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Meta Quest Gaming Showcase showed off VR versions of Bulletstorm, 7th Guest and more by John Callaham Just a few hours after Meta surprised many people by officially revealing its Meta Quest 3 VR headset, the company held its annual online Quest Gaming Showcase. Over 20 upcoming VR games were either revealed or got new updates as part of the event. The Meta Quest blog has a solid recap of all the VR games that were shown off during the Games Showcase. However, not all of them will be exclusive to Meta's headsets. Indeed, many of the games will also be coming to Sony's PS VR2 and even Valve's SteamVR platform. One of those games will be Bulletstorm VR, an adaptation of the great 2011 sci-i first-person shooter from developer People Can Fly. Here's what you can expect: Utilize everything from your Flailgun to Bulletstorm’s iconic energy leash to perform creative acts of carnage on your enemies. Effortlessly switch between melee and ranged combat to perform an array of unique Skillshots on your adversaries to earn additional experience and boost your abilities. These range from kicking an enemy into a cactus, to impaling them on rebar, to shooting them in the groin. In Bulletstorm VR everything is a weapon, and you’re encouraged to get as creative as possible when racking up your kill count! Another VR game adaptation that's coming this year is The 7th Guest, the classic 1990s adventure game. This new version is being developed by Vertigo Games. Here's what you can expect: The team is using volumetric video capture to recreate the FMV (full-motion video) storytelling of the original game, bringing the classic adventure to life like never before. And for the first time ever, the iconic mansion is being recreated in full 3D—though don’t be surprised if it starts shifting around you. After all, it’s haunted. Both games are due out later this year. Some of the other highlights of the Meta Quest Gaming Showcase include: Asgard’s Wrath 2 - This is a sequel to Meta's in-house developed VR title, The new game will continue its theme of players battling mythical creatures and even god in this fantasy RPG. Ghostbusters: Rise of the Ghost Lord - Announced at last year's Quest Gaming Showcase, we got to see a new story trailer for this multiplayer co-op game based on the movie franchise. PowerWash Simulator VR - Yes, this cult hit game where you wash down things is perfect for a VR game, and later this year we will get our wish. Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR - This was the only game that was announced during the showcase but that we didn't see any footage. Ubisoft's hit franchise is coming to VR with more info to be revealed at the Ubisoft Forward streaming event on June 12. As we reported earlier, Meta revealed the Quest 3 headset, which will have a lot of improvements over the current Quest 2. It's due later this fall with a starting price of $499.99.

Meta Quest 3 gets a surprise reveal to beat Apple to the VR punch, due this fall for $499.99 by John Callaham In a surprise announcement, Meta officially revealed the first details for its Meta Quest 3 VR headset. This move is clearly designed to take some of the attention away from Apple's expected announcement of its own mixed reality headset that could come on June 5 at WWDC 2023. In a blog post, we got some early info on what we can expect from the Meta Quest 3: Quest 3 combines our highest resolution display yet and pancake optics to make sure content looks better than ever. To power those extra pixels, this will be the first headset to feature a next-generation Snapdragon chipset developed in collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies. That next-gen Snapdragon chipset delivers more than twice the graphical performance as the previous generation Snapdragon GPU in Quest 2—meaning you’ll get smoother performance and incredibly crisp details in immersive games. Meta claims that the Quest 3 headset has a 40% slimmer optic profile compared to the Quest 2. The headset's hand controllers will also ditch the outer tracking rings which gives them a "more streamlined and ergonomic form factor". The headset itself will have two 4MP RGB color cameras and a depth sensor. All the games that support the Quest 2 will be supported with the Quest 3. The Meta Quest 3 will launch this fall at a price of $499.99 for the 128GB model. The current Quest 2 headset is getting a price cut to $299.99 for the 128GB version and $349.99 starting on June 4. In addition, both the Quest 2 and the more expensive Quest Pro is getting a big software upgrade soon: Quest 2 and Pro will see an up-to 26% CPU performance increase with an up-to 19% GPU speed increase for Quest 2 and 11% for Quest Pro. Meta will be holding its Quest Gaming Showcase later today starting at 10 am Pacific time (1 pm Eastern time). It will showcase a number of VR games, including one made especially for the Quest 3.

The Meta Quest 3 VR headset is reportedly "far lighter and thinner" than the Quest 2 by John Callaham The Meta Quest 2 VR headset is getting a bit long in the tooth. When it launched nearly three years ago in October 2020, it even had a different name, the Oculus Quest 2. It's one of the worst-kept secrets in tech that Meta is working on the Quest 3 device, and now a new report claims to have gotten some hands-on time with a prototype. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports that he got access to an early version of the Meta Quest 3. He says that physically, the prototype "feels far lighter and thinner" than the Quest 2. The design of the headset has also changed, according to Gurman: Instead of a bland-looking gray face, it has three vertical pill-shaped sensor areas across the front. The left and right pills each include one color video pass-through camera (the part that lets you see the world around you) as well as a standard camera. That means it has two color cameras versus only non-color cameras on the Quest 2. The middle pill includes a depth sensor, a first for a Quest. The video pass-through hardware on the Quest 3 prototype also got a big improvement for the device's AR mode. Gurman reports that it "presented colors more accurately and offered an almost lifelike rendering of the real world." The overall performance for the headset's interface and apps is also better, most likely due to a new custom chip that was developed by Qualcomm and first announced in 2022. The current Meta Quest 2's starting price is $399, and today's report says Meta might sell the Quest 3 for a higher cost. However, if it's not too much higher, Gurman believes that it "could make some noise this holiday season." We will have to see, however, as VR headsets, even at low prices, have not gained much traction with normal consumers. Meta will reportedly launch the Quest 3 in October. It's possible we may get a teaser of the headset later this coming week at the company's annual Meta Quest Gaming Showcase. The streaming event, which will show a number of new and unannounced Quest VR games, will begin at 10 am Pacific time (1 pm Eastern time) on June 1.