On the run up to the headset’s Spring release, Oculus today confirmed a handful of new Quest launch titles. Among them are social VR hits Rec Room and VRChat, both known for connecting players and friends across headsets and platforms.

Rec Room and VRChat are two of VR’s best known social apps. Rather than being mere ‘multiplayer games’ both offer a communal focus that spans a wide range of activities—everything from just hanging out, to charades, dodgeball, and much more. Both apps are also offer cross-platform / cross-play multiplayer, which make them great options for allowing friends with different headsets (or no headset at all) to spend time in VR together.

Both social VR apps are heading to Quest this Spring, though it isn’t clear if that will be on launch day or sometime thereafter. Although the Quest versions of these games have not been officially confirmed with cross-platform multiplayer, we expect this is a high priority for the developers considering the status quo.

Image courtesy Against Gravity

Rec Roomcurrently available on Steam (Vive, Rift, Windows VR, desktop), Oculus (Rift), and PlayStation 4 (PSVR, non-VR)—is contextualized as a sort of ‘community center’ where players come together to participate in activities big and small. There’s the little stuff like chatting while playing ping pong or shooting hoops, bigger stuff like ‘quests’ (mini-missions where players cooperatively fight their way through scripted levels), all the way to a full fledged battle royale game called ‘Rec Royale’ which pits large groups of players against each other on a huge map. The app also lets users get creative with in-game building and logic tools for designing and sharing their own spaces and activities.

Image courtesy VRChat

VRChat—currently available on Steam (Vive, Rift, desktop) and Oculus (Rift)—on the other hand focuses more on socializing and expression, with the ability for players to use totally unique custom avatars capable of full body tracking (for those with compatible hardware). Users can also build complex worlds in Unity to import into the game and share with friends. That’s led to things like virtual nightclubs where people can be found dancing and hanging out, and a more ‘mashup’ friendly vibe compared to Rec Room’s cheery, child friendly palette.

SEE ALSO
Oculus Rift S vs. Oculus Quest – Specs & Features

With Oculus and Facebook’s own social VR apps—Rooms, Venues, Spaces, and Home—completely fragmented between their PC and mobile headsets, Rec Room and VRChat will hopefully deliver cross-platform multiplayer to Quest that can connect friends across headsets.

Newsletter graphic

This article may contain affiliate links. If you click an affiliate link and buy a product we may receive a small commission which helps support the publication. More information.


Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • Firestorm185

    Can’t wait to play Quests on Quest. >w0

  • Xron

    Waiting for the new wave of chatters, imitating “Do you know the WAY!?” moles :D

  • Huuxloc

    Put those two social VR apps together along with Hi-Fidelity, Sansar, Altspace and Secondlife and you’ll get the MUCH more powerful, fun and immersive NeosVR which should also be coming to Quest. IMO NeosVR is THE best social app and game/experience dev engine available for VR.

    • Looked it up on YouTube. No.

    • ahmadsyar

      i can see the game engine is much more able and diverse than vrchat but i worry about the player base

  • How are they going to run VRChat on a mobile chipset when they just recently, again, raised the polygon limit on the avatars? Well I haven’t found it too taxing on my 1080ti, people on lesser machines complain all the time about poor framerate and performance. Even an old gaming machine is still alot more powerful then a few mobile chipset.

    They can’t optimize the models, as people upload new models constantly. They could automatically pair down textures to save on a bit of overhead, but that will likely make a mess of certain effects and render some text illegible. Automatically reducing polygon count could also be disastrous. Unlike other games announced for the Quest, VRChat is a mess of very random user uploads. Resource optimization isn’t really an option.

    • WyrdestGeek

      Then it’s possible that it simply won’t work very well.

      Maybe the best they could do is sub in a generic low poly model when necessary. Maybe give users the option of uploading low poly versions of their avatars in addition to the high poly versions… ?

      • trudy

        A family vacation to the most wonderful destinations in the entire world with all your family members and a beautiful house you aspire to to buy. Is your current job truly capable of fulfilling your goals? In case your answer is no then it’s time for you to change. We bring to you an internet job which is certainly as simple as being on any search engine like google or doing copy paste work. It really does not require any technical knowledge and it does not require anything to sell. It surely is not similar to any frauds that claims to make you “rich over night” and then turned out to be pyramid schemes or stuff where you really need to sell to your friends and family. It is easy to start and you will receive the instruction guide within few weeks. You could make almost $20,000-$30,000 per month. You are able to invest much more time with my family and friends and can go out for incredible trips. This job provides you opportunity to be own own boss and can work from anywhere in the world. Do not wait for too long, Go and try it out this phenomenal online job opportunity.>>>>>>>>>>>> SIGN UP

  • impurekind

    Yeah, I really like thinking of Rec Room as basically a virtual community centre; that’s the perfect way to think of it. Of course, it’s kinda way beyond every the average community centre just by virtue of what VR brings to the table.

  • Pizzy

    Anyone know if we can charge and use the Quest at the same time yet? That is the main and only question I have that I want answered. It’s a pretty big deal. I for one could careless if I need to wear a battery bank and have a cord running up to the Quest if it means more play time….