Virtual reality and VR headsets are probably one of the most controversial technologies of today. We see a lot of news about the release of new headsets, the introduction of new ideas and the expansion of virtual reality capabilities by this or that developer, etc. - and all this in the seeming absence of a viable market and even any more or less serious interest from the average user.
What is really happening with VR now, what do modern headsets look like, is there an audience there, and what can you play there? I decided to look into this issue for myself and bought Meta Quest 3 in the spring. Another question was whether it would stand the test of time or end up in the closet in a week or two, which is why I'm writing this article three months after the purchase.
Where did the interest in VR come from?
In fact, I've been interested in virtual reality for a long time - ever since I got my hands on one of the very first modern VR headsets, the Oculus Rift CV1, in 2016. I was impressed by the potential possibilities offered by virtual reality, but, let's just say, not by its technical implementation at the time - and not by the range of games.
It was exactly the "play for a week and leave it behind" option: wires, external sensors, the need to set it all up and configure it, and then put it away... it was too complicated for "go play VR for half an hour and go back to your business." Moreover, there were very few games at the time, and the ones that existed mostly looked like attempts by developers to get into VR and see what was what.
Nevertheless, in the following years, I was occasionally interested in the current state of affairs with virtual reality - but each time I realized that it was "not the right time." The conventionally "cheap" headsets offered a certain quality and functionality (and were not really cheap), and a really good experience cost as much as a good PC.
Finally, this spring, the situation changed for me.
Why Quest 3?
Meta Quest headsets (and before that, Oculus Rift, until the developer was acquired by Meta Platforms, i.e. Facebook) have always been very attractive in terms of "entry" into VR: they offered decent quality and the minimum necessary functionality, while being quite reasonable in price.
But with Quest 3, the company decided to change its focus: this model has become much better than its predecessor in almost all respects and has actually moved to a different price category: if Quest 2, released in 2020, cost $300 at the start, the minimum price of Quest 3 was already as much as $500.
In fact, Quest 3 was "pulled" closer to the $1,000 Quest Pro premium headset (and the cheaper Quest 3S modification should occupy the budget niche in the future).
Yes, $500 is a lot of money for an "introduction to VR", but I finally saw a headset with characteristics that almost completely suited me (except for the type of screens, more on that later).
In fact, before the launch of the PlayStation VR2, I was looking at it for a while, but its even higher cost and the fact that it can only be used for a few PS5 VR games (at least until Sony released the promised PC adapter) made it uncompetitive with the much more versatile Quest 3. And this is despite the fact that the PS VR2 looks even better in terms of performance.
Meta Quest 3: technical specifications
All modern headsets can be globally divided into two groups: standalone and those that connect to a gaming system, such as a PC or console. The second category includes, for example, the Pimax Crystal, which connects to a PC, and the already mentioned PlayStation VR2 (PS5).
The Quest line is a standalone headset that runs on its own OS, has its own app store, and can be used as a completely independent system. The Quest 3 is based on the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 chipset (a VR-modified version of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2) and runs on Meta Horizon OS, an Android-based system.
Essentially, this is a powerful mobile Android device with custom firmware that has two screens of VR glasses instead of a conventional touchscreen. However, Quest 3 can also be connected to a PC and used with PCVR games, making it the most versatile headset available.
Here's a piece of advice for potential buyers: before buying, decide whether you plan to use the headset as a standalone system or as a "VR monitor" for Steam - in the first case, it's better to buy the older 512 GB model, while in the second, the younger 128 GB model will be more than enough.
In order to avoid detailing the boring technical specifications, I'll only mention the main differences from Quest 2: in addition to a much more powerful chipset (which is why some developers even updated the graphics in old games for the new headset), Quest 3 is more compact and has significantly improved screens.
Their resolution has increased from 1832x1920 dots per eye to 2064x2208 - but the use of a new type of lens has become perhaps more important. Quest 2 was equipped with simple Fresnel lenses that offer rather mediocre image quality: the main problem is a relatively small "comfort zone" with a clear picture in the center of the screen, outside of which everything starts to blur and double.
