The Quest 3 has arrived. While only fully revealed at Meta Connect last month, in typical tech company fashion the new hardware is already being shipped to customers as we speak. If you pre-o🌊rdered your Quest 3 in September there’s a good chance you’ve already received yours and tried out its impressive new mixed reality features. Heck, if you’re one of the productivity weirdos that works in a virtual office, you might be reading this through the lenses of your Quest 3. Help! I’m trapped in the computer!
Anyway, if you are or are about to enjoy your brand new Quest 3, one thing you’ll notice right away is that it doesn’t have any dang video games. I mean, there’💟s tons of Quest 2 games you can play right away, and if you’re not already VR-initiated, you’re going to have a great time exploring everything the Quest has to offer. But if you bought the Quest 3 to play something new, you’re going to have a bit of a wait ahead of you.
Mi👍xed 🙈Reality Makes The Quest 3 Worth The Upgrade
The Quest 3 is more than an ite🤪rative upgrade to the Quest 2, and XR will ad🍎d an entirely new dimension for gaming.
The Quest 3 games announced earlier this year and during Meta Connect look stunning. I haven't been this excited to play VR since Half-Life: Alyx came out. There’s highly anticipated sequels to some of the best VR games, games based on wildly popular IP, and some new mixed reality experiences you can only have with the Quest 3. The problem is none of them actually launched with the headset.
It’s bizarre just how mistimed the 🥃Quest 3 launch is, to the point where I think it may have been better off releasing later just so it could get credit for having a strong launch library. In fact, if the 50+ games that Meta promises to release by the end of 2023 were all available on launch day, the Quest 3 could have had the greatest launch line-up in video game history.
Some of the heavy-hitters are near misses for launch day. Ghostbusters: Rise of the Ghost Lord is a multiplatform title developed by nDreams and Sony Pictures Virtual Reality, and it’s coming October 26th, two weeks after the Que𓄧st 3 launches. November brings Vampire: The Masquerade - Justice, and two Quest exclusives: Assassin’s Creed Nexus and Stranger Things VR. Before the end of the year, the Quest 3 will have Powerwash Simulator, Arizona Sunshine 2, The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners Chapter 1 Enhanced Edition, LEGO Bricktales, Bulletstorm, Attack on Titan, Red Matter 2, The Exorcist: Legion Sin, 💜and dozens more.
Perhaps the biggest game coming to Quest 3 this year is Asgard’s Wrath 2, a triple-A, 60-hour, first-person action-advenꦕture, a follow up to one of the most be🙈loved VR games ever, and a Meta Quest exclusive. Asgard’s Wrath 2 comes bundled for free with the Quest 3 and would have been a slam dunk launch title for the headset, but it doesn’t launch until December 15.
The Quest 3 is going to have an incredible library by the end of the year, and while that isn’t that far away, it feels strange to get a brand new console without any brand new games, at least not any exciting ones. Not everyone will have a Quest 3 on launch day of course, and those receiving one as a Christmas gift won’t be concerned about the lackluster launch, but it does feel strange. As Joe Parlock points out in 💫his review, the headset is also missing a bunch of core features that enhance its mixed reality, including dynamic occlusion of virtual objects. It’s normal for modern consoles to increase in value overtime as new games release and new features are added, but there’s so much missing from the Quest 3 right now that it may have been better to just delay.