Whole New World: Oculus Quest

Thrilling cable-free gaming? The wireless VR revolution starts here, and you’re going to love it

VR just loves wires. Wires snaking down the back of your head, curling across your living room floor, sneaking down the back of bookcases from roomscale sensors, or plugged into a box that even Sony can’t make fun with quirky symbol-matching games. There’s only so much a cable tidy or 10 can fix. And then suddenly, Oculus Quest arrives, cuts every wire you ever thought you needed, and quietly reinvents virtual reality as a whole at the same time. Make no mistake, Facebook’s all-in-one device is a true game changer. This is how it was always meant to be.

On paper it almost seems too good to be true. A natural follow up to the less games-focused but also wireless Oculus Go, the Quest squeezes a Snapdragon processor into its headset for near PC-level experiences, comes with two Oculus Touch controllers, and it delivers true roomscale VR without a base station in sight. Using Oculus Insight - the technology that cancelled out the need for external sensors for the most recent Rift S PC headset - the Quest has four sensors on the front to track your movements in the real world. Set up a clear play space and the headset enables you to spin in any direction, to duck behind cover, or just giddily step in and out of the path of slow motion bullets in Superhot without a single thought of tripping or tying yourself in knots. Gleefully screaming about how free and untethered you feel at the same time is entirely optional.

The Quest headset feels confidently futuristic in the hand. A mix of fabric and plastic on the outside removes the clunky but very expensive toy aspect of so many other VR headsets, and the soft foam interior makes for a snugly, comfortable face hug.