Oculus VR – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

January 16, 2022

Best Music & Rhythm Games On Quest 2: Beat Saber & More

Looking for a good VR rhythm or music game to play on Quest? Here are our best picks.

One of the most prominent genres in VR is music and rhythm games. It’s a type of game that found success early on in VR with Beat Saber and has since become a staple of the medium.

If you’re looking for the best rhythm games or music titles available for Meta Quest and Quest 2 on the Oculus Store, here are our picks.

Beat Saber

Let’s get this one out of the way — what would be a rhythm game list without the unbeatable king of rhythm games, Beat Saber? There’s nothing to say that you probably don’t already know — it’s one of the oldest rhythm games on the platform and the VR game that’s had the most mainstream exposure.

Using a lightsaber in each hand, the aim of the game is to slash on beat and in the right direction, matching the music playing in the background. There’s been a bunch of updates, new content and DLC music packs since release, and that doesn’t look set to stop anytime soon.

Beat Saber is an essential rhythm game on Quest. As you’ll see further down, it’s such a hit that it’s hard not to compare every other VR rhythm game against it.

Beat Saber Billie Eilish Music Pack DLC: Hands-On & Impressions

Unplugged

One of the newer entries on the list, Unplugged uses Quest’s hand tracking technology to bring your air guitar dreams to life. It works like a mashup of Guitar Hero and Tap Tap Revenge — make chord shapes with one hand, as they fall towards the air guitar strings, and strum to the rhythm with the other.

The Quest’s hand tracking technology isn’t perfect and involves a bit of a learning curve to increase the reliability, but it works well enough the vast majority of the time. Unplugged is unbelievably good fun and will probably be around for many years to come.

Unplugged Patch Unlocks All Songs, Revamps Progression

Pistol Whip

Imagine if Beat Saber and Superhot had a baby… Well, there’s a lot more to Pistol Whip than that, but it gives you a general idea of what to expect.

Shoot your guns to the beat of the music — the more in time and accurate your shots are, the better your score. Some enemies take multiple shots to go down, while others will require a short range melee attack.

Not only is Pistol Whip thrilling, but it also is one of the Quest’s most consistently updated games, constantly receiving new levels, expansions and content — and all for free!

5 Best Pistol Whip Styles: Which Modifiers To Use For Workouts Or Extreme Challenges

OhShape

Perhaps the least conventional entry on this list, OhShape sees you positioning your body into various shapes, matching the cutouts in rapidly approach blocks. It’s like a strange mix between Tetris and VR rhythm-based gameplay.

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Synth Riders

Synth Riders is another game that’s been around for many years and yet continually pushes out new content and DLC packs. It’s a game with slicker movements compared to others on this list, focusing a bit more on gliding and flowing actions, as opposed to slashing or hitting.

The library of songs available isn’t quite on the level of something like Beat Saber, but there have been some big draws, such as the recent Muse DLC pack.

Ragnarock

Ragnarock was a surprise VR rhythm hit in 2021, and for good reason. You play as the drummer of a viking boat, presented with several drumming patterns that rush towards you. If you beat the patterns in time, your crew will sing viking songs in tempo and row in the perfect pace to match the song.

Even better, the game supports multiplayer with cross-platform play, so you can go up against your friends in a viking drum battle at sea.

Smash Drums

It’s another drumming game, but this one is focused more on modern drum kits as opposed to the viking variety.

Smash Drums! will have you bang familiar parts of a drum kit as they zoom towards you — think Beat Saber, but instead of sabers and notes, you’re banging snares high hats with drumsticks.

Dance Central

Get your boogie on! It’s pretty slim pickings when it comes to dance games on Quest — Dance Central was a launch title for Quest back in 2019, and nothing has really come along to challenge it since.

While we can’t say the game has received much new content or many updates over the years, it’s definitely still a great (and technically only) option if you want a dancing game on your headset.

What’s your favorite music or rhythm game on Oculus Quest? Let us know in the comments below.

January 11, 2022

Cybrix Turns Your Room Into Futuristic Passthrough Brick-Breaking Arena

Cybrix, a game from Hand Physics Lab studio Holonautic, received an update that adds support for passthrough mode, allowing your living room to become a futuristic brick-breaking arena.

Cybrix is available now through App Lab for $9.99 and looks to combine elements seen in games like Breakout, Pong or Blaston. Set in a futuristic squash court, you’ll bat balls towards columns of bricks, with power ups like laser shooters or multi-balls, to quickly clear approaching rows.

The game’s latest update adds passthrough support for endless mode, letting you place the arena in your own environment. We tried it out earlier today and were surprised at just how big the arena actually is — you’ll need a fair chunk of space if you want to be able to move around the entire thing.

That being said, it’s a great way to play the game and, similar to Blaston, makes you feel more comfortable and grounded when you’re extending out to the outer limits of your guardian.