In Quest 3, the developer installed more expensive "pancake" lenses: the same ones are used in the top-of-the-line Quest Pro headset. They have a much larger comfort zone, and the image begins to lose clarity somewhere on the periphery, where the player practically does not look. Also, thanks to the new lenses, Quest 3 has less geometric distortion and virtually no chromatic aberrations. The only drawback of pancake lenses that can be mentioned here is, perhaps, the occasional appearance of parasitic flare on the lenses from bright objects in the frame.
Another very significant improvement of the new model is that Quest 3 has two color cameras for AR and MR modes at once (Quest 2 had none at all, Quest Pro had only one). Therefore, in augmented reality games (or simply in pass-through mode), the headset offers a fairly high-quality and detailed color 3D image of your surroundings (although not as impressive as it is shown in official promotional videos).
Features of connecting Quest 3 to a PC
You can connect the headset to your PC either wirelessly or wired. In the first case, you need a router with Wi-Fi 6 support and a computer connected to it via Ethernet: only this combination provides stable and fast connection with minimal input delays and high frame rate.
The second option requires a special USB cable: it is thick (and does not bend well) and long (5 m), with USB 3.2 support for fast transfer of large amounts of data. In Ukraine, such cables are available from various manufacturers, with prices usually starting around 1 thousand UAH. By the way, it should be connected to a PC at least to a USB 3.1 Gen2 port - a regular USB 3.0 will most likely not be enough.
As for the software part of the connection, the easiest option for Steam games is to install the SteamVR app from the Quest Store. After launching it, you will enter a virtual game room with trophies, social functions, and the ability to run games installed on your PC. However, this is not the best option for a not very powerful computer - communication via SteamVR puts an additional load on it, and there is a possibility of getting a frame rate below a comfortable level with relatively high delays.
From a performance standpoint, a Quest Link / Air Link connection in the headset's Quick System Settings is preferable. Before that, you need to install the Meta Quest Link utility on your PC, after which the headset connects to the computer in remote desktop mode and allows you to work, watch videos, and, of course, run games.
An alternative option is to use the paid Virtual Desktop utility: it offers more functionality, more connection settings, and may be more convenient in general. On a powerful PC, you can achieve a noticeably better "picture" with it than with SteamVR or Quest Link, but in my case, Air Link still turned out to be the best - in my opinion, it consumes the least system resources of all three options.
And in terms of system resources. It came as an unpleasant surprise that Quest 3 requires a powerful PC for PCVR games, even very old ones. First of all, this applies to the video card: the fact is that it not only renders the game image (and in a higher resolution than for a regular desktop game), but also simultaneously encodes the prepared frames into a video stream for streaming to the headset.
And the system doesn't have time to optimize the video - everything happens in real time, and any extra calculations will cause additional delays - so you have to set the bitrate in the video stream parameters to a high level so that the dynamic image doesn't "fall apart" into squares and blur complex areas.
So it turned out that my old GeForce RTX 2070 Super, which is quite enough for almost all modern "regular" games in 1440p, is struggling with VR. For example, Fallout 4 VR had to be optimized for a very long time (including with mods that simplify graphics) to get a stable fps of 72 fps (the minimum playable for VR) - and this is despite the fact that I ran regular Fallout 4 with a huge number of mods with improved graphics and models, and it ran perfectly on the same system with a frame rate of 100+ fps.
After experimenting with the graphics cards that come to us for reviews, I can say that nowadays you need at least a GeForce RTX 4070 graphics card to play PCVR on Quest 3 comfortably. The 4070 Ti Super (16 GB) is better, of course, because for high-quality broadcasting of a clear dynamic picture at a frequency of at least 80 fps, the channel bandwidth should be set to a maximum of 200 Mbps, after which 12 GB of video memory goes down the drain. Half-Life: Alyx, for example, warned about "insufficient video memory" every time it was launched on the 4070 Super - and this is a 2020 game!
How is it in general: immediately after purchase...
