Best Quest 3 & 2 puzzle games
As VR games get more advanced, developers are starting to focus more on "realism" and "immersion" to make players live out fantasies and explore worlds. But VR got its start in many ways on puzzle games, with players encouraged to interact with their environment to solve mysteries and get past obstacles. The best Meta Quest puzzle games will challenge and tease your brain in the best way.
Puzzle games in best overall: The Room VR, I Expect You to Die
Cubism
Why you can trust Android Central Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.
Tetris no longer has a monopoly on colored shapes
When you think of puzzlers, your brain almost indelibly goes to Tetris. The catchy tunes and hypnotizing movement of the pieces are only broken by the speed you have to keep up to win. So what if you took Tetris and made it decidedly more zen? That's maybe a semi-decent description of Cubism, a 3D puzzler that only makes sense in VR space, as it makes you feel like you're picking up physical colorful shapes and trying to fit them into another hollow shape.
What seems like a straightforward formula at first makes way for a brain-teasingly good time that's earned the game a nearly flawless score on the Oculus Store — and earned it many awards in the process. There's nothing quite like getting lost in the zone of solving puzzles only to find yourself emerge from VR a few hours later. Later puzzles are deceptively difficult, especially given the ease at which the game pulls you in.
It's truly the perfect example of a pick-up-and-play VR game since you can jump in for a few minutes at a time. Built-in hand-tracking support is fun and lends credence to this feeling; plus, with the recent update to hand tracking 2.0, Cubism should control much more naturally than before without controllers.
Either way, pick it up. Your brain will thank me later. —Nick Sutrich
Gravity Lab
In space, no one can hear you scream... when you can't solve that puzzle
What could be a more perfect setup for roomscale VR than a giant do-it-yourself Rube Goldberg machine? A giant do-it-yourself Rube Goldberg machine in space with zero-gravity! Gravity Lab was one of the first roomscale games on PC VR platforms back in 2016 and received a marvelous port to the Oculus Quest.
Gravity Lab puts players in a defunct Moonbase that was clearly used for some weird science experiments. Are you supposed to be here? Are you part of the experiment? There's only one way to find out: Get to solving those puzzles so you can move on to the next! Most puzzles involve getting some ball or another item from one point to the next, but the limited number of pieces you can use make it a challenge.
After the first few levels, you'll have to really start thinking out of the (gravity) box as puzzles begin to increasingly evolve into ones that don't rely on gravity. The clever puzzles are injected with humor to spice things up a bit, and the simple narrative helps carry players from one level to the next without getting convoluted. —Nick Sutrich
Puzzling Places
Relax and assemble real-life locations scanned into 3D puzzles.
As someone who spends his holidays putting together 1000-piece jigsaw puzzles with his family, I was intrigued but cautious about trying Puzzling Places, which lets you construct 3D puzzles constructed from photogrammetry scans of real-world locations. I thought I would miss the tactile sensation of the pieces and the camaraderie of puzzling with others. But it turned out to be one of my absolute favorites, and doesn't require me to hunch over a coffee table to see the pieces as I work!
The base game has 17 puzzles — plus a ton of DLC with new temples, churches, fountains, and other cool locales and monuments from around the world — and each puzzle is split into different difficulty levels at 25, 50, 100, 200, or 400 pieces. You can start with a smaller number and then jump into the hundreds for an entirely new challenge. You'll put together bundles of pieces and then set them aside so you can reserve the main area in front of you for the next matching set. And as you put pieces together, real-world spatial audio of that location will start to play, immersing you in the place you're creating.
Many of our Quest 2 favorites work best for gamers with their "VR legs" but can be nauseating for first-time Quest users. If you want a tranquil, charming experience, that lets you slowly but surely create amazing and realistic objects while leaving the real world behind, Puzzling Places is just as essential a VR experience as Beat Saber — just different. —Michael Hicks
Red Matter 2
More than just the best graphics on the Quest 2. It's smart AND creative!
Tired of VR games with simplistic graphics or cartoony visuals? Want to see the best the Quest 2 hardware can do? Then Red Matter 2 is for you. The developers at Vertical Robot proved that they could work magic with the original Red Matter, but Red Matter 2 is on another dimensional plane altogether. This game has the best visuals you’ll find on the Quest 2, bar none. They even, somehow, managed to get the Quest 2 to do ray-tracing, which is something usually only found on far more powerful consoles or PCs.
Now, while the visuals will certainly suck you in, the gameplay will keep you in the game for a long time, especially if you’re a fan of classic adventure titles. You’ll play as the same Atlantic Union agent as in the first game but, this time, you’re on a quest to find a long-lost friend whom you thought was dead. While you’ll be solving plenty of intricate puzzles that’ll have you scratching your noggin time and time again, Red Matter 2 ups the ante by adding in combat situations.