You can see some footage in the tweet embedded below from Holonautic, highlighting the new feature.

Cybrix now supports Passthrough in Endless Mode! So many bricks to smash in your living room!https://t.co/nmnORnynWO pic.twitter.com/0NXnYpjNBG

— Holonautic (@holonautic) January 5, 2022

We’re big fans of passthrough mode being implemented into Quest games and there have been some fantastic examples so far. One of the best is the aforementioned Blaston, which essentially revolutionizes the game’s level of comfort, allowing you to play and battle against your opponent in your real space, without concern of overextending beyond your boundary in moments of excitement.

Likewise, Cubism recently released its own passthrough update, allowing you to solve puzzles in your real environment and use a table or desk as a form of haptic feedback when playing in tabletop mode.

Cybrix is available now for Quest headsets through App Lab for $9.99. You can also read our review of Holonautic’s other Quest title, Hand Physics Lab, which we nominated for Most Innovative Design at last year’s Best of 2021 Awards.

December 30, 2021

Developers Share Record VR Player & Sales Numbers Across Christmas

Several developers have indicated Christmas 2021 was a big moment for the VR industry and Meta’s Quest 2 headset.

Over the last few years, the Christmas period has become an increasingly huge milestone day of growth for virtual reality and VR developers, particularly in the post-2019 Quest era. However, this year looks to be the biggest Christmas for VR yet, with developers sharing statistics that indicate the biggest day of growth yet.

Famously, Meta does not release any sales numbers for Quest headsets themselves at Christmas or at any other point in the year. This means we’re left trying to roughly estimate how the size of the Quest install base based on various other unofficial data points. This week’s developer tweets are a good example of that.

This actually sends shivers down my spine. Hope Facebook doesn't get to own it all, but they have an uncontested lead. https://t.co/aWXvk3yWJI

— Eric Florenzano (@ericflo) December 25, 2021

The Oculus app, which is required for new users to set up a headset, rocketed up to #1 on the Apple App Store charts on Christmas, beating out popular and near-ubiquitous social media apps TikTok, YouTube and Instagram. If the Oculus app chart position indicates strong new headset take-up, then app sales numbers and player base growth shows that those new owners were keen to get in on VR experiences as well.

Wanted to add some @recroom numbers to all the VR excitement
—–
We've seen over 1 million VR players log into Rec Room since Christmas day. It took us about 60 hours to hit that number

— Shawn (@ShawnRecRoom) December 27, 2021

Social VR experience Rec Room (which is available for free on VR and non-VR platforms and is consistently at the top of the Oculus Store charts) saw record numbers over Christmas, with over 1 million VR players logging into the platform across a 60 hour period. This is huge growth – it was only earlier this year that Rec Room hit the same milestone (1 million VR players logging in) across an entire month. The company is currently hiring for over 60 positions.

This Christmas sales spike is insane! Many many new people jumped into VR!

Yesterday's sales have been unprecedented for @HandPhysicsLab, not even launch day comes close!

So happy to see so many new people playing and enjoying it! pic.twitter.com/bn3TOdruKL

— Dennys Kuhnert (@DennysKuhnert) December 26, 2021

Dennys Kuhnert, developer of Hand Physics Lab, said that Christmas Day sales of the app were “unprecedented”. He also shared an unlabelled sales graph for Hand Physics Lab, showing a huge upwards spike that looks to be roughly double the previous high point of sales on the app’s launch day.

That Christmas spike is real!! Happy Oculus Quest 2 day!

For reference yesterday was our best sales day ever and today is already 30% bigger with the better half still to come!

Green line is last year’s unit sales by hour.#VR pic.twitter.com/aieLob9LHI

— Ryan Engle (@Rengle820) December 25, 2021

One developer of Golf+ noted that they had to “scale up to manage the CCUs [concurrently connected users]” on Christmas Day. Another Golf+ developer noted that sales across the 2021 Christmas period surpassed 2020 significantly, with December 24 2021 fleetingly becoming the game’s “best sales day ever”, only to be immediately (and significantly) surpassed the next day on Christmas.

Developers Share Record VR Player & Sales Numbers Across Christmas — Online players in Eleven Table Tennis across all platforms in the Christmas period, taken from www.https://11-stats.com/online on December 28.

Twitter user @henrilatr pointed out to UploadVR Editor-in-Chief Ian Hamilton that Eleven Table Tennis experienced a large spike in online players on Christmas Day, going from peaks of roughly 800 players across the December 21-24 to new peaks of 1800+ players on Christmas Day. These new peaks have stayed roughly stable since Christmas through December 28.

