Picking up and crushing creatures with my telekinetic powers was immensely satisfying, as was opening up a portal with my actual hands and peering into the Upside Down. While the game wasn’t always responsive to my gestures, things felt great when they worked. This demo had me put my controllers down, as the Quest 3’s hand-tracking capabilities allowed me to interact with the world using just my hands - to mixed results. Up next was Stranger Things VR, an upcoming Quest title that blends the real and virtual worlds in even more dramatic ways as you step into the shoes of series villain Vecna.
![playspace mover target playspace mover target](http://www.tat3d-germany.de/media/zoo/images/2WD_Mover_e191cd73412a2e03d72c1575574c29b1.jpg)
And this turned out to be just a small taste of what the Quest 3 can do. Blasting literal holes in reality and watching these tiny aliens jump through them and into my real-world playspace immediately felt surreal, as did watching their spacecraft take off from an actual living room rug.
I started out with First Encounters, an exclusive Quest 3 experience that serves as a tutorial for the headset’s mixed reality capabilities by having you open up portals for the game’s cute, colorful critters to enter. But the real magic began once I played some games. That’s why I was blown away the second I put on the Quest 3 - I could still see the people and objects all around me, in full color and with fairly minimal pixelation (Meta says the new passthrough mode has 10 times the detail of the Quest 2’s, and it certainly looked like it). The older Quest 2’s passthrough mode works well enough when I need to find my water bottle mid-workout or make sure I’m not stepping on the dog while gaming, but its pixelated, monochrome video output doesn’t exactly paint a clear picture of my living room.
![playspace mover target playspace mover target](https://welcomematservices.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/new-movers-postcard-01-1-1280x1280.png)
The Quest 3’s marquee feature is mixed reality, which uses advanced new passthrough cameras to let you engage in virtual activities while still getting a clear view of your real-world surroundings. Fortunately, these fit issues started to melt away as I got fully immersed in a series of demos that were largely unlike anything I’ve experienced on my current Quest. It felt heavier to me at first brush, but that may be because I use a custom third-party strap for my Quest 2 that helps distribute the headset’s weight more evenly. That being said, once I finally got the unit on my head, I had to do a decent amount of tweaking to get it fitting comfortably while keeping everything in focus. The Quest 3’s thinner design is also meant to feel better, with a lens adjustment wheel at the bottom, a depth adjustment interface inside the headset and a redesigned strap that are all built to help you get the right fit and a clear field of view. I was immediately struck by the multiple color options on display at Meta’s event space - whether you use the stock black strap that comes with the device or pick up a blue or orange strap for an extra $50, the Quest 3 has a nice two-tone look that sets it apart from the all-gray Quest 2 that you get out of the box. This headset is 40% thinner and mostly sleeker than the Quest 2, so long as you don’t mind the three giant camera modules that are now plastered onto the front of it (more on why those matter soon). There’s no mistaking the Meta Quest 3 for its predecessor.
![playspace mover target playspace mover target](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/68sMUKwYkT0/maxresdefault.jpg)
Your CNN account Sign in to your CNN account