Warplanes, Gun Raiders Headline Huge Week Of Oculus Quest App Lab Releases

After a few dry weeks, there were a huge number of new Oculus Quest App Lab releases this week, headlined by Warplanes and other titles.

We’ve found at least 10 new titles that have dropped on the platform this week. Included among them is Warplanes: WW1 Fighters, a combat flight sim that’s grown popular since we got our first look at it earlier this year.

Also arriving are VR shooters War Yards and Gun Raiders, two multiplayer games. The former is western-themed and sees players duel in 1 vs 1 matches, whilst the latter pits teams of four against each other in arena-style matches. Another notable launch is Jigsaw 360, a puzzle game that made headlines when it was one of the first titles to be rejected for sale on the full Oculus Store, but now comes to App Lab with hand-tracking support. Peco Peco is a similar experience that has you piecing together 3D assets.

Rounding up there’s also Sep’s Dinner, The Final Overs, V-Speedway, Solicitude Wake-Up and Sky Squadron. If we’ve missed any, let us know in the comments below.

Earlier today we reported that Facebook was ramping up is App Lab submissions team to get titles approved faster and it certainly looks like that’s taking effect. App Lab is a sort of halfway-house between the full Oculus Quest Store, which is subject to a strict curation policy, and sideloading unapproved apps onto your device, which takes extra steps. App Lab titles don’t require sideloading, but also won’t show up on the store – you’ll need a direct link to buy and download them.

10 App Lab Games Arrive This Week Including Peco Peco & Sky Squadron

Peco Peco

Facebook launched App Lab just over a month ago with the service seeing a steady trickle of content arrive including two of its own supporting hand tracking. This week has definitely seen an uptick when it comes to new content with ten new titles added to the roster, offering a variety of indie virtual reality (VR) experiences.

Sky Squadron
Sky Squadron Beta

Some of the new App Lab videogames available you may already be aware of thanks to them either appearing on SideQuest or you may have taken advantage of the “Waiting for App Lab” bundle which was available over on Itch.io for a limited time offering a group discount.

With their arrival on App Lab this week you get the benefits of the new distribution method, so they’re all easy to download with no sideloading required, and updates are automatic. There is a range of puzzle, shooter, action and sports titles to suit most tastes. For example, Peco Peco challenges you to build 3D jigsaw puzzles, with the App Lab release adding more models for a total of 42 jigsaw puzzles which should provide over 17 hours of gameplay with more on the way.

If you’re looking for something a little more action-oriented then you’ve got Warplanes: WWI Fighters, piloting era-accurate fighters from light scout planes to bombers through single-player, PvP and co-op multiplayer modes. Or you have Gun Raiders, a 4v4 team-based multiplayer shooter with three gameplay modes.

Sep's Diner
Sep’s Diner

Hopefully, as you should be aware by now, App Lab titles can’t be found through Oculus Quest’s official store, you either need a link or have to go into the Oculus Browser, head to the Oculus website and type the exact name in. VRFocus is making that process a little easier by providing all the links below.

As more VR developers chose to go down the App Lab route to get their projects onto Oculus Quest, VRFocus will keep you updated.