I tried VR’s Shadow of the Colossus and cleaned Doc Brown’s DeLorean – my favorite Meta Quest 3 games and apps for June 2024
Are you ready to admire skyscraper-sized Behemoths, battle your way through the horrors of Shardfall, and power a time-traveling DeLorean?
That’s what I’ve been doing for the past month thanks to the help of my Meta Quest 3 (and the new Quell immersive fitness system), and I’m here to break down my experience playing them all. Minor spoiler: This month’s VR games and apps were all fantastic – I highly recommend getting at least one as soon as possible.
So let’s see what I thought of Behemoth, Power Wash Simulator and the Back to the Future DLC, and the new Quell game Shardfall. But first something else.
Batman: Arkham Shadow
I usually reserve this column for games and apps I’ve played in the past few weeks. But after that explosive Summer Games Fest trailer, we have to talk about Arkham Shadow – the VR Batman game coming exclusively to Meta Quest 3.
Ahead of the trailer reveal, I had the pleasure of chatting with Ryan Payton – the studio director of Camouflaj (the team behind the game) – to find answers to my most burning questions.
Payton revealed that the main villain isn’t Ratcatcher as we expected; instead, he’s just a follower of the real big bad, the Rat King. He described the gameplay to me in great detail, calling Arkham Shadow a VR translation of everything that made Arkham Asylum the smash hit that it was – from the exploration to the story and characters to the dynamic combat. Payton also outlined why this game needed to be a Meta Quest 3 exclusive.
You can read my full chat with Ryan Payton on Arkham Shadow for a more in-depth look at these topics, but just know that I’m even more hyped for this game than I already was. The release date of ‘Holiday 2024’ can’t come soon enough.
Behemoth
This past month I was lucky enough to try an early demo of Behemoth. The roughly 15 minute portion of the game introduced me to some of the enemies, weapons, puzzles, and monstrosities the game has in store for players.
My victory over the demo’s Behemoth was somewhat diminished when I was told that the boss was a bit underwhelmed by the experience. However, the team tried to cheer me up by explaining that this is because players usually encounter it after a few hours rather than ten minutes – so they would be prepared for a tougher fight. I guess I just have to try the full game so I can prove myself in a full-throttle rematch – and I can’t wait.
You can think of it as a virtual reality version of Shadow of the Colossus (to be a bit reductive). You’re on a quest to hunt and kill enormous behemoths that roam the land, with the boss battles feeling more like action-oriented puzzles than a typical brawl.
That’s not to say you won’t get your fill of Dark Ages-style duels. During your adventure you will face many human-sized enemies who want to finish you off before you even get a chance to spy any of the beasts you are looking for.
Yes, they’re a lot less imposing, but fighting these smaller enemies is still challenging and exciting thanks to Behemoth’s sandbox approach to combat. You’ll get access to a wide variety of weapons to swirl around, as well as chain together techniques like blocking, parrying, and grappling hook acrobatics to find interesting ways to decimate your enemies.
Alternatively, you can go into a rage, deal extremely powerful hits for a limited time, and simply blow your enemies away.
Speaking to Shawn Kittelsen, Vice President of Creative at Skydance Interactive for Behemoth, after the demo, he explained that after working on The Walking Dead Saints & Sinners, the team actually wanted to make the opposite of that game.
“The Walking Dead Saints & Sinners has all these dark, intimate spaces, and you never know when there’s a Walker around the corner waiting to grab you. We thought: what if we took our motion physics that players love, our experience designing different weapons and enemy variants, and applied them to something completely different: an epic fantasy game with wide open arenas.”
When the team considered what enemies players would encounter in these large spaces, the answer was clear: Behemoths. From here, the team created these antagonistic puzzles so that players could get the best out of themselves – giving them a few nasty tricks like player responsiveness. This means that instead of simply cycling through attacks, these monsters will respond to your actions.
This is something I noticed in my demo, when my decision to run under the monster to avoid the giant ball and chain it was wielding only led to it choosing to kick me.
If you want to try Behemoth when it launches, it’s coming to Meta Quest 3, Oculus Quest 2, PSVR 2, and PCVR.
When discussing the power difference between these hardware systems, Kittelsen assured me that while the PS5 and PC-powered experiences will offer better visuals (and a few extra immersive features like the PSVR2 headset rumble), the Quest 2 experience will be the same will feel in terms of gameplay. and with a smooth frame rate. He added: “It was important that we didn’t leave Quest 2 players behind.”
PowerWash Simulator and Back to the Future DLC
After my experience with Lawn Mowing Simulator, I was a little hesitant to try out another handyman sim. My girlfriend even laughed at me when she heard that I would be spending my time on virtual printing for the second month in a row. But PowerWash Simulator manages to deliver everything I expected from Lawn Mowing Simulator and more. It’s a cathartic cleaning experience that I’ve strangely been hooked on since I downloaded it a few weeks ago.
Yes, the main game is very simple. With enough patience and some help from the in-game checklist and the dirt viewer, you can wave your cleaning wand over any surface and get the van/house/playground dinosaur looking as good as new again without any hassle. But there’s something meditative about meticulously clambering over surfaces in search of the last bits of grime to wipe away.
For those of you looking for more of a challenge, some modes require you to re-clean each level with a time limit and water restriction respectively. I’ve tried these modes once, but I don’t feel like my cleaning skills are up to par yet – the water tests are particularly challenging and require a level of cleaning precision that I don’t currently have.
To continue my training, PowerWash Simulator offers additional bonus levels. Some are included in the base game, while some licensed locations are available through paid DLC, such as the recently released Back to the Future pack.
While not quite the immersive Back To The Future experience that fans of the series were hoping for, these themed levels are a delight if you enjoy what PowerWash Simulator has to offer. I hope we see more.
Even though my reaction was the opposite of how I felt about Lawn Mowing Simulator, I have to admit that this monotonous chore sim won’t be for everyone. If you try to compare it to an action-packed hit like Behemoth, it almost seems a bit boring.
But at the same time, I found PowerWash Simulator deceptively more delicious. Every time I try to put it down, I want to put my Meta Quest 3 back on and immediately get back to cleaning.
Quell & Shardfall
Okay, so Quell isn’t a Meta Quest 3 game. It’s not even a VR game. But I had to talk about it here because I think it’s a great alternative to the VR fitness apps I’ve been talking about since I did my month-long VR workout challenge in April.
This fitness-first gaming platform offers much of what I fell in love with from VR apps like Supernatural. Instead of training just for fun (something that can be a struggle for motivation), there is a gamified element.
In the case of Quell, these are the enemies you face in the first game Shardfall – an adventure full of fantasy. It’s not just an upper body workout. You also have to jog, sprint, crouch and jump past obstacles that take up the space between battles. Because this adventure isn’t set in VR, the team has been able to incorporate these elements without as much risk of the player injuring themselves or feeling nauseous.
Resistance bands have also been added – with three difficulty levels – to make punching more challenging. When I first tried Quell, I was surprised at how much more effort I put into my shadowboxing.
For a more in-depth look at this new, immersive fitness experience, I recommend checking out my full article about my experience with Quell. But TL;DR I really enjoyed using it, even if I did have the occasional frustrating issue where the tracker didn’t sync perfectly with my movements.
If you’ve been struggling to get into VR fitness or more traditional workouts, then Quell might be what you’re looking for. But do consider whether Quell is definitely for you before you buy it, as it’s a bit pricey at $339/£299 (it’s unfortunately not available in Australia), with a $9.99/£299 subscription on top of that. £9.90 per month or $79.90 / €79.90 for a year. However, when it comes to special fitness equipment, this is not an unreasonable amount.