Just took a look at the revenue chart for @locodojogame on Oculus Quest 2 yesterday

— Sam W [)-) (@vr_sam) December 26, 2021

Sam Watts, a developer at Make Real VR, indicated he was happy with the revenue chart for Loco Dojo Unleashed on Christmas Day, sharing an unlabelled chart with a line that spikes upwards in a similar fashion to the apps above.

absolutely bonkers christmas weekend for gorilla tag. hit 344k unique users today, and peaked at just over 26k concurrent users

— LemmingVR (@LemmingVR) December 27, 2021

Developer of popular multiplayer game Gorilla Tag indicated huge player numbers as well, citing an “absolutely bonkers” 344,000 unique users (and a peak of 26,000 concurrent users) across the Christmas weekend. It’s also worth nothing that Gorilla Tag isn’t even available on the Oculus Store for Quest 2 – it’s listed on App Lab, meaning new users on that platform would have to have found or searched for a link to the app somewhere online. Quest 2 users would not have been led to the app organically while in VR like the other apps listed above, making this a pretty significant achievement even when accounting for PC VR players, as the game is sold on Steam as well.

This is likely just a tiny snapshot of what has been one of the most profitable and huge periods of growth in VR history. Many of the apps above are available across multiple VR platforms including Quest 2, PC VR and PSVR. However, it’s clear that even if some growth is being driven by the latter two platforms, it’s Meta’s Quest 2 that is likely driving most of this insane growth. Anecdotally, more people than ever are sharing videos of new users (of all demographics but particularly younger children) unwrapping and playing with new Quest 2 headsets this Christmas.

December 24, 2021December 25, 2021

New To VR? Start Here – Quest 2, PC VR, PSVR Christmas Guide

So, you’ve just got a Quest 2 or another VR headset for Christmas and you’re wondering where to start, what games to download or how to jump into the metaverse? We’ve got you covered.

Virtual reality can be a bit intimidating to newcomers. It’s hard to know what you should do first and what’s available for your headset. We’ve put together a list of articles that should help you narrow down your options and get stuck into some awesome experiences over the holidays.

General VR Information

Our ‘New to VR?’ Page

If you want the biggest overview of everything, then we have a tailored-made page designed for anyone who is starting out with VR for the first time. There might be a fair amount of cross-over with the articles below, but if you want to see everything in a big clear grid then head over there.

You can visit our New to VR? hub here.

VR FAQ and Beginner’s Guide

If you want an overview of all the important VR concepts and terminology, this is where to go. This won’t give you an overview of what apps to download or what to do on your new headset (more on that below) – it’s more a theoretical summary of everything and less of an immediate practical guide for your shiny new headset.

Nonetheless, if you want to get up to date on all the correct words, phrases and technology behind the headsets, this is the place to go.

Our YouTube Channel

More of a video person? Check out our YouTube channel – we have trailers, interviews, game reviews, gameplay, graphics comparisons and our weekly podcasts (the VR Download for hardware and the VR Gamescast for software) broadcast live from our VR studio.

Best VR Games – All Platforms

If you just want a list of the best VR has to offer across any and all platforms, then this list is for you. Some experiences are available on all headsets, while others are platform-specific to headsets like Quest or PSVR.

If you’re looking for more genre-specific lists, such as best shooters or best multiplayer games, then head over to the New to VR? page where you can find specific lists for types of games.

VR Motion Sickness – Our Tips and Tricks

Not everyone experiences VR nausea, but a lot of people do. Many experiences won’t use artificial movement and therefore should be good for newcomers, however those with artificial movement might take some getting used to – it can take a while to grow out your ‘VR legs’.

To help get you adjusted, you can check out our 7 tips and tricks to help avoid and overcome VR motion sickness.

Oculus/Meta Quest 2 Headset Information

One of the most popular headsets this year – and no doubt this Christmas – is the Meta Quest 2 (formerly known as Oculus Quest 2). Here’s a selection of our best content to get you started with a new Quest headset.

Free VR Games and Experiences on Quest 2

Spent lots of money in the lead up to Christmas and want to avoid dropping even more cash on VR apps and games? If you want a selection of what’s on offer without having to dig deep into your wallet, our list of the best free games and experiences on Quest is a great place to start.

Setup, Troubleshooting, Basic Care

If you’re getting started with your Quest and want to learn how to troubleshoot common issues and care for the headset, we have plenty of articles covering lots of ground.

To learn how to fix common problems, care for your headset and basic maintenance tips, start here.

If you wear glasses and want to learn how to wear your Quest 2 (or other headsets, for that matter) with glasses, check this out.

If, for some reason, you lose your headset and want to remotely wipe it, we have that sorted as well.

Facebook Login, Privacy and User Data

Infamously, the Quest 2 requires you to login with Facebook in order to use the headset. However, Meta (the recently-rebranded name of the Facebook’s parent company and other associated services) just announced changes to this policy, which will allow you to use a Quest 2 without a Facebook login starting sometime next year.