I had previous experience with a VR headset, albeit a very long time ago, so I generally knew what to expect. Of course, compared to the headset from almost 10 years ago, the Quest 3 won by a huge margin, but the virtual reality experience was exactly what I expected.
It's worth noting that although the field of view in Quest 3 has increased compared to Quest 2 (110° horizontal, 96° vertical), it still doesn't completely block the player's field of vision: it's like a very wide "spotlight" that "illuminates" the space in front of you, with blackness on the periphery of your vision. This is perhaps the main thing that prevents you from fully immersing yourself in virtual reality, at least at first - over time, you get used to it and stop paying attention.
By the way, if you wear glasses, the field of view is further reduced because you need to move the screens away from your face a little bit. But at least the Quest 3's front interface is designed for glasses, and that's a big plus: it's spacious enough to fit medium-sized glasses, plus it has an adjustment for the distance of the screens from the face.
Another advantage of Quest 3 is the flexible adjustment of the distance between the screens to match the distance between the pupils of the eyes (PD, pupillary distance). If the distance between the screens differs from your data, you will experience significant discomfort when trying to focus on the game image. And while the previous model had only a choice of three fixed options ("distance small/medium/large"), in Quest 3 the manufacturer introduced a smooth change of distance using a wheel, and the user sees its real value in millimeters - so if you know your distance, for example, from a prescription for glasses, you can set it very easily and accurately.
If not, you can measure the PD yourself, for example, using the GlassesOn mobile app, which is surprisingly accurate. Or you can simply turn the wheel until you find the position in which you feel most comfortable looking at the image.
The Quest 3 has a frankly short battery life: in virtual reality, the charge lasts about 2-2.5 hours, in mixed reality, it's good for 1.5 hours. But for me personally, this is not a significant drawback: a comfortable VR gaming session usually lasts half an hour, an hour at most, so the headset does not have time to run out of power.
But what I don't like is the charging speed: Quest 3 can charge at a maximum of 20 watts, and this is with an almost discharged battery. Already at 50%+, the speed drops to about 15 watts, and after two-thirds it drops below 10 watts. This is most likely done to prevent overheating of the electronics during charging, but the result is that the headset takes almost longer to charge than it does to work.
When it comes to the actual experience of virtual reality, the first and most important thing that creates a wow effect for a VR neophyte is the size of the game world. In conventional games, we look at a relatively small rectangle of the screen where we are shown what is happening in the game - and all objects, and the world itself, look tiny, toy-like, no matter how realistic the graphics are.
In VR, the situation is completely different. In virtual reality, the player gets inside the game, and everything around them gets a realistic scale. An ordinary imp in DOOM 3 turns out to be a hefty behemoth over 2 meters tall, and when it suddenly jumps right out at you, it's much more impressive than when you play on a PC. When a dragon landed in front of me for the first time in Skyrim VR... well, imagine a small airplane crashing a few meters away. The fact that the image in the headset is not flat, like on a monitor/TV screen, but three-dimensional, further enhances the immersion in the game.
Speaking of unpleasant experiences, the main drawback of Quest 3 is the use of IPS screens. They have normal brightness and color saturation, but... IPS is IPS, and you will not see black on these screens. It will be gray, and not even a very dark gray.
It doesn't strike the eye if the game has bright and saturated graphics, but if you play something dark and gloomy, with night scenes... You start to regret that Meta saved money and didn't put OLED screens in Quest 3, like in PSVR2, or MiniLED with Quantum Dot, like in Quest Pro. Yes, the price would have been at least $100 more, but it would probably have been worth it.
But this is fully apparent when you start watching movies on Quest 3. Otherwise, this headset is almost an ideal option for movie sessions (if you have high-quality wired headphones capable of providing a "theater" effect). Various video players are available for it, both free and paid, which create a very realistic feeling of being in a virtual IMAX theater - with a huge screen, an auditorium, screen reflections on the walls/ceiling, etc.
