We’ve been waiting a long time for a fully fledged Batman VR game, and now Meta announced we’re getting one later this year, exclusive to Quest 3.
Developed by Meta’s Camouflaj and Oculus Studios, and created in partnership with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and DC, Batman: Arkham Shadow is little more than a teaser trailer for now, appended with a “late 2024” release date.
That said, it’s likely we’re in for a Batman vs. Ratcatcher saga, as hordes of rats stream in from the streets of Gotham. The Ratcatcher, aka Otis Flannegan, was an Easter egg character in console and PC title Batman: Arkham City (2011), but has made no appreciable appearance in a Batman video game since release of the console title Batman: Dark Tomorrow (2003).
A nametag is also seen in the trailer, reading Dr. Harleen Quinzel, aka Harley Quinn.
Image courtesy Meta, Warner Bros., DC
Acquired by Meta in 2022, Camouflaj is most recently known for having developed Marvel’s Iron Man VR (2020). The PSVR timed exclusive eventually made it to the Quest platform nearly two years after its initial release, spurred by the studio’s acquisition and incorporation into Oculus Studios.
When it launched on PSVR in July 2020, Road to VR gave Iron Man VR a rating of ‘Great’ in our full review, calling it VR’s “first great superhero game,” later awarding it our PSVR Game of the Year in 2020. To say we’re expecting big things from Camouflaj is a bit of an understatement.
Batman: Arkham Shadow promises to be the first full Batman VR game, which follows the PSVR action-puzzle game Batman: Arkham VR (2016), which includes about an hour of gameplay. We’ll be tuning into Geoff Keighley’s Summer Game Fest on June 7 at 2:00 PM PT (local time here) to learn more, as Meta promises more details will be revealed there.
Batman: Arkham Shadow isn’t the first big budget VR game targeting Quest 3 exclusivity later this year. Earlier this week VR veteran studio Survios revealed its single-player horror game Alien: Rogue Incursion is also skipping Quest 2 and Quest Pro support when it launches “holiday 2024,” something that may signal the beginning of the end for Quest 2 and Quest Pro.
Meta announced it’s licensing its XR operating system to select OEMs in a bid to become a more open alternative to Vision Pro, marking a monumental shift in the company’s XR strategy. This puts Meta in an entirely new position as a platform holder, as it now seems the company is trying to beat Google at its own game. And you know what, it just might win.
It’s a tale as old as time. Apple vs. Microsoft. Apple vs. Google. Now, it seems Meta wants to be the subject of the next chapter in ‘A Tale of Two Platforms’, this time dedicated to the next phase in popularizing XR.
We’re not there yet, as Meta hasn’t said just how ‘open’ its platform will be, or how it envisions licensing Horizon OS (ex-Quest OS) to third-parties beyond ASUS, Lenovo and Xbox at this point. But being the ‘open’ foil to Apple’s closed garden approach is at least the narrative the company is running with for now, which feels like the company’s best bet to shift away from its own very Apple-like behavior, and bring its Horizon Store (ex-Quest Store) to non-Quest headsets for the first time.
There are a ton of uncertainties now, but it seems Meta is looking to out-Google Google with its recent move to provide software to OEMs like Google does with its Android mobile platform, and Google may not be able to catch up anytime soon.
Google: Keep on Daydreaming
After having abandoned its ill-fated standalone XR platform Daydream in 2019, Google took a giant step back from VR that it never quite recovered from. While Meta was releasing Quest, Quest 2, Quest Pro and its latest, the Quest 3 mixed reality headset, Google was working on AR glasses, which, you guessed it, they also canned amid layoffs, reshuffles, and the departure of Clay Bavor from the company, Google’s then-head of AR and VR.
Lenovo Mirage Solo from 2018 | Photo by Road to VR
There is a possible redemption arc in the making, although it’s anyone’s guess if Google can use it to leverage Android to serve XR as broadly as Meta aims to do with Horizon OS, which is a modified version of Android in itself.
Google announced early last year it was providing software to Samsung to make a Vision Pro competitor, although we haven’t heard anything about it, or its Android XR platform since. Whatever Samsung and Google release, one clearly valuable asset Google hasn’t weaponized so far in XR is its Play store, which could make whatever device it launches on much more competitive to Vision Pro by giving it access to millions of Android apps—something Meta claims Google simply won’t allow on Quest after a reported series of failed talks.