However, for now you still need to log in with Facebook. If you want to learn more about the upcoming login changes or learn more about privacy in Meta headsets, then check out our comprehensive guide on all that and more.

Best Quest Games

Likewise, we’ve ranked the best games and experiences available on Quest from #25 all the way to #1 – check that out here.

If you want recommendations for specific genres – like shooters, puzzle games, hand tracking etc. – then check out the New to VR? page where you can find loads of genre-specific lists curated by the UploadVR staff.

For families with multiple headset owners, it might be a good idea to take a look at the best co-op experiences on Quest as well.

Quest Headset Accessories

If you’re looking for accessories – carrying cases, head straps and the like – for your new Quest headset, look no further than our handy list of the best ones available.

PC VR, PSVR and General VR Recommendations

Not part of the Quest 2 gang this Christmas? That’s ok – we’ve got you covered as well. Start off with the general VR info listed above, then take a look below for the best recommendations for whatever headset you’re using.

PlayStation VR

While the headset itself might not be the latest and greatest anymore, it still has a really solid library of content available for newcomers to dive into. Check out our list of the 25 best PSVR games.

We’ve also got guides on how to connect your PSVR headset to PS4 and PS5 consoles, or if you’re still on the fence, there’s our guide on PSVR vs Quest 2– the pros and cons, and which to buy if you’re on the fence.

PC VR Headsets

If you received a PC VR headset this Christmas, then we’ve got plenty for you to look over. Start off with our ranked list of the best SteamVR games or best Oculus Rift games, depending on your platform.

If you’re looking for multiplayer games, then check out the PC VR-compatible titles on this list. Even better, if you’re looking to play with friends who are using other platforms or headsets like Quest 2, we have a list of the best multiplayer games that support cross-platform play as well.

There’s also a bunch of flatscreen PC games that have great mods that let you play them in VR – check out our recommendations for the best PC games mods.

Anything else we’ve missed? Let us know in the comments or check out our New to VR? page for more.

December 24, 2021

Year In Review: The Biggest VR & AR Stories Of 2021

While perhaps lacking some of the huge, jaw-dropping announcements of previous years, 2021 was a surprisingly busy year for VR and AR.

We’re looking back at the year that was with this list of the biggest stories from 2021.

It was an interesting year for VR and AR – there were several new hardware announcements, the Quest 2 continued to dominate and some absolutely killer, innovative games were released. And yet, we’re also left a feeling that 2021 might just be the calm before an incoming VR/AR storm.

Read on for the biggest and best VR/AR stories of 2021, month by month.

Beat Saber 90Hz Support Hits Quest 2 In New Update
Read Here

Hitman 3 VR Review – A (Mostly) Clean Kill
Read Here

Editorial: Oculus Quest 2 Developer Success Marks New Era For VR
Read Here

Oculus ‘App Lab’: Quest Platform Gets Non-Store App Distribution
Read Here

Sony Confirms Next-Generation PS5 VR Headset Coming Post-2021
Read Here

Sony: PS5 VR Is ‘Completely New Format’, Dev Kits ‘About To Go Out’
Read Here

Report: Apple’s Dual 8K VR Headset With Eye Tracking Could Cost $3000
Read Here

Kuo: Apple’s VR Headset Around $1000, AR Glasses Pushed To 2025
Read Here

Nearly 20% Of Facebook’s Employees Are Working On VR/AR
Read Here

Facebook Says Quest 2 Already Outsold Every Previous Oculus Headset Combined
Read Here

PS5 VR Controllers Revealed By Sony – Finger Detection, Analog Sticks, Inside-Out Tracking
Read Here

HP Reverb G2 Omnicept Launches In May For $1,249
Read Here

Facebook Brings Subscription Support To Quest
Read Here

Resident Evil 4 VR Is Coming To Oculus Quest 2
Read Here

Confirmed: Resident Evil 4 VR Is The First Quest 2 Exclusive
Read Here

Facebook Canceled Oculus Rift 2 Just Before Production – Palmer Luckey
Read Here

Floor Plan 2 Review: A Henson-Esque Marvel
Read Here

Oculus Quest 2 To Get PC VR Air Link, 120 Hz, And Desk Support
Read Here

HoloLens 2 Review: Ahead Of Its Time, For Better And Worse
Read Here

Oculus Quest 2 Now Has A 60 Hz Hand Tracking Mode
Read Here

Oculus Air Link Launches For All With v28 On Quest 2 & PC
Read Here

HTC Announces Vive Pro 2 For Consumers & Vive Focus 3 For Businesses
Read Here

Vive Focus 3 Specs: 5K LCD, 120° FoV, Swappable Rear Battery, $1300
Read Here

Vive Pro 2 Specs: 5K 120Hz LCD, New 120° Lenses, SteamVR Tracking
Read Here

Demeo Review – A Social VR Masterclass In An Engaging Tabletop RPG
Read Here

Oculus v29 Update Adds 120Hz Air Link Support
Read Here

FRL VP ‘Doesn’t Have An Issue’ With Quest Store On Other Headsets
Read Here

Exclusive: Next-Gen PlayStation VR Is 4K With Foveated Rendering And Vibration Feature
Read Here