In Bigscreen, for example, you can watch a movie with friends sitting next to you (and you can even throw popcorn at them), and 4XVR is probably the only player that plays any video from shared folders on the local network, including Blu-ray 3D images, which means you can get an almost authentic "IMAX 3D experience". Unfortunately, this all suffers greatly from IPS screens - and because of the peculiarities of the "movie" picture, much more so than in games.
...and three months later
My main fear was that I would play for a week or two, after which I would get bored with VR and then the headset would quietly "die" somewhere in the closet on the top shelf. In fact, many people predicted exactly this scenario. Fortunately, this did not happen, but...
The first "bell" that this could happen even faster was the fact that I was prone to motion sickness, which I did not really expect. Dynamic games with specific camera work (first of all, various flight simulators, second - cars, then - just dynamic games in which you move quickly in space) quickly caused nausea.
Luckily, at the same time I came across a YouTube video where a blogger explained how to deal with this, and according to him, it turned out that over time, endurance can be trained. In general, this is what happened: although I still cannot play arcade "flying games" for more than 10 minutes, all other genres no longer cause me discomfort. And I've never liked flight sims (well, with the exception of MSFS, but that's another story, and my PC just doesn't run it in VR).
Apart from that, I haven't had any other reasons to throw the headset away after the first encounter. There have been a lot of high-quality VR games released in recent years, all of them very different - I have to admit that during this time I practically stopped playing on the PC, because Quest 3 has become my main gaming platform.
However, over time, priorities have changed: if at first the visual component and the effect of being inside the game world were the most impressive, then later you get used to it and begin to appreciate interactivity: the implementation of hand control and the most realistic interaction with objects in the game.
That's why, for me personally, various car simulators quickly became uninteresting: okay, I'm sitting in a car, so what? I'm looking at the track through the windshield (almost a monitor screen), and I'm controlling the gamepad (yes, I should have connected the steering wheel at least once, I know). How is this fundamentally different from playing on a PC? I know that there are many players who use VR exclusively for car and flight simulators and build real virtual simulators with the appropriate controllers - but this path was not for me (probably fortunately).
Over time, I realized that I like shooters and role-playing games with high-quality combat and weapon handling mechanics (not necessarily realistic) and puzzles in which you have to solve puzzles with your hands. At the time of writing, despite the insane heat, I still finished Half-Life: Alyx and started to get acquainted with the best mods for it: this game is a great combination of both of my favorite genres in VR.
What about games?
The most interesting thing about VR games is that it's its own completely isolated universe, which ordinary players mostly don't even realize exists. I mean, yes, there are a certain number of traditional VR games that they might have heard about, that are "very cool in VR" - and Half-Life: Alyx because "it's the reason we never got Half-Life 3".
The first traditional VR games that come to mind are probably Microsoft Flight Simulator and No Man's Sky - if you dive a little deeper, you'll come across mentions of car simulators Dirt Rally 2, Automobilista 2, and, unexpectedly, two Bethesda games, namely TESV: Skyrim and Fallout 4. There are many more to mention, but it doesn't matter.
The thing is, there are a lot of games with an optional VR mode, but many of them look like "just a PC game with VR added to it": they have a very effective sense of visual presence in the game world, but the interaction with the environment is very basic in most cases - like Skyrim VR and Fallout 4 VR, the basic versions of which look like an outright mockery of players (and only thanks to the modding community have they turned into some of the best VR games - especially Skyrim).
At the same time, there are a large number of exclusive VR games that are real hits in their respective environments-the most popular of them have sales that are considered good even among "regular" games-but almost no one outside the VR community knows about them.
Do these names ring a bell? Beat Saber, Blade and Sorcery, Gorilla Tag, VTOL VR, BONEWORKS, Pavlov? And these games have a crazy rating on Steam (90%+ positive reviews) and tens of thousands of reviews.
So a VR newcomer, after trying out familiar titles (and most likely being disappointed with most of them), has a problem: how to find quality VR-only games that they have never heard of before? Filtering by the "VR-only" category on Steam and studying ratings/reviews, searching on Google for queries like "best vr games 2024" and similar searches on Youtube.
