This is the best month for VR ever: my top Quest 3 games and apps for December 2023

The end of 2023 is quickly approaching, but I have just enough time to share my four favorite Meta Quest 3 games and applications from December 2023 with you. I’ve had a great blast with everything I’ve tried – I’d even go so far as to suggest that this month may have been VR’s best in years, providing some incredible experiences for your Meta Quest 3 VR headset.

This December, I explored a Meow Wolf virtual art experience in Walkabout Mini Golf, pressed a bunch of buttons I shouldn’t have in Please, Don’t Touch Anything: House Broken, and even became a god in the magnificent Asgard’s Wrath 2.

If you want additional suggestions, check out my top Quest 3 games and apps from November 2023, which included Ghostbusters VR and Out of Scale: A Kurzgesagt Adventure. Alternatively, you might purchase one of the games and apps on sale during the 2023 Meta Quest Holiday Sale.

DLC for Walkabout Mini Golf – Meow Wolf

I’m always excited to talk about Walkabout Mini Golf, and this month is no exception, thanks to the release of the VR game’s new course, which Mighty Coconut produced in collaboration with Meow Wolf, an extraordinarily brilliant arts production firm that specializes in immersive real-world art experiences.

Since witnessing Rooster Teeth’s The Weird Place collaboration in 2019, in which the Achievement Hunter crew investigated The House of Eternal Return, I’ve wanted to visit a Meow Wolf installation. Unfortunately, I live in the UK, and all of Meow Wolf’s permanent exhibitions are in the US, so I have yet to see one – though if I ever get the chance to attend CES, which is normally held in Las Vegas each year, I will make time to visit Omega Mart.

All of its exhibitions were solely in the United States; now one exists in VR, and I’ve been able to see it from the comfort of my own home across the pond. The mini golf course / virtual reality art exhibit not only met but exceeded my expectations.

Despite my love for this course, I don’t want to disclose too much about it; just know that it’s definitely tied with Upside Town as my favorite Walkabout course of all time, and it might even grab the top spot.

Every time I think I’ve figured out what’s going on in this delightfully unusual paradise, it becomes stranger, and frankly, I think it’s best experienced firsthand without me spoiling the surprises. If you own Walkabout Mini Golf (which should be everyone with a VR headset), please pick up this DLC expansion course – it’s well worth the low admission fee.

In addition, Walkabout received a Meta Quest 3 update this month, which enhances the VR game’s quality by 13% and allows it to run at 90FPS instead of just 80FPS on the Quest 2.

Wrath of Asgard 2

I had the opportunity to play Asgard’s Wrath 2 ahead of its December 15 release, and it’s a VR gaming marvel – an amazing must-play Meta Quest 3 title.

I’m not saying this because the game is free for anyone who purchased a new Quest 3 between its release date and January 27, 2024 – though that certainly helps – but because this product is actually a AAA VR experience.

The combat is the brilliant jewel amid many other treasures that await you on this Egyptian trip. Fights will feel chaotic at first, but as you improve your talents – both your virtual character’s skill tree and your