Horizon OS: Not Exactly Open, But Certainly Prolific
Meanwhile, Meta has also made it clear it’s going to continue producing Quest to showcase its hardware and software advancements, and likely use it as an anchor to the more specialized Horizon OS devices Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg envisions in the near future.
Zuckerberg outlined so much in his most recent video announcement, stating he expects there to be a fleet of third-party headsets “designed for specific use cases.”
“You can imagine a light weight headset that pairs with your computer on your desk to provide the best work experience, whether you’re at home or anywhere else you go,” Zuckerberg said in the video. “Or you can imagine one that’s fully focused on watching immersive entertainment like movies and videos with the highest resolution and OLED screens, or think of one that’s fully optimized for gaming, sports or all kinds of different peripherals and haptics. Imagine one for exercise that extra-light, sweat-wicking materials. Or maybe just a version that comes out of the box with Xbox controller and Game Pass, and you can immediately start playing on a big screen anywhere you go.”
With such a wide gamut of devices to choose from, Meta could even position Quest to be its very own Google Pixel, i.e. a high-quality device that’s largely thought of as the ‘purest’, most ideal form the OS has to offer, and which also gets preferential treatment from the platform holder.
Then there’s the linger question of how open is Meta really willing to go with Horizon OS. For now, the company leaned hard on its ability to sideload apps via SideQuest, stream PC VR games via Steam Link or Air Link, and stream Xbox Game Pass Ultimate—but didn’t mention anything about open source, root access, etc. As much as it pains me to say so, most people don’t really care about those last two, and it’s something Meta probably betting on too.
This essentially leaves Google in a bit of a sticky wicket. Either make peace with Meta and bring Play store apps to Horizon OS, or go its own route with Samsung. And either decision leaves in the backseat.
As part of Meta’s huge announcement today, the company says its rebranding the Quest Store to the Meta Horizon Store. In doing so, the company plans to make it easier for developers to get their content onto the platform.
As it stands today, the Quest Store only includes apps that Meta has allowed into the store on an individual basis. Then there’s App Lab, which acts like an ‘unlisted’ store; customers can buy and download content from App Lab, but only if they know the exact name of the app or have a direct URL to the app’s page.
While Meta says its decision to gatekeep the main Quest Store was to keep app quality high, developers have long claimed that the process of getting an app into the Quest Store is opaque and burdensome.
App Lab isn’t going away, but now the company says customers will at least have a way to browse App Lab through the main Horizon Store.
“We’re beginning the process of removing the barriers between the Meta Horizon Store and App Lab, which lets any developer who meets basic technical and content requirements ship software on the platform. App Lab titles will soon be featured in a dedicated section of the Store on all our devices, making them more discoverable to larger audiences,” says Meta.
That’s not exactly what developers want, but it’s at least a step in the right direction.
Image courtesy Meta
Meta also reaffirmed that it will allow apps from other platforms to be accessed through the Horizon Store—like Xbox Cloud Gaming for flat games and Steam Link for PC VR content.
And even though Meta Horizon OS is based on Android and can technically run sideloaded Android apps, the Google Play Store is not available on Meta’s headset. Meta still clearly wants that, and is trying to signal that Google is the reason it hasn’t happened yet.
“[…] we encourage the Google Play 2D app store to come to Meta Horizon OS, where it can operate with the same economic model it does on other platforms,” says Meta.
In the meantime, Meta says it’s building a new “spatial app framework” to help Android app developers build and enhance their flat applications for XR. Crucially the company says the framework will allow mobile app developers to “use the tools they’re already familiar with,” instead of learning a game engine like Unity which powers the vast majority of immersive apps on the platform. Developers interested in the new toolset can apply for early access from Meta.
Today Meta made what is likely to be an industry-altering announcement: it plans to open up the Quest operating system to third-party device makers. Asus, Lenovo, and Xbox have been tapped to create new headsets built on the operating system which is being branded ‘Meta Horizon OS’.
Meta has just made its biggest strategic move in the XR space since betting the farm on standalone headsets over PC VR. Today the company says it’s formally branding the Quest operating system as Meta Horizon OS, and with it, plans to allow third-parties to make new headsets that run the software stack.