Although in the latter case, the results can be misleading: in my experience, there are a lot of, let's say, overly enthusiastic vloggers who talk about VR games very superficially and praise everything they see. Therefore, in my opinion, it is better to look at game selections in the form of text articles and evaluate the gameplay of specific games based on videos with a "clean" playthrough.
Before moving on to the specific games that I liked and can recommend for review, there are a couple of other things to note. For Quest 3, games can be purchased in two main stores - the Quest Store and Steam. The former has no regional prices, and while VR games are usually much cheaper than full-fledged games in Western markets, still expect prices in the $20-30 range.
At the same time, the same games on Steam in Ukraine can be cheaper - even without a sale. For example, Beat Saber costs $30 on the Quest Store (1200+ UAH), while on Steam it costs 600 UAH.
Moreover, during sales, VR prices on Steam drop very low. For example, the full price of Half-Life: Alyx is UAH 1125, but it can be purchased for UAH 382 on sales. Skyrim VR costs 1560 UAH and 390 UAH, respectively.
Therefore, you should make the largest possible wishlist on Steam for all the games you're interested in and just wait for the sale - you can also check the price history on SteamDB just to know what discounts you can expect (for example, Beat Saber has never received even the slightest discount in 5 years - however, given its sales, this is not surprising).
On the other hand, it may be better to buy some multiplatform titles from the Quest Store despite the higher price, especially if you don't have a very powerful PC: for example, on Steam, you can find numerous complaints from Quest headset owners about problems with streaming the same Beat Saber; of course, such problems won't arise if the game is installed on the headset itself.
In addition, there is an alternative store called SideQuest, which can be considered a real paradise for the indie scene, but I was only interested in a couple of VR mods of classic PC games: Doom3Quest and Quake 2 in VR.
If we talk about the games I've managed to play during this time and can recommend them... first, these are the already mentioned Skyrim VR and Fallout 4 VR (yes, I love Bethesda games) - but only after several hours of setting up and installing a large number of mods. Without them, the player is a disembodied "ghost" with two stumpy arms that cannot interact with the game world.
But with mods, you get a full body and can play any scene in the game: shake a tavern sign with the tip of your sword? Easily! Slap a passerby? No problem! Stealing all the silverware from the table, throwing a watermelon like a basketball, and putting a bucket over the shopkeeper's head? Well, if that's your style of play... Mods literally take these games to a whole new level of VR realism.
Of course, I can recommend Half-Life: Alyx - in my opinion, this is one of the best VR games today, and unlike others, you can clearly see how much money was invested in it - it is literally one of the very few AAA VR games. At the same time, there are a large number of mods for it, both storyline mods that complement the Half-Life universe (for example, a direct sequel to Levitation, or an expansion of the C17YSCAPE universe), and completely different ones - here we can mention Return To Rapture (VR version of Bioshock) or Gunman Contracts (a realistic shooter that is quite interesting to watch as a real US Marine).
Fans of the HL2 universe should also take a closer look at the incredible VR mods of all three available parts, which are available as separate games on Steam (free for owners of the original versions). Their developer used many mechanics from HL: Alyx, and the result is very high-quality VR games with high interactivity - especially if you install additional Unleashed mods.
You should definitely pay attention to Asgard's Wrath 2, an exclusive action/RPG for the Meta Quest platform that every Quest 3 buyer gets as a gift. It looks like a techno-demo of the new model's capabilities, has quite interesting gameplay with active use of hands for control and melee combat, and, for a game running on the hardware of the headset itself, very high-quality graphics. I have to admit that after a few hours I got bored with it and switched to other projects, but that's just my opinion - it has very high scores on Metacritic from both critics and players.
As for virtual puzzles, I can first of all mention The Room VR: A Dark Matter - a VR version of the famous puzzle game The Room, the first part of which was released 12 years ago on iOS and made full use of touchscreen controls. The Room VR also makes full use of virtual hand control, offers interesting puzzles, high-quality graphics, and even a good story.