In addition to combat, players now have access to a jetpack that can propel them through zero-gravity situations and on gravity-heavy space stations. That gives players even more freedom of movement than they had in the original, which would often have you moving between areas in pre-determined paths. It’s an upgrade over the original, yet doesn’t lose any of the charm. Just make sure to play the original first — or watch a play-through on YouTube — if the story really matters to you. —Nick Sutrich
The 7th Guest
A party to die for
When The 7th Guest originally came out in the early 90s, it was revolutionary — at the time, Bill Gates himself declared it to be the new standard in interactive entertainment. The 7th Guest was one of the first games to be available only on CD-ROM, which is one of the many reasons it's so influential.
Today, it's probably best remembered for the campy, chroma-keyed FMV sequences and playfully macabre puzzles. Does it hold up well? That's debatable. But regardless, there's now a VR remake and it's fantastic.
This new take on The 7th Guest completely revamps the game for VR. The environments look gorgeous, the new puzzles are challenging and make great use of VR, and it even keeps the iconic FMVs by using new actors with volumetric video technology. If you're a fan of escape room-type games and have a VR headset, it's a must-play. - Nick Ransbottom
Tetris Effect: Connected
Do you dream of Tetriminos? Then, this Tetris remake is for you.
AC's pick for the best puzzle game on the PS4, and winner of 2018's game of the year on several gaming sites, Tetris Effect, took the classic Tetris formula and added some beautiful visuals and gameplay twists to make it even better for modern consoles. Successful block-breaking leads to explosions of color across the screen. The Tetriminos descend to match the music's rhythm, and everything combines to make the experience feel magical, and that effect's only compounded in VR.
The newest feature is called Zone, which freezes falling blocks in place. You can use this respite to figure out your next move or place multiple blocks before they take effect, which lets you blow up more than the maximum four lines of blocks if you play your Tetriminos correctly. The game itself has a ton of different modes and over 30 levels, so there's plenty of replay value. It's also fun to join in on the Weekend Rituals and try to unlock new perks with your fellow players.
What took this game from fun to near-perfect is the new Connected mode with cross-platform multiplayer. There's a Connected mode where three players work together to beat a boss, Score Attack to beat fellow players' scores in real-time, or Zone Battles where you send garbage blocks to opponents' boards. Plus, the devs finally optimized the graphics for the Quest 2, making it more beautiful than ever. —Michael Hicks
Best Quest 3 & 2 strategy and sim games
Strategy, simulation, and board games are oddly, frustratingly underserved on Quest headsets. Thankfully, the Quest 3 has delivered some extra power that helps the system handle more complex games, giving developers the power to add more elements or realism without overwhelming the CPU.
Strategy & simulation games in best overall: Little Cities, Medieval Dynasty
Catan VR
Hexagonal land tiles never looked so good
Gather 'round the table with three other friends over the classic board game Catan, now fully playable in VR on the Oculus Quest or Quest 2. Catan VR has been around the block for several years now, with ports for PC VR and PSVR platforms. But it's better than ever on the Quest, thanks to the fact that there's no wire pressing against your back while you ponder your next move.
If you've never played Catan, here's the lowdown: Players each take the role of a settler that has landed on the island of Catan and is determined to make it their new home. The problem is, every other player also has the same goal, putting players in a pinch to develop a tight strategy early on and adapt when necessary. The end goal is to amass a set number of points to win, earned by building settlements, cities, and roads that connect.
Catan VR is an exceptional way to play the game because it feels like you're sitting at the same table with all three other players. At $15, it's not a terrible expense to pick up, and it makes for a super easy game night with friends and family that might not live close enough to play in-person with you. —Nick Sutrich
Chess Club
Whether you're a Queen's Gambit junkie, a fan of that infamous scene at the end of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, a former chess club prodigy, or just a fan of the game, Chess Club is exactly what you were hoping for in a VR rendition. Thanks to some excellent hand tracking, players can use the Oculus Touch controllers or their hands to grab and move pieces across the board.
If classic chess is a little too vanilla for you, Chess Club features fantasy pieces that will attack each other in classic battle chess fashion. Personally, I remember playing battle chess on a friend's DOS computer as a kid and relish the ability to be able to finally grab these pieces and look closely at them as they wreak havoc on one another.
Play against friends or AI opponents, change up your avatar, swap out timed rule modes, or just study your historical move list to become the next chess champion of the world. No pressure. —Nick Sutrich
Gods of Gravity
A free VR gem that evokes RTS classics like Starcraft
Have you ever dreamed of commanding an armada of spacecraft, on your way to conquering an entire galaxy? What if you met alien resistance and had to form your own strategies for galactic dominance? Maybe you just read Ender’s Game as a kid and envisioned yourself at a Command School simulator.
