Meta may soon rebrand Horizon+, its VR game subscription service for Quest, to ‘Meta VR+’, as the company appears to be bundling a number of 3D films to better appeal to Meta VR Glasses owners.
Ostensibly sourced from the latest HorizonOS 2.10 release which began rolling out late last month, dataminer ‘NT2182’ (via ‘NoriDoesVR’) has uncovered an image that suggests Meta is getting ready for another rebrand.
This time, the company is reportedly refocusing its Horizon+ game subscription service for Quest to include 3D films, and renaming it Meta VR+ the process.
Courtesy NoriDoesVR, NT2182
Notably, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023), Project Hail Mary (2026) and Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) are all actually owned by three different entities: Amazon MGM Studios, Sony Pictures, and the Disney-owned Marvel Studios, respectively.
This suggests that Meta could be hand-picking specific films to license individually rather than offering a wider swath of exclusive content, like Disney+, Prime Video, or Netflix tends to do.
Meta announced in September it would begin hosting 3D Disney films via Disney+, soon to be available to subscribers in select countries. In the past, the company also inked a multi-year partnership with James Cameron’s Lightstorm Vision to develop new stereoscopic content.
Courtesy Meta
This follows the unveiling of Meta VR Glasses in September. The company is differentiating the $1,300 device from its comparatively cheaper Quest 3/3S gaming platform by focusing on casual content consumption, as well as its use as a private productivity device/virtual screen.
The headset (or glasses, rather) are exceedingly light at just ~100g on-head weight, which is done by offloading the compute and battery to a tethered, pocketable puck.
South Korean eyewear giant Gentle Monster announced its long-awaited Android XR smart glasses are on their way this December, which are built in collaboration with Samsung and Google. And Joaquin Phoenix will be heading the marketing blitz starting later this month.
Gentle Monster revealed a snippet of a soon-to-release short film starring Joaquin Phoenix, which will ostensibly highlight all of the interesting things you can do with a pair of Android XR smart glasses. Like translating foreign (or possibly alien?) languages.
Gentle Monster’s first Intelligent Eyewear collection ⠀ Joaquin Phoenix stars in a short film directed by Jonathan Glazer—a cinematic journey between reality and dream. Full film releasing mid-November. ⠀ The collection launches this December. ⠀ Register for the collection… pic.twitter.com/UBv6pdHWSW
Academy Award and BAFTA winner Jonathan Glazer is directing the short film; Glazer is best known for his work on films The Zone of Interest (2023), Under the Skin (2013), and Sexy Beast (2000). Glazer was also behind a number of iconic music videos throughout the ’90s and ’00s from Blur, Radiohead, and Jamiroquai to name a few.
There’s no word yet on when exactly the glasses will launch, which, alongside similar frames from Warby Parker, will be some of the first to support Google’s Android XR operating system.
One of three Gentle Monster smart glasses models | Courtesy Google & Samsung
Much like Meta’s range of camera-clad smart glasses, the Warby Parker and Gentle Monster frames will include onboard cameras, microphones and off-ear speakers for doing things like taking calls, listening to podcasts, and interacting with Google Gemini.
Samsung has said the first generation of smart glasses will feature a Qualcomm Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1 chipset, a single 12MP front-facing camera with indicator LED, and up to 9 hours of use per charge, with a portable charging case providing extra charge.
No pricing or launch date has been announced yet outside of the new December release window, however both companies have debuted their first sets of styles, which you can see here: Warby Parker smart glasses – Gentle Monster smart glasses.
PAYDAY finally got its first VR-native entry into the storied franchise. While it’s not the royal flush I was hoping for, it certainly wasn’t offsuit seven-deuces either.
Developer:Fast Travel Games Publisher:Fast Travel Games Available On:Quest,SteamVR (Frame version incl.) Reviewed On:Quest 3 Release Date:November 5th, 2026 Price:$25
Gameplay
There’s a cohesive story in here somewhere. Somebody named Jupiter is bad. Something something gotta steal stuff from bad man. It’s been forever since I played Payday 2 (never 3), so I can’t say whether this is a continuation, or what’s actually going on.