Facebook: ‘Long Term’ Oculus Studios Titles Targeting Quest 2
Read Here

Facebook Starts Advertising In Virtual Reality
Read Here

Larcenauts Review: A Slick, Rich Shooter For Competitive Play
Read Here

Oculus Quest v30 Rolling Out With Microphone Swapping And Multitasking
Read Here

Sniper Elite VR Review: Old Dog, New Tricks
Read Here

Quest 2 Experimental Mixed Reality & Passthrough API Details
Read Here

Oculus Quest v31 Adds Experimental Passthrough API For Mixed Reality
Read Here

Quest 2 Sales Paused As 4 Million Facial Interfaces Recalled
Read Here

Oculus Quest 2 128GB Model On Sale August 24 For $299
Read Here

Steam Deck Could Be Used With Oculus Quest, Gabe Newell Says
Read Here

PS5 VR Headset Will Have HDR OLED Display, Hybrid AAA Games – Report
Read Here

Confirmed: TikTok Owner ByteDance Buying Pico VR
Read Here

I Expect You To Die 2 Review: A Worthy Sequel Rich With Detail
Read Here

Valve Suggests Steam Deck Processor Could Be Used In Standalone VR Headset
Read Here

A Township Tale Review: A Fascinating Glimpse Of A Future VR Great (Quest)
Read Here

Facebook Launches Horizon Workrooms To Power Remote Work
Read Here

Facebook Reveals $299 Ray-Ban Stories Smartglasses With Camera And Assistant
Read Here

Report Claims Apple AR-VR Headset Uses iPhone/iPad/Mac For Advanced Features
Read Here

Andrew Bosworth To Take Over As Facebook CTO In 2022
Read Here

Report: Apple’s AR-VR Headset To Launch Second Half Of 2022
Read Here

Reports: Valve Working On ‘Deckard’ Standalone Headset With ‘VRLink’ Wireless
Read Here

Medal of Honor: Above And Beyond Is Coming to Oculus Quest 2 This Year
Read Here

Eyes-On: Facebook’s First Glasses Pave The Way For Public AR
Read Here

Quest Pro Potential Specs & Apparent Controller Images Leak
Read Here

Oculus Quest Pro Leak? Promo Videos Show Possible Headset Design
Read Here

Lynx Standalone AR-VR Headset Kickstarter Launches With $500 Price
Read Here

Facebook Rebrands Social VR Platform ‘Horizon Worlds’, Offers $10M To Makers
Read Here

Varjo Aero Review: A Powerhouse Headset With Some Big Question Marks
Read Here

Unplugged Review: Thrilling Air Guitar With Unmatched Hand Tracking Capabilities
Read Here

Microsoft Shows Off Adaptive Shape VR Controller Prototype
Read Here

Song in the Smoke Review: A Primal VR Survival Game With Real Majesty
Read Here

HTC Vive Flow Announced: Compact $499 6DOF VR Headset
Read Here

HP Releasing Upgraded Reverb G2 With Better Tracking
Read Here

Resident Evil 4 VR Review: An Incredible Way To Revisit A Classic
Read Here

Facebook Responds To Changes To Sexist Sequences In Resident Evil 4 VR
Read Here

Zuckerberg Announces Facebook Company Rebrand To Meta
Read Here

Oculus Quest Devs Will Get Speech Recognition, Tracked Keyboard, Hand Interaction Library
Read Here

Meta Announces AR Glasses Prototype Project Nazare
Read Here

Meta: Quest VR Headsets ‘Won’t Need A Facebook Account’ From 2022
Read Here

Quest Users Unlinking Facebook Account Keep Their Purchases, Meta Confirms
Read Here

Oculus Brand Dead, Oculus Quest To Become Meta Quest
Read Here

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Is Coming To Oculus Quest 2
Read Here

New ‘High End’ Headset Codenamed ‘Cambria’ Launching Next Year
Read Here

Quest 2 Now Shows Pets, People, & Android Phone Notifications
Read Here

PlayStation Patent Filing Shows Work On Eye-Tracking With Foveated Rendering
Read Here