Whatever the case, Gods of Gravity lets you do all these things in a way that feels so natural you’ll wonder if you have transformed into some kind of strategic god. Gods of Gravity is a real-time strategy game reminiscent of PC classics like Homeworld and Starcraft, all set in deep space with an intuitive VR-only interface. Plus, it’s totally free to play. You’ll only pay if you decide you want to unlock all the maps, gameplay options, or the in-game map creator.
As a strategic god, you’ll directly command your ships from world to world using a variety of tools. Each map begins at a homeworld where you’ll want to quickly capture moons to provide resources to build more ships. Physically grab and throw ships or just warp them through wormholes to the next world you want to conquer but beware the other players vying for the same space.
Gods of Gravity can be played single or multiplayer but the goal is always the same: conquer (or destroy) everyone’s homeworlds and rule the galaxy. The game has seen several updates since its official Meta Quest store release including new god powers — you’ll choose one of these before beginning each round — and a bevy of maps to play in addition to all the community maps available. It’s a strategy gamer’s dream come true and an absolute blast to play with friends! —Nick Sutrich
Per Aspera
An incredibly complex, detailed real-time strategy game about terraforming Mars
When classic games get ported to VR, one of the most common complaints is that the developers “dumbed the game down” in order to fit in the technical confines of a mobile VR headset. Per Aspera VR isn’t one of those games, perfectly porting every aspect of the flat game into what feels like a perfectly made-for-VR game.
Per Aspera is a technically detailed strategy game that’ll have you managing precious resources and sustaining human life on Mars, all while terraforming the planet and watching it evolve over time. The goal here is to make Mars completely habitable for humans and the game takes plenty of actual science and mixes it with fiction in a way that doesn’t feel far-flung at all.
In the game, you’ll play as an AI named AMI who goes to Mars first and uses the planet’s resources to build a habitable base for human colonists. It takes a bit of time before your first colonist will actually land on the planet, letting you get acquainted with the controls and deep research trees before diving into the real meat of the game.
As you explore the planet, you’ll find everything from abandoned research bases left by China and other countries, crashed satellites, and plenty of natural resources to mine. The goal is to, essentially, melt the planet’s ice caps and turn it into Earth 2.0 which, as you guessed it, transforms the landscape into a lush planet with plenty of water. This one is best played seated but can be enjoyed while standing.
Spacefolk City
If you build it, they will come
Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to live on a space station at least once in my life. There’s no telling if this will happen before my time on this planet has passed, but Spacefolk City offers me a chance to at least build some strange child-like approximation of what a city in space might look like.
Spacefolk City takes after many great building simulation games like Two Point Hospital, Two Point Campus, and even classics like Dungeon Keeper and Evil Genius. “If you build it, they will come” is absolutely the mantra here. Just like those classics, you’ll begin putting together your space city building-by-building, pathway-by-pathway until you’ve got a sprawling civilization that attracts aliens from all corners of the galaxy.
And these are really funky little aliens too. Hotdog aliens, pizza aliens, rabbit aliens with magic hats. It’s all super family-friendly and incredibly easy to build and design by just placing buildings where you think they should go, decorating them to make all your citizenry as happy as possible. You’ll even collect resources from passing asteroids and defend your cities from UFOs trying to steal things.
Plus, the developers have done an absolutely marvelous job of keeping the game updated with seasonal content that’s accessible year-round, adding to the dozens and dozens of campaign scenarios to play through. — Nick Sutrich
Ultrawings 2
Take to the sky for dogfighting, challenges, and exploration
Ultrawings VR came out when VR games were much less polished, offering a charming, low-resolution flying simulator that plenty of people loved. Ultrawings 2 arrived in 2022 with a lot more visual polish, a long-anticipated multiplayer mode, an open world of islands, and dozens of hours of gameplay to enjoy.
The game isn't a serious simulator on par with Microsoft Flight Simulator, but it does have very realistic-seeming flight controls and a mixture of both "serious" dogfighting challenges and more cartoonish minigames to keep you entertained. This game has tons of depth and we highly recommend it, unless you're especially sensitive to motion sickness. —Michael Hicks
Best Quest 3 & 2 games for kids
You're technically supposed to wait until your child is at least 14 years old to play games in VR, but it's safe enough in moderation. Some parents will want games specifically for their young 'uns, while others will want games that kids and adults can enjoy. Thankfully, most of the best family-friendly games are ones that people of all ages will get a kick out of, even if they don't have the violence or serious storytelling of some other favorites.