Another unusual puzzle game is A Fisherman's Tale. It is very short and sometimes has a not very intuitive approach to solving puzzles, but the games with space in it are very colorful and 100% worthwhile.
The Red Matter / Red Matter 2 dilogy is a very interesting puzzle game set in the unusual world of the Cold War alternate history between the USSR and the West, but the very pleasant impression of graphics, puzzles, and interactivity of the world can, unfortunately, be spoiled by the setting: both games take place on abandoned space bases of the Soviet Union, with the corresponding aesthetics.
Next in line for me is the Vertigo/Vertigo 2 dilogy - I played the demo version of the second part and was pleasantly surprised by the crazy universe and very unusual visuals. I would also like to get acquainted with ARKTIKA.1 by 4A Games and finally try Beat Saber and Ragnarok - but I'll have to wait for cooler weather.
What accessories are worth buying
Unfortunately, Quest 3 is far from a self-sufficient product, and its owner will have to purchase a certain number of accessories, without which the headset will be worse than it deserves.
So, the first thing you should do (preferably together with the headset) is to buy an alternative headband. The official elastic "straps" are a mockery of the user. Yes, they are very lightweight and hold the headset securely in place, but they are not good for ergonomics and comfort.
After a few minutes, you start to feel the headset pressing on your face very well, and after 20 minutes, the imprint of the face interface remains around your eyes and on your forehead for a long time, similar to what a diving mask leaves after a very long dive.
Of the products available in Ukraine, I can recommend BOBOVR: I bought the M3 Pro model, but if you don't mind the money, you can take a closer look at the flagship S3 Pro, with a built-in fan to cool your face (it's important in the heat!). Although traditionally, our online stores set inhumane prices, to put it mildly, and on the same Aliexpress these mounts cost almost half the price - but you will have to wait for delivery from there.
The M3 Pro distributes weight much better and allows for long, comfortable gaming sessions - and it has a convenient removable battery that can be mounted on the back of your head, adding about an hour of battery life (plus it works as a counterweight for the headset on your face).
The only way to fix the controllers on your hands is with "loops" around your wrist, which is not really convenient at all. There are regular episodes in games when you don't need to hold the controllers tightly, for example, during cutscenes. But you won't be able to relax your palms, because the controllers will fall out of your hands and you'll need to pick them up later.
Therefore, it is highly desirable to purchase an accessory with straps that wrap around your hands and hold the controllers in your palms even when you open them. These can be either branded alternative covers for battery compartments or any silicone covers from numerous Chinese manufacturers.
Speaking of silicone covers, another accessory you need is a cover for the face interface, or rather, for the soft fabric part of it that adjoins the face. It's very comfortable in itself, but... during the game, your face will sweat a lot, especially in summer, and this pad will absorb your sweat like a sponge.
The only way to clean it is to completely remove the entire facial interface, that is, the entire black "pipe" between the white body of the headset and your face, and then wash it somehow, which is generally not a simple and easy procedure. It is much easier to put on a silicone case, which is very easy to wipe with a regular napkin, and if you really want to, you can take it off and rinse it with soapy water.
Alternatively, you can replace the entire front-end interface with an alternative version with silicone, which Meta itself offers on its website.
But it's better to avoid silicone covers for the front of the headset, which are also offered in large quantities: they make it difficult to cool it and can lead to overheating in hot weather, while they don't really provide any protection.
In addition, you can also think about the already mentioned USB cable: it's more convenient to play with if you're sitting at a PC, plus you'll need it if you install games from the alternative SideQuest store.
Instead of a conclusion
I hope I managed to answer the question in the title: yes, there is life in virtual reality, and it is very interesting in its own way. VR continues to evolve, but it still remains an almost completely closed eco-system and has very little overlap with the world of conventional gaming. Unfortunately, the high cost of entry into VR hinders its spread: without buying a headset, it is impossible to experience VR games firsthand, and YouTube videos and text articles cannot fully convey the sensations. And not everyone is ready to buy a device that costs as much as a good graphics card just to find out if you need it.