Meta Shows Research Towards Consumer Force Feedback Haptic Gloves
Read Here

HaptX: Meta’s Glove Tech ‘Substantively Identical’ To Our Patents
Read Here

Quest’s App Lab Now Supports DLC And In-App Payments
Read Here

HTC Vive Flow Review: A Niche Within A Niche
Read Here

Hitman 3 PC VR Support Confirmed, Coming Next Year
Read Here

Meta Quest 2 Is Already Replacing Oculus Quest 2 Branding
Read Here

Application SpaceWarp Can Give Quest Apps 70% More Performance
Read Here

Kuo: Apple Headset To Launch Late 2022 With 4K Displays & M1 Level Performance
Read Here

Upload VR Showcase Winter 2021: Everything Announced
Read Here

Apple Hiring AR/VR Frameworks Engineer For ‘Entirely New Application Paradigm’
Read Here

Horizon Worlds Beta Goes Public In US & Canada With 18+ Age Requirement
Read Here

Among Us VR Announced For Quest, PSVR And PC VR
Read Here

New Meta Avatars Now Available To All Unity Developers
Read Here

Kuo: Apple Headset Is 300-400 Grams, Second Gen Will Be “Significantly Lighter”
Read Here

Meta Supernatural Acquisition: FTC Opens Antitrust Probe For $400 Million Deal – Report
Read Here

After The Fall Review: Frantically Fun Co-Op That Needs More Content
Read Here

Watch: Blaston Passthrough On Quest Turns Your Living Room Into An Arena
Read Here

What were your favourite VR/AR stories of 2021? Let us know in the comments below.

December 21, 2021January 11, 2022

How To Fix ‘Tracking Lost’ Error On Quest 2

Are you frequently getting an error that says ‘Tracking Lost’ on Quest 2? Here are some things that might help.

The ‘Tracking Lost’ error often appears on Quest when you’ve turned the headset on or when it’s adjusting to a new environment, right before guardian setup.

Anecdotally, our staff and users online have reported encountering the error quite frequently, but there’s no definitive explanation or solution for why it’s happening so often.

It’s also worth noting that (again, anecdotally) the error is appearing more frequently as time goes on (and new Quest updates roll out). It’s not clear if there is a logical reason for the error or whether it’s just an increasingly common bug (or both).

So while there’s no fix-all solution, we’ve put together this list of tips and tricks that have helped us overcome the strange error, ordered from what to try first up to the last resort.

Update: After publishing this piece, we received loads of helpful comments from our readers suggesting solutions that worked for them. We’ve updated the guide and added those tips in below.

Restart Your Quest

Overwhelmingly, we’ve found that restarting your Quest (properly powering off and rebooting, not just putting the headset into standby mode) should, in most cases, resolve the tracking lost error. If not, it might be something else causing the problems, so read on.

For what it’s worth – even after messing with the tips below, sometimes you might need to restart the headset again for the following changes to take effect, so keep that in mind and keep rebooting where necessary.

Reset Your Guardian

When you’re given the message about tracking being lost, Quest will offer to turn off 6DOF tracking so that you can keep interact with the platform, though only by tilting your hands and head. If you accept, the Guardian will be turned off, but you can quickly head back to settings and turn it back on, in effect resetting it. As with other solutions this can sometimes work, but it’s not 100%.

Clear Your Guardian History

Some our readers suggested that a build-up of saved guardians may increase or cause the Tracking Lost error, particularly if you’ve created and saved multiple guardians of the same space.

To clear you guardian history, head to the settings menu on Quest — under the guardian section, there’s an option to clear your history. You can use the limited 3DOF mode, described above, to access this setting while you’re getting the error.

Clean The Cameras

Tracking is linked to your Quest’s cameras, and many people often forget to clean and take care of the four exterior cameras on the headset. Smudges, scratches and anything else obscuring the cameras can cause tracking problems and potentially cause the tracking lost error.

Use microfibre cloths to carefully and thoroughly clean the four cameras on each corner of the headset. Once they are all clean, see if the error persists.

Adjust Your Lighting and Tracking Settings

If you’re experiencing this error while playing at night or during the day while using lamps or other lighting, you may need to make some adjustments. Make sure you’re playing in a well-lit area and check that the tracking frequency option in the Quest settings is set correctly for your region.

By default, tracking frequency is set to auto, but if you’re having trouble then you can manually set it to 50Hz or 60Hz according to what’s used in your region. To get past the tracking lost error and adjust the settings, you can continue through to Quest Home without tracking and use the basic 3DoF mode to go to Settings and make changes.

Check for Reflective Surfaces and IR Signals

The Quest Touch controllers uses infrared lights on the tracking ring, which allow the headset to determine the controller’s orientation and position. However, if there are any other devices emitting infrared — such as cameras, television remotes and many more — in your play area, it might be confusing and interrupting the Quest’s tracking system.

Likewise, reflective surfaces and mirrors can mess with tracking for the same reason. Clear your play area of any devices that use IR and cover (or move) any mirrors and see if that helps.

