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.
Rec Room—currently 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.
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.
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.