What you need to know:
- Quest v41 is rolling out to Quest users now. The update's largely centered around Horizon Worlds and Parental Controls for Quest devices.
- With v41, users will be able to invite their friends into their Horizon Home, aka the Quest 2's main menu.
- The parental controls and supervision tools that Meta outlined in March are now available on Quest. Meta's also launched a "Parent Education Hub" to help get parents up-to-speed on what the Quest's parental controls do.
Meta released an Oculus blog post detailing Quest update v41, which is rolling out to Quest users starting today. The update adds a number of new features to the Quest's suite of parental controls and its multiplayer functionality.
Last year, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg outlined the company's vision for the Metaverse, which hinged largely on the Quest 2's ability to connect users through the Horizon Home. Billed by Meta as users' "gateway to the Metaverse," it's functionally the same Quest home menu as before, only now users are able to invite their friends into the environment.
From there, users will be able to queue up for supported multiplayer games, watch movies together, or hang out like they would in a Discord call. Meta hasn't published the full list of games that you'll be able to launch into from Horizon Home, but it specifically mentioned Beat Saber, Demeo, and Echo VR, and will likely support many of the other excellent Quest 2 games you know and love.
Meta also added the suite of parental controls that it outlined in March and began implementing in the v40 update. The features largely center around monitoring your child's activity in the headset, including tracking their screen time, app usage, purchase history, viewing the child's friends list, restricting the usage of individual apps, and blocking Oculus Link and Air Link. Meta also launched a suite of tools to help acclimate parents to the Quest's suite of parental controls.
In order to activate parental supervision, the Quest user needs to request to be supervised in the headset and their parent has to accept using the Oculus app. For the full list of parental supervision features introduced in v41, read the Oculus blog post for more info.
Whether you're inviting your friends over to your Horizon Home or slashing blocks in Beat Saber, the Quest 2 will provide you with an unparalleled VR experience, thanks to its stellar library and approachable form factor.