That’s about as much as I think you should be expected to absorb though, which is just fine for a Payday game. The key isn’t the filler backstory, but really the uniqueness of each mission and its various environmental puzzles. And I’m happy to say that missions are indeed unique, and multilayered enough to make them worth coming back for more. In short, Payday: Aces High is basically what it says on the tin, and I wouldn’t blame you if you stopped reading here.
That said, drilling in a bit deeper, the game isn’t without its flaws, some that may even urk dyed-in-the-wool Payday fans, which I get into a little later below.
Courtesy Fast Travel Games
As it is, there are some standard puzzle bits you’ll see in each of the game’s six mission: four-digit door codes and combination lock codes, both of which require you to hunt around the level for random post-its in a back office or wall somewhere, but there’s also gear-based stuff like hacking laptops using your special watch, and calling in a drone-mounted drill that is something of a minigame to distract you as your buddies will need to defend you while your back is turned.
But there are also puzzles specific to each mission, which include everything from timing based challenges to defending various capture points. It’s the sort of thing that requires team-based planning, which is great if you have a good group of three other people by your side.
Now, this may go without saying, but co-op games are almost always more fun with friends, and also people who are earnestly trying to cooperate. That’s most definitely the case with PAYDAY: Aces High, as it serves up mostly the same well-worn shooting and heisting experience you know from its other main branch titles throughout the years, which makes it a great framework for drop-in, drop-out fun.
That said, if you can’t manage to get some friends together, or find a decent quick match—which isn’t too tough right now since the game just launched—you will have to play solo. And I don’t recommend it at all.
When playing solo, or in a silent/uncooperative group (basically solo), you really start to notice just how blindingly dumb the game’s AI is. Baddies come in waves once you’ve blown your cover by donning your mask, or by bumping into a civilian, or being detected in a restricted area. That’s mostly fine. But they’re so inept that the term ‘bullet sponges’ doesn’t do them justice—real quantity over quality stuff.
Courtesy Fast Travel Games
As it is, you’ll find yourself in a room full of enemies of different types, all of which are randomly shooting (and missing most of the time) without any apparent tactic or instinct to take cover. Even the most powerful mini-gun dude with armor is an un-reactive moron on the default Normal mode.
Again, you might not immediately notice this when things are fast and the bullets are flying in good online co-op match, but eventually it’s will become something you just can’t unsee. And higher difficulty only seems to give enemies better armor and shooting ability, and not much else. That is, without a doubt, the biggest flaw in Payday: Aces High right now.
It’s a bit of shame too, because it’s one of the best-looking games on Quest right now, pushing a little higher visual fidelity on PC, but not by much. And Fast Travel Games (re: not the original devs Starbreeze) have translated the Payday heisting experience into a true VR native.
Immersion
Seeing a civilian aimlessly walk in a circle, or a cop who lets you get in his face and think nothing of it really hammers home that the experience isn’t about actually doing a heist. These are lifeless drones that serve more as moveable puzzle pieces, which is fine for the genre. It’s just not terribly immersive.
It essentially boils down the experience to a series of checklists, which is usually capped off with a massive firefight against endless waves of baddies. Make the bad men fall, complete the objectives to best of your ability, get the cash, buy new gadgets, and play any mission again. Maybe even the same just to farm more cash, which me and good group did for about a half-hour before people lost interest. That’s Payday for you. It’s not an indictment of the franchise, just something you should be aware of.
Courtesy Fast Travel Games
The game’s comparatively minor transgressions feel artificial, but not as artificial as its objectively terrible AI. For example, glass only breaks when you shoot it. Why? You have to hold loot items in your hands and crush them until they magically disappear. Because of reasons? Many of the door codes/combos repeat across multiple locks. That’s just bad op-sec. I think all of that can be mocked, but also forgiven in the defense of making the overall experience work for players.
On the bright side, gun handling is actually pretty good, as it allows for manual reloading by popping out a mag with a button press, pulling a mag (or shotgun shells) from behind your back, loading and charging manually. Here, I appreciate sacrificing ease of use when it’s in service of realism.