Avoid Standby Mode

This is completely anecdotal, but we’ve found that the tracking lost error occurs most frequently when waking the Quest up from standby mode, as opposed to turning it on from a full shutdown.

In between VR sessions, try turning the headset completely off when not in use and see if that reduces the frequency of the error.

Be Patient

Sometimes the Quest just needs a bit of time to get its bearings. While it feels like a lifetime in a VR error menu, we’ve found that if you wait 30-60 seconds on the tracking lost screen, the Quest often resolves the error itself and regains tracking. It doesn’t always work, but sometimes it just needs a bit of time.

Factory Reset

If you’re game, you could try completely wiping your Quest and reinstalling everything from scratch – but we only recommend this if you have all your saves backed up to the cloud (or manually using SideQuest) and you’re confident that you can get everything back to normal after you wipe the headset. Here’s our guide on how to do that.

Contact Support

If all else fails and the error is persistent over a long period, we recommend contacting Oculus Support to enquire about whether you might have a faulty unit or if there’s anything else you can do to resolve the error. You can contact Oculus Support here.

Have you encountered the tracking lost error on Quest? How did you fix it? Let us know in the comments below.

This article was originally published in December 2021 and was updated in January 2022 with added information.

December 20, 2021

Cubism To Receive Passthrough Support With Hand Tracking Next Month

A new Cubism update arriving next month will add support for using passthrough as the game’s background on Quest 2, along with a nifty visual effect that allows your hands to display in front of virtual objects.

Cubism was one of the first games to experiment with the Passthrough API back in August, however it didn’t support hand tracking in passthrough at the time due to unresolved bugs in the OpenXR implementation of hand tracking. This new update, coming next month, supports hand tracking and uses some tricks to sell the visual effect.

Most games that implement the passthrough API don’t let you ‘see’ your real hands against the environment. Blaston, for example, puts a subtle black circle around your hands and controllers, placing the game’s virtual hands on top.

Solve puzzles with your actual hands using @oculus passthrough and handtracking – coming soon to @Cubism!#screenshotsaturday #vr #gamedev pic.twitter.com/qP1xCuH6CX

— Thomas Van Bouwel (@tovanbo) December 18, 2021

However, Cubism allows you to see your hands properly at all times, even if they’re in front or behind any of the game’s objects. You can see this in action in the video embedded above.

Usually, such a trick would also leave with you with distorted hands thanks to the way the passthrough image is constructed from the Quest’s cameras (which is part of the reason for the black circle solution in other games). Cubism circumvents this by applying a faint outline of your virtual hands over the passthrough image, according to a Reddit comment from the developer. The game also uses selective passthrough on top of in-game objects when your hands pass over them, which keeps the hands visible on top of the game’s assets at all times.

Cubism is available now for Meta Quest and PC VR via Steam and Oculus, with the passthrough update coming early next month for Quest 2.

December 17, 2021

Watch: Blaston Passthrough On Quest Turns Your Living Room Into An Arena

Using Quest’s passthrough feature with Resolution Games’ Blaston results in a pretty incredible experience.

Meta recently made the Passthrough API for Quest 2 available for everyone, moving away from an experimental build to a full release. Blaston is one of the first games to take full advantage of the technology and, in doing so, almost completely revolutionizes the game.

Blaston Passthrough Gameplay

In July, Meta added the experimental Passthrough API for developers to play around with, which we saw in action in a few titles like Cubism. However, more recently the API graduated from experimental to full release, allowing Oculus Store apps to add support whenever and however they pleased.

Just last week, Resolution Games updated Blaston, giving players the option to turn on a stylized version of passthrough as your play environment. Everything around you is bathed in a neon-like outline, with the podiums, scoreboard and opponent fixed on top of the overlay in an AR-like fashion. Of course, this isn’t ‘true’ AR — it’s a display showing a video feed, not a transparent display, and there’s certainly no occlusion or depth mapping either. However, for the Quest 2 it’s pretty cool.

At first, I was skeptical — it’s a feature that I was worried might look fun but feel somewhat redundant at launch. However, for games like Blaston, it comes close to completely revolutionizing the game in a way I didn’t think possible. By letting you play in a reconstructed version of your surroundings, Blaston has completely eliminated concerns about your guardian or nearby objects. In turn, this creates a way more freeing, natural experience and, more importantly, it actually makes the game much more enjoyable to play.

I tried Blaston around release and my biggest problem was that I couldn’t really properly immerse myself. It’s a game that requires lots of quick movement and dodging and, ideally, a pretty large play area. I have a small area in my lounge room that’s suitable for most VR experiences — there’s stuff around me, but I have a nice (if small) square of empty space to place a guardian down and move around in.

However, for games like Blaston, it still feels cramped. The reality was that I had plenty of room to play, but I still felt squashed and constantly worried I would get to into it and accidentally send my hand into a wall or worse… my nearby TV.

