Meta is getting ready to roll out Quest’s v46 update ahead of its Connect 2022 developer conference next week, bringing to the platform a modest set of new features alongside a new Home environment inspired by The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.

It’s only been a little over two weeks since Meta announced it was rolling out v44, which included a bunch of capture settings to make in-game video recordings better for the average user. Now, skipping over v45, Meta says it has a few things in store ahead of Connect.

When it rolls out, Quest v46 will include a new ‘Recent Apps’ section on the main menu bar, which lets you see the last three apps you opened—a bit quicker than having to pop into your library just to resume a game.

Image courtesy Meta

The update is also bringing a change to what online friends can see about your activity. You’ll be able to determine who can see when you’re online and what you’re playing on an app-by-app basis, meaning you’ll be able to hide your online VR activity from certain friends.

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Starting October 10th, LOTR fans will also be able to step into the underground dwarven kingdom beneath the Misty Mountains, Khazad-dûm—aka Moria or the Dwarrowdelf. The Home environment will be free, but only made available for a limited time.

Image courtesy Meta, Amazon Studios

To access the list of available Home spaces, head into your in-headset ‘Settings’ menu and click ‘Personalization’. From there you can download and change your default home.

It seems like small potatoes, but Meta is likely holding much of their more exciting stuff for next week’s Connect conference, which takes places October 11th. There, we’re sure to hear plenty about the upcoming Quest Pro (née Project Cambria), which is set to push the ecosystem in a new direction thanks to the headset’s augmented reality capabilities.

You can learn more about what’s in store at Connect here. Make sure to follow along with us to hear all of the latest VR news next week when the one-day online event kicks off.

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • Till Eulenspiegel

    Meta putting Amazon’s marketing stuff in their headset? They must be working on some LotR VR games waiting to be announced.

    • Octogod

      Amazon is likely paying to put this environment in HMD.

      LOTR can also be seen in all Adobe splash screens. It’s an attempt to be plastered digitally enough times to get relevance, and by all accounts, it seems to be working.

      • ViRGiN

        wait, so there are companies actually wiling to pay to be on meta, instead of meta corrupting everyone to put their stuff on their platform?

  • Cless

    If only it was Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings inspired and not “The rings of power” inspired instead, I would give a crap.

    • VR5

      It’s both Tolkien. If you’re into that world, why would it matter if that environment was made by Jackson’s CGI artists or Amazon’s? It’s not story content, only a virtual rendering of a dwarf cave.

      • Jeremiah Tothenations

        The new show is pure garbage and spits on Tolkien’s grave. That’s why.

        • Cless

          Pretty much, yeah. Its horribly sad.

        • VR5

          Can you explain in what way and how that even applies to this dwarf environment? How is it disrespectful to Tolkien? Because I don’t see it.

          Not a fan of Tolkien myself but I’ve seen Jackson’s trilogy and also the new Amazon show (which has Tolkien’s family’s blessing, btw). Rings of Power is a lot better than I thought it would be, and I actually like it better than what I remember of the movies.

          • Jeremiah Tothenations

            Because its connected to that abomination of a show, its called having integrity.

            It doesn’t have Tolkien’s blessing, or his sons, they had to wait for the latter’s death before releasing that garbage.

            If you like it, good for you I guess, but I seriously question your taste and standards.

          • VR5

            His son supposedly didn’t like Jackson’s trilogy.

            You still haven’t said in any concrete terms what your actual criticism with the Amazon show is. Can you give one example of why it is supposedly so bad?

          • Jeremiah Tothenations

            Terrible casting and acting, even worse writing (laughably bad), awful direction, wokeness: all sorts of virtue signalling nonsense whether it’s better for the story and world or not (example, Guyladriel Mary sue, what have they done to Galadriel?) .

            The list is endless really. What a total embarrassment, biggest flop of a TV show ever incoming and I’m not bring hyperbolic.

          • VR5

            LotR is popular with fascists like the recently elected Giorgia Meloni so what you refer to as “wokeness” is very welcome to make the franchise less ideologically dangerous. Turns out, fascists like childish fantasies.

  • Nevets

    Why only three recent apps? Why not 10?

    • James Cobalt

      Their product team tested this and found this was the best number for typical users without overwhelming them with UI noise. There are 10+ recent apps just one click away if you need it.

  • namekuseijin

    good, I’ll enjoy it while I read on Quest browser others hating it.

  • sfmike

    I find Meta pushing Amazoncontent now as the Prime Video app has been broken on the Quest for months and neither Meta or Amazon seem to give a crap. How many one-star reviews and complaints does one need before they fix a severely broken app? I used to use that app all the time so this really pisses me off.

    • MeowMix

      watch Prime in the browser ?

      • VR5

        Browser streams aren’t HD and notaceably bad bitrate. The VR app has much better IQ, especially if you set quality to best.

    • xyzs

      Agree. Meta is trying to look like premium and state of the art vr software but their own bundled apps are abandoned like if was not an issue.
      This shows fundamental lack of commitment and perfectionism inside this company.
      They don’t have enough billions to properly support their Android os that is the ONLY reason people are not leaving for Chinese competition??

      • ViRGiN

        LMAO! Chinese competition?
        If you hate Meta so much, what’s the next “good” player for VR? Valve? HTC? LOL!

        • xyzs

          Who are you talking to, loser ?
          I don’t give a f about replies from you.

          • ViRGiN

            can anyone see comment above me?
            looks like my adblocker is blocking chinese shilling.

    • VR5

      It works for me again (most of the time). I still get errors but trying again and again usually starts the stream eventually. Sometimes it doesn’t at all, even when closing and restarting the app. It did work again later that day though.

  • The questions is: why are they skipping v45?

    • Rob Scott

      There are lots of us who wish we could have skipped 45.

      • Tommy

        Hahahaha

      • Dennis Tman

        Because things are so much better now? Dumbass

  • FrankB

    Why can’t we free walk with the control sticks in the home environments? not all of us have aircraft hanger sized rooms required for room scale.

    • Anonymous

      Just overly cautious I guess, out of fear of first time people getting nausea. If this ever becomes an option it will likely be OFF by default and deep inside the Setting menu.

      Also the home environments are actually very lightweight leveraging on the fact you can’t go far. If you move out of bounds you will discover many are actually empty spaces, voids, or half-finished models.

      A way to roam in the environment physically with limited space is to walk up to where you can, use analog stick to turn 180, then physically turn your body 180 again to align back to the direction you wanted to go, and continue on.

    • VR5

      You can teleport.

  • xyzs

    Great, content that comes and goes away depending on contracts.
    Welcome in the “you don’t even own your wallpaper era”…

    • ViRGiN

      Welcome to Steam. The pioneer of renting a license to content you paid for.

  • Tommy

    I’ll never turn down free home spaces.

  • Rupert Jung

    Hoping for Rivendell. It’s just more open ;)