The inventory system is also smart, putting your guns in defined spots on your body, and extra items in a three-slot pop-up inventory that you can call up by pressing Y/B. Gamey and not immersive, sure, but also well designed enough to give you the import bits when you need them most, and out of the way when you don’t.
Level design is also a strong suit, as large complexes easily swallow lagging team members, offering up a good mix of open and closed-quarter spaces for different types of firefights.
Comfort
For its flaws, Payday: Aces High is a very comfortable game, as it follows all of the well-worn comfort conventions that Fast Travel and other veteran VR developers have accrued over the past decade.
It can equally be played standing or seated, with seated gameplay unencumbered by the inventory system, which doesn’t interfere with arm rests, so you can sit back and play just as easily as standing.
‘PAYDAY: Aces High’ Comfort Settings – November 5th, 2026
Steam Frame has only been out for a little over a month now, and is still heavily backordered. Still, Valve’s latest Steam Hardware Survey shows the headset is already off to a strong start.
The opt-in, randomized monthly survey now shows Steam Frame at fifth place on the platform, making for 5.49% of all headsets in use on Steam.
Courtesy Valve
Considering Steam Frame is still heavily supply constrained, as shipments now reach into 2027, immediately taking fifth place is a surprisingly fair result.
Some of this could be explained by Quest 2’s sizeable loss of 3.57% since the September survey, which could suggest some portion of Quest 2 users upgraded to Frame.
Notably, Valve changed its survey methodology in March 2020. Previously, the VR hardware detection system was based on headsets connected at the time of survey. Now, the survey uses SteamVR records of headsets connected during the preceding month, making for a more fair picture of headsets used.
Some of that feels like it might come down to price, but I’m not so sure. Valve Index launched in late 2019 at $999 for the full kit, including headset, two controllers, and two SteamVR base stations. In terms of inflation, that’s around $1,300 today.
Valve Index | Courtesy Valve
And that’s the same price as the most expensive Steam Frame 1 TB model, which notably doesn’t need a VR-ready gaming PC—although you’d probably be better off with one considering the comparatively small number of Frame optimized games.
The wrinkle in that calculation though is Index users had the option to upgrade piecemeal from other PC VR headsets, allowing them to purchase Index alone for $499 if they already owned HTC Vive controllers and SteamVR base stations.
Whatever the case, Frame has proven to be popular enough to surpass Index very early in its existence. And I’ll be charting its performance, so make sure to check back for more.
Valve has released a SteamVR beta update that brings improvements to streamed image quality to all supported standalone headsets.
Steam Link is SteamVR’s dedicated streaming app, letting you play your Steam library games on your Meta Quest, HTC Vive Focus, or PICO consumer headset by wirelessly streaming over Wi-Fi.
Now, in a SteamVR blog post, Valve announced the new 2.19.1 beta update brings sharper text, clearer colors, and better detail to VR streaming to those headsets—undoubtedly thanks to the company’s effort to improve Steam Frame’s wireless PC streaming function.
Notably, improvements are said to benefit all streaming VR applications, the SteamVR interface, desktop streaming, third-party overlays, and the theater screen.
Additionally, Valve says Steam Link now defaults to a higher recommended render resolution for streamed PC VR, targeting 1.4 × the headset’s panel resolution.
Color clarity was also improved, using higher-quality filter to downsample color before encoding, preserving fine colored details, Valve says. You can find the full changelog here.
To get the update, users need to opt into the SteamVR beta. To do that, simply follow the instructions below:
With Steam running, navigate to your library.
Right click on “SteamVR” in your library list, then click “Properties” in the context menu.
Select the “Game Versions & Betas” tab on the left.
Select “Beta – SteamVR Beta Update”
If you’re familiar with Steam Link, you likely already have a VR-ready PC. To find out if your PC can handle SteamVR streaming, click here to follow our handy guide.
Meta announced it’s finally sunsetting Quest 2 and Quest Pro, which are slated to receive their final OS update early next year.