Sharing a common operating system means all of these headsets will be able to draw not only on the XR tech that Meta has built (like tracking, interface, playspace boundary, and more) but also plug into the company’s leading library of standalone VR content. Meta says it’s rebranding its content library to the ‘Meta Horizon Store’.
Meta also says all headsets running Meta Horizon OS will share the same social layer, allowing users to use their existing accounts, avatars, and friends list no matter which of these headsets they choose.
It’s unclear at this time if Meta Horizon OS will be openly available to any company that wants to use it, or if Meta will only grant access to select companies.
This strategic move by Meta is no doubt an emulation of the Android model, in which Google offered up its Android operating system for smartphone makers to use with their own hardware. Doing so created a huge variety of smartphones all sharing a compatible software ecosystem which made the collective pool an attractive marketplace for developers—and heaps of cash and market power for Google.
With the release of Apple Vision Pro, and now Meta offering up its operating system to third-parties, the comparison to the early smartphone wars of Android vs. iPhone cannot be avoided. Ultimately the fierce competition of that era resulted in a rapid innovation of mobile hardware and software, leading to smartphones being a daily part of nearly every person’s life. Will the same thing happen with XR headsets?
Meta announced it’s adding an obligatory age confirmation feature on the Quest platform, which in addition to asking you for your real birthday, could also put up a hard barrier on younger users accessing apps that aren’t age appropriate.
Within the next few days users will be prompted in-headset to confirm their age by re-entering their birthdate, which essentially divides users according to three specific age groups: adults, teens and preteens.
Here’s what those tiers mean:
Adults (18+): Choose between private or public profiles, control visibility of activity, and manage follower interactions.
Teens (13-17): Default to private profiles, with teens having control over follower requests and activity visibility. Parental supervision tools are available.
Preteens (10-12): Require parental approval for account setup, with strict privacy settings and parental control over app access.
Users who don’t want to insert their real birthdates don’t seem to have much choice in the matter, it seems. Meta is allowing users a 30-day window to re-enter birthdates, otherwise Quest accounts may be temporarily blocked until you do.
Furthermore, the company says in the announcement blogpost that users will be able to resubmit previously incorrect birthdates by verifying with the company, which is done either by submitting an ID or a credit card.
While Meta accepts a number of ID forms, such as government-issued IDs and multiple non-government-issued cards like library cards and student cards, the company says in its ID acceptance guidelines they do allow you to cover any non-essential information on your ID beyond your photo and date of birth.
“On our app store, we want to make it easier for developers to better understand the ages of people who use their apps so they can provide age-appropriate experiences for preteens, teens, and adults. Parents, in turn, can trust that apps are providing the most age-appropriate experience and protections the app offers for their child’s age,” Meta says in the announcement.
Meta announced last year it was reducing age requirements for Quest users, bringing the previous 13+ minimum down to 10+. The policy change brought with it parent-managed accounts to the Quest platform for the first time, which allows parents to manage things like screen time limits, privacy and safety settings, and access to specific types of content, which will specify whether apps have a social component.
A widespread charging fault with Meta’s $130 Elite Battery Strap for Quest 3 forced the company to pause shipments back in December and start replacing units on a case-by-case basis. Now, it seems Meta has zeroed in on just which units could potentially be defective, and issuing what it calls “voluntary replacements”—but only if they contact you first.
Meta sent out an email recently to contact customers of its Elite Strap with Battery for Quest 3. Here’s one such email, courtesy X user @ezreeszy:
Image courtesy @ezreeszy
The charging fault, which rendered the battery useless for some users, was due to an issue with the device’s firmware, which notably couldn’t be fixed with an update and required complete replacement.
In response to widespread reports of the battery fault, Meta paused shipments of Elite Strap with Battery for Quest 3 late last year, and began shipping units with updated firmware from both Meta and its partner retailers starting sometime in mid-December. If you purchased your Elite Strap with Battery for Quest 3 after then, it’s unlikely you’ll receive such an email.
While Meta isn’t calling it a “recall” as such—to company isn’t requiring affected customers to actually send back either faulty, or potentially faulty units—it is suggesting you “follow the instructions marked on the product to responsibly dispose of it and not do it via general trash,” a follow-up email reads. So basically, keep it or bin it at your discretion.