Playing Blaston in passthrough mode, these problems were completely eliminated. I could play stress free, knowing exactly where everything was and without worry of any accidents. Yes, this is solving a problem that some people won’t have — if you have a giant house with lots of empty, spare space, this would never have been a problem for you. However, the reality is that most people won’t have a huge amount real estate for VR, especially people who only play casually. For those players, passthrough mode makes Blaston feel integrated into your space, instead of taking you out of it, and that’s absolutely crucial. I’m playing in the same space, but it feels like I now have so much more.

Blaston is not the only game to add support (and it certainly won’t be the last) — one of my Quest 2 favorites, Unplugged, also recently added “Your Place” as a venue option. This lets you shred air guitar in a environment that is basically just a variation on the black and white Quest 2 passthrough video feed, overlaid with big colour tones that match the gig, music and game’s lighting. It’s a great option, but it doesn’t solve a problem in the same way that Blaston does. It will surely be useful, if not fantastic, to use when playing Unplugged with a group of people, but that’s not exactly improving anything about the way you play the game. It’s just adding a niche cool feature.

With Blaston, playing in my living room actually let me enjoy the game in a way I couldn’t before. It’s also opened my eyes to the possibilities of the technology, not just on Quest but in the future as well, as we move towards the larger promise of true AR headsets.

Passthrough support is available in Blaston now for Quest 2 users. You can read more here.

December 13, 2021

Stanford Now Offers A Class Held Entirely In Virtual Reality Using Quest 2

A new course being offered by Stanford University garnered some attention in the last few weeks for being the institution’s first class taught and held entirely in VR using Meta Quest 2 headsets.

Taught by Professor Jeremy Bailenson, Communication 166 deals with the various angles of emerging VR technology and its use cases. Bailenson, who you discusses the course in the video above, is the author of the seminal VR text Experience on Demand, which also is one of the class’ assigned readings.

Here’s a course description:

Virtual Reality is becoming mainstream, with more than ten million systems being used in the United States alone. This class examines VR from the viewpoint of various disciplines, including popular culture, engineering, behavioral science, and communication. Each student will receive an Oculus Quest 2 headset, and the bulk of our learning will occur while immersed in VR.

According to the course structure, students will sometimes use lecture time to take part in VR experiences by themselves (such as watching a 360 degree video in VR) or as a group (such as attending a meditation session in Altspace as a group). Class discussions take place in VR too, using Engage.

According to this site, 263 students took the course in 2021 using their own VR headsets and spent a shared 200,000 minutes in VR for the course.

The course attracted some attention last week when it was mentioned by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on his Facebook profile, where he revealed that the students are all using Quest 2 headsets.

Stanford University has a strong history with VR, with the Stanford VR Experience tour playing a strong role in Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to purchase Oculus in 2014.

December 10, 2021

Beat Saber Announces Lady Gaga Music Pack, Launching Tonight

Beat Saber announced its next music pack tonight at the 2021 Game Awards — the Lady Gaga Music Pack features 10 tracks and will be available tonight at 8pm PT.

In a similar fashion to the surprise Green Day music pack announce and release at the 2019 Game Awards, Meta and Beat Games dropped a surprise Lady Gaga Music Pack announcement during tonight’s broadcast of the awards show.

Live from @thegameawards: The @LadyGaga Music Pack is dropping on Beat Saber tonight at 8pm PT!

Get readyyyy!!! pic.twitter.com/kmnOVzaxBG

— Beat Saber (@BeatSaber) December 10, 2021

The music pack will release tonight and features 10 tracks primarily from Gaga’s 2008 debut The Fame (and its 2009 reissue The Fame Monster), with a smattering of tracks from both her 2009 sophomore album Born This Way and 2020 sixth solo album Chromatica.

Here is the full tracklist:

– Alejandro

– Bad Romance

– Born This Way

– Just Dance (feat. Colby O’Donis)

– Paparazzi

– Poker Face

– Rain on Me (with Ariana Grande)

– Stupid Love

– Telephone (feat. Beyoncé)

– The Edge of Glory

As is usually the case with new Beat Saber releases, the Lady Gaga Music Pack comes with a new environment, inspired by the aesthetic of her 2020 album Chromatica, pictured below.

The Lady Gaga pack follows on from the Billie Eilish pack, which released in September — we thought it was a solid lineup of tracks and a great addition to the Beat Saber catalog. We haven’t had enough time to weigh in on Gaga’s tracks just yet, but keep your eyes peeled.

There should be even more content on the horizon for Beat Saber players too — at Connect 2021, Beat Games teased new cosmetic sabers and some form of progression system coming soon.

The Lady Gaga music pack will be available for Beat Saber tonight at 8pm PT on all platforms.