Meta VR Glasses is coming next spring, so the company announced it’s pruning HorizonOS development to finally move away from the Quest 2 and Quest Pro hardware.
In a developer blog post, Meta says feature development for Quest 2 and Quest Pro will end with v213, which reaches all Quest 2 and Quest Pro devices by March 2027. As the final OS release, v213 is also the last supported SDK version for these devices.
Moving forward, new OS features, platform capabilities, and APIs released after v213 will only be available on Quest 3, Quest 3S, and newer devices, Meta says. Notably, Quest 2 and Quest Pro were discontinued in 2024.
Based on images courtesy Meta
Quest 2 and Quest Pro will receive security patches and critical bug fixes through the end of 2027. New apps that support Quest 2 or Quest Pro will no longer be accepted after December 2027 however. New titles can still launch on Quest 3, Quest 3S, and newer devices, but they just won’t be offered on Quest 2 or Quest Pro, Meta says.
Still, existing apps supporting both can get bug fixes, content drops, and seasonal events. Cross-play multiplayer also doesn’t have a clear end date either.
Released in 2020, Quest 2 was one of the best-selling consumer VR headsets to date, having sold an estimated 20 million units over its lifetime. Since launch, Quest 2 was also the principal driver Quest Store revenue, with Meta announcing in 2023 the ecosystem had then topped $2 billion in revenue.
In 2022, Meta announced it was releasing its next headset, Quest Pro, which included eye-tracking, a more capable Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2+ chipset, double Quest 2’s 6GB RAM, pancake lenses, and full color passthrough for mixed reality gameplay.
Despite its advancement over Quest 2, Quest Pro struggled to find a compelling use for its new mixed reality capabilities. Coming in at $1,500 at launch was also widely seen as a major obstacle for adoption, essentially relegating it to an expensive developer kit.
To Meta’s credit, the company eventually reduced the price of Quest Pro to $1,000 a year later—the same year Meta released Quest 3, which sported many of Quest Pro’s most impressive features at about half the price, making it the obvious choice for consumers and developers alike.
Sony appears to be winding down PSVR 2 sales, as the company has removed its PS5-compatible VR headset from the PlayStation web store.
The News
PSVR 2 stock is drying up, as the headset has recently gone missing from both Sony and online retailers across the web.
At the time of this writing, Sony no longer sells PSVR 2 its PlayStation Store in the US or Japan.
Some regions still show the headset in stock, including the EU and UK. In Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the PlayStation Store simply points to third-party retailers.
Road to VR has collected a timeline of data from multiple pages showing that Sony began removing PSVR 2 from its direct.playstation.com store starting around mid-October.
Created by Road to VR
Additionally, Amazon availability of the PSVR 2 Horizon Call of the Mountain bundle and the PSVR 2 non-bundle began to waver earlier this year, but have now all but flatlined. The chart above shows Amazon US availability of the non-bundled PSVR 2 SKU.
At the time of this writing, the only remaining stock for PSVR 2 at stores like Best Buy and Walmart is being sold at sizeable markups ($750 at Best Buy), which is notably only available via third-party resellers.
We’re only about three weeks away from Black Friday. Companies typically reserve large stocks of popular items around that time so they can advertise nation-wide discounts across multiple retail channels.
That only works when a company is confident in their product’s future, which doesn’t really seem to be the case for Sony heading into the 2026 holiday season.
Is this the death knell for PSVR 2? If it is, I wouldn’t find it particularly shocking. While Sony hasn’t spoken officially on the matter, it’s rumored the company never resumed production of PSVR 2 after its initial pause in March 2024, which was reportedly done as a result of low sales volumes following the headset’s launch in February 2023.
Courtesy Sony
Even if the rumor isn’t true, it’s pretty clear Sony wrote off PSVR 2 long ago. Just one year after launch, Sony shuttered its London Studio, which created VR action-adventure game Blood & Truth (2019), and reduced headcount at Firesprite, the studio behind PSVR 2 exclusive Horizon Call of the Mountain.
