The 3 MOST Stunning Quest Games (imagine these on Quest 3)

Quest games aren’t known for high-end graphics, because the headset runs on mobile hardware. It’s pretty insane what Quest 2 can pull off anyway. These are three stunning Quest games that really break that mould, in case you haven’t tried them yet. Now imagine what games like these will look like on Quest 3, with its next-gen Snapdragon chip.

EASYSMX sponsored a segment of this video. That supports the channel, not my picks.

One note first: I captured all the gameplay on Quest Pro, which has the XR2+ chip. It has a slight efficiency edge over the Quest 2’s XR2, so there may be some visual differences, but I found them subtle.

1. Real VR Fishing

Just look at it. Real VR Fishing mixes arcade-style fishing with calm relaxation. You can kick back with float fishing or go for more active lure fishing in locations around the world. Fish alone while streaming your own music or podcasts, or chill out together with friends.

But the views are what sell this game. The developers captured real fishing spots and combined those captures with computer animation, and the result is mesmerising. A flat video doesn’t do it justice: in VR there’s beautiful depth, the water movement and reflections are stunning, and the fish look great.

The studio is from South Korea. It started with local fishing spots and has since added places like the western United States and Japan. Word has it they visit the locations themselves to capture the scenery. If that’s still true, hats off to them.

2. Hubris

Hubris is a sci-fi action-adventure from Cyborn Studio. It came out on PC VR late last year and has since come to Quest 2 and PSVR2. The Quest version, out about a month before this video, does an impressively solid job of keeping the graphics and gameplay intact.

You’re a recruit for the Order of Objectivity (the OOO), on a space adventure with the pilot Lucia, trying to survive the harsh conditions and wildlife of a planet being terraformed. You fight, craft weapons and operate vehicles and machinery.

Getting Hubris to run on standalone mobile hardware, let alone look good, meant some compromises. The Quest version doesn’t match the detail, shadows and lighting of the PC VR or PSVR2 versions, and you can see missing shadows in the background. But it kept the open environments and still plays smoothly, which surprised me. The reflective water is still there, with an octopus swimming in it, and the tentacle physics are a bit janky and awkward but pretty realistic.

The graphics aren’t as polished as on PC VR, but given the hardware, the developers did a fantastic job keeping the same gameplay. I think Hubris is one of the most visually impressive games on Quest.

A word from EASYSMX

EASYSMX is a new name in VR accessories. The Q20 head strap is light, with a patented adaptive head pad that adjusts to your head shape, a wider top pad that takes pressure off, and a cool, washable polyethylene sponge for long sessions. It comes in neon green or black (I like the neon green). The TG-01 gaming earbuds have decent sound for the price. They work with Quest 2 and consoles over Bluetooth, and since Bluetooth has latency, you can also use the plug-and-play USB-C adapter for a low-latency wireless connection.

3. Red Matter, my favourite of the stunning Quest games

My favourite for visuals is Red Matter, made by the magicians at Vertical Robot. There are two games, Red Matter and Red Matter 2, and I’m showing the beginning of Red Matter 2.

On Quest it often looks as good as, or better than, many smaller PC VR games, which is incredible given the hardware. It’s sharp and full of detail like lighting and reflections, and the art direction is beautiful. It’s almost hard to believe this runs on a standalone headset. When I talked with the developers in the past, they told me about their own texture compression method, among other techniques, that lets them use high-resolution textures without hurting gameplay.

Red Matter is a story-driven VR puzzle adventure set in a dystopian sci-fi Cold War. You’re an astronaut sent to investigate a shady, top-secret research project in space. It has a retro-futuristic feel that mixes ’60s sci-fi with brutalism, which makes for beautiful scenes.

Looks aren’t everything in VR, though. Interaction matters for immersion too, and Red Matter does that impressively as well. Having played both, I’d say they have some of the platform’s best storytelling and interaction design. It’s the full package. If you want to try it, start with Red Matter 1 (which also looks good), because the story continues in the sequel.

What could make Quest 3 games look even better

I can’t wait to see what developers do on Quest 3 with more power, or on any future standalone headset. Meta has also been adding software tools to help:

• Application Space Warp lets developers target 36 FPS instead of the full frame rate, because it generates every other frame synthetically.
• A performance update recently gave Quest headsets more CPU and GPU power.
• Super Resolution, introduced the week of this video, is a new upscaling method for apps that don’t render at the screen’s full resolution, which is common to hit performance targets. Meta says it gives better quality upscaling at a similar cost. In Meta’s comparison of the old method, normal sharpening and Super Resolution, the new approach reduces blur without as much aliasing.

Will Quest 3 make a big difference?

These three games already show how good standalone VR can look when developers squeeze everything out of the hardware. It’ll be interesting to see how Meta’s new tools change the graphics on Quest 3, or whether the gains are muted because the chip has to work harder for the higher resolution.

One more thing: you may have noticed our YouTube name changed. We’re now Cas and Chary XR instead of VR, because our content has grown beyond VR.