Family-friendly games in best overall: A Fisherman's Tale, Vacation Simulator
Angry Birds VR: Isle of Pigs
It's exactly what you think it is
Does Angry Birds even need an introduction? The game that practically defined quality mobile gaming proved to be a perfect fit for VR puzzle heads. Grab your slingshot, load it with a bird, and fling them at defiant piggies that just won't stop stealing eggs, no matter how many times you defeat them. Clever physics-based puzzles have been the hallmark of the series since its inception, and the translation to 3D space only makes them more compelling.
Developer Resolution Games has been behind over half a dozen VR hits and used that experience to translate Angry Birds to VR. It updated the game several times since the original launch, and players can now sling through over 100 official levels of mayhem, with each level topping the last in terms of complexity. There's even a level creator and thousands of community-made levels to play, so you can sift through those in your free time and aim to top the developers in their level-building skills after.
Plus, Quest 3 players can enjoy a mixed reality mode and hand tracking capabilities that are new for Spring 2024, letting you play Angry Birds on your living room floor as if it were a set of real toys. —Nick Sutrich
Cosmonious High
Another home-run puzzler from Owlchemy Labs
A healthy majority of VR fans have played Job Simulator or Vacation Simulator (two other picks below). Developer Owlchemy Labs didn't stray too far from its comfort zone with Cosmonious High; it may have a much different look and theme, set in a high school for aliens, but it has the same humor, puzzles, and creative mechanics we've come to expect.
As an alien called a Prismi, you can adapt your abilities and powers to your surroundings, enabling some context-sensitive tools to find your way out of one brain-teaser after another. As you master your abilities, you'll interact with the charming students and teachers, made memorable by great voice acting and writing. As with any great family-friendly game, it's one a child can freely enjoy but that offers plenty of entertainment and depth for adults. —Michael Hicks
LEGO Brick Tales
LEGO is finally in VR, and it's just as great as we'd hoped
Get up close and personal with LEGO sets just as if they were right in front of you, all without having to spend hundreds of dollars on each and every set. LEGO Brick Tales is an action game with light platforming elements that sees you controlling characters that walk around diorama-sized levels, each packed to the gills with secrets to find and little details to take in.
As you venture through each of the game's worlds, you'll solve levels and problems by building your own LEGO solutions, each of which is entirely physics-based and realistic. The diorama-like levels might be prebuilt, but there's nothing prebuilt about the contraptions and solutions you can build yourself.
Each world sports different themes, different playable characters, and tons of puzzles to build and solve. You can completely walk around each level and inspect it, and Meta Quest Pro and Quest 3 players can view each level in mixed reality space, making it look as if these LEGO worlds were built with real bricks right in your own home. It's unbelievably fun and more rewarding the more creative you are!
Max Mustard
There's something timeless and deeply charming about 90s platformers. Max Mustard is inspired by all the best 90s 3D platformers like Super Mario 64, Sonic Adventure, Banjo Kazooie, and Crash Bandicoot, but the genre takes on a life of its own from a VR perspective.
Just as platformers jump from 2D to 3D, the jump into VR opens up a new way to see the world around your character, better judge distance, and even interact with the world around your character. Levels are often packed with unique power-ups that help you through the unique challenges presented in each, and the variety of power-ups and environments is unmatched from platformers on the Meta Quest.
With gorgeous Saturday morning cartoon-like visuals, a great soundtrack, and a fun storyline, Max Mustard will appeal to your sense of nostalgia just as much as it will to the younger gamers in your household.
Moss: Book I & II
A VR classic that redefines the traditional platforming experience
The original Moss is still one of the best Oculus Quest games despite its age, and we still recommend playing it. If you'd rather just pick up one game, Moss: Book II explains the plot of the first game so you can dive right into it. Fans of the original will also love this long-awaited sequel thanks to revamped gameplay, puzzles, and combat. It, quite literally, picks up the second after the first game ends.
As with the original, you play a spirit who assists Quill, a brave young mouse warrior, in her fight against evil forces. If you wave at her, she waves back, and if she runs into a puzzle, she signs in ASL to tell you how to get past it. She feels like a living partner, not an avatar. When Quill runs into obstacles she can't get past, you move your head to look around the map and find ways past the obstacles, then guide her to them.
The sequel adds more complexity, letting you choose different weapons and form your own unique playstyle as you support Quill. You can also interact more directly with the environment to help your mouse companion traverse impossible obstacles instead of just finding a hidden path.
Our Moss: Book II reviewer played the entire campaign with the game cast to the TV and his son's eyes glued to the screen. It's an experience that both adults and older kids who can figure out the tricky puzzles will enjoy.—Michael Hicks