This is only another chapter in the manufacturing woes of Meta’s Elite Strap line. Released for Quest 2 in 2020, both the Elite Strap and Elite Strap with Battery suffered premature breakage due to design issues that caused the device’s plastic struts to spontaneously crack. Meta extended the warranty of both Elite Strap variants once it unpaused sales in late 2020, or around two months after the company initially halted shipments of faulty units.
A previous report maintained that Meta is getting ready to show off prototype AR hardware at the company’s upcoming Connect developer conference in September, which up until now has been tightly under wraps. Now Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he’s “almost ready” to reveal a pair of “unmistakably [AR] glasses.”
Update (July 2nd, 2024): Zuckerberg sat down with Kane ‘Kallaway’ Sutter in a recent video interview where he revealed that the company’s prototype AR glasses are nearly ready to be shown off to the public.
“The glasses are, I think, going to be a big deal,” Zuckerberg said. “We’re almost ready to start showing the prototype version of the full holographic glasses. We’re not going to be selling it broadly; we’re focused on building the full consumer version rather than selling the prototype.”
Zuckerberg noted early testers were left with “a giddy reaction” when demoing the device, which are indeed set be glasses and not a headset like HoloLens 2 or Quest 3:
The prototype version is “not the most stylish thing, but […] it’s unmistakably glasses, not a headset,” Zuckerberg confirmed.
The original article detailing the previous report follows below:
Original (March 5th, 2024): A report from Business Insider maintains Meta’s AR team has been tapped to get its ‘Orion’ AR glasses ready to unveil at Connect 2024, which typically happens in October. The report cites two people familiar with the matter, whose identities were confirmed by Business Insider.
Orion has been under development for the past nine years, however there is allegedly now “internal pressure to ensure a high level of performance” at Connect, which the company regularly uses to not only unveil new products, such as Quest 3, but also research projects and prototypes such as Project Aria, which when unveiled in 2020 showed off a bevy of sensors the company was using to train its AR perception systems and assess public perception of the technology.
Project Aria | Image courtesy Meta
It’s uncertain if Orion and Project Nazare, are one in the same, which Meta teased back in 2021, saying it would be the company’s “first full augmented reality glasses.” Back then, Meta CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg outlined just how difficult it would be:
“There’s a lot of technical work to get this form-factor and experience right. We have to fit hologram displays, projectors, batteries, radios, custom silicon chips, cameras, speakers, sensors to map the world around you and more into glasses that are about 5mm thick. So we still have a ways to go with Nazare, but we’re making good progress,” Zuckerberg said.
Speaking to The Verge late last year, Meta CTO and Reality Labs Chief Andrew ‘Boz’ Bosworth described the company’s AR glasses as having been built on a “prohibitively expensive technology path.”
According to Business Insider, it’s expected that a consumer version of the AR glasses won’t be ready for a number of years, as previous reports maintain it could come as soon as 2027.
Meta announced it’s finally closing the door on Oculus accounts by the end of the month, which means all users with old Oculus IDs will either need to migrate to a Meta account or lose access to purchased content, achievements, friends list, and more.
Meta initially notified users back in October 2022 that Oculus accounts would be automatically logged out after January 1st, 2023, forcing users who wanted to continue using their Quest and Rift headsets to migrate accounts.
Inactive users who haven’t logged in since then are now at the final ultimatum: migrate by March 29th, 2024, or completely lose all apps, in-app purchases, store credits, achievements, friends list, and any content created under the Oculus account. Meta says it’s not making these accounts re-activatable, so switch now or forever hold you peace.
To do this, you need to log in with your email associated with the Oculus ID where you will be given the last chance to migrate. If you need to do this, but for some reason didn’t get the email, simply click here to login to start the process.
This closes a chapter to one of the platform’s biggest controversies. Even after being acquired by Facebook in 2014, early adopters were offered the ability to make Oculus accounts tied to email addresses, which notably didn’t attach any sort of user-identifying data.
In August 2020, the company said it was forcing all users to migrate their Oculus accounts to a valid, user-connected Facebook account in good standing, which ruffled more than a few feathers, since bans and suspensions on Facebook meant users would lose access to VR content on Quest/Rift. The company pulled back from the hardliner stance in late 2021 with the announcement of Meta accounts, which notably didn’t require a connection to Facebook.
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With Oculus accounts gone, the company has few ties left to its legacy as a VR startup; its co-founders Palmer Luckey, Brendan Iribe, Michael Antonov and Nate Mitchell have all since left Meta/Facebook, along with Oculus CTO John Carmack, who departed the company in late 2022.
Still present however is Reality Labs Chief Scientist Michael Abrash, who said famously at Oculus Connect 2 in 2015 that “you’ll remember with clarity what a remarkable and exciting time this was, and you’ll be right. You may not realize it yet, but believe me. These are the good old days.”
According to a report from The Information, Google and Meta held a meeting late last year wherein the two companies discussed the possibility of bringing Android XR to Meta headsets. While it’s said Meta rejected the partnership, which would potentially allow Quest headsets to run standard Android apps, Google is allegedly still open to the idea.
Quest already runs an open-source version of Android, although Meta’s headsets don’t have the sort of access to standard Android apps built for mobile devices like Apple Vision Pro does with content developed for iPhone, which boasts over 1.5 million iOS apps in addition to over 1,000 native Vision Pro native apps.
Such a deal would make Meta more competitive with Apple in the near-term by allowing users wider access to Android apps not built for XR, however it would require the company to give up a good deal of control over its platform.
The Information maintains a such a partnership may stop Meta from “own[ing] the next computational platform for AR, VR and mixed reality,” which would also involve Meta contributing to the development of Android XR instead of more directly controlling its platform like it does today.
And as with all things Android, Google has has more than just a potential Meta partnership in mind, as it’s expected the company wants Android XR to fill the same role for XR headsets as its mobile operating system does for smartphones. It needs external hardware partners to do this though, since the company has shuttered a number of recent XR hardware projects in addition to entirely giving up on Google Daydream platform in 2019.
To boot, Samsung announced early last year it was working with Qualcomm and Google on its own headset, which means we can expect some form of Android XR there first. Additionally, it was reported last summer that South Korean tech giant delayed the still unnamed XR headset to make it more competitive with Vision Pro.
Meanwhile, Meta has partnered with LG to ostensibly manufacture the next wave of Quest headsets, which reportedly could be both a high-end Quest Pro 2 as well as a cheaper headset.
LG announced a collaboration with Meta focused on strengthening the XR business of both companies.
Following the release of Vision Pro, it has become apparent that Apple has a serious game plan for its XR line of devices. Now that their product and focus is out in the open, the market is beginning to respond.
According to the announcement, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg met at LG’s Seoul headquarters with top executives, including William Cho, CEO and Park Hyoung-sei, President of the company’s Home Entertainment division. The two-hour conversation apparently saw LG executives trying Meta’s latest XR hardware, Quest 3 and Ray Ban smart glasses.
As for the conclusion of the meeting and newly announced partnership, “LG envisions that by bringing together Meta’s platform with its own content/service capabilities from its TV business, a distinctive ecosystem can be forged in the XR domain, which is one of the company’s new business areas,” the announcement reads. “Moreover, the fusion of Meta’s diverse core technological elements with LG’s cutting-edge product and quality capabilities promises significant synergies in next-gen XR device development.”
While it isn’t clear exactly what the two companies plan to build together, rumors suggest that a next-gen Quest Pro 2—to compete more directly with Vision Pro—could be on the docket.
As a maker of a huge array of consumer electronics, it’s expected that LG would do the heavy lifting on the manufacturing side, while Meta handles the headset’s hardware design. LG also has content and services from its significant TV business, which it could leverage to get more media content officially onto Quest headsets.
LG isn’t a stranger to the XR space, but hasn’t been particularly committed to it as a product category. Early on the company launched the LG 360 VR, a smartphone-tethered headset made for immersive media viewing. After finding little traction with customers, the product never saw a second generation.
In 2017 LG was on the cusp of launching a PC VR headset for SteamVR. It even went as far as publicly showcasing prototypes and announcing specs. But for some reason the headset never actually launched, and was left to fade into the history books without any official confirmation about what happened to the project.
According to LG, the company newly established a dedicated XR business unit within its Home Entertainment Company “to accelerate the pursuit of new ventures in the virtual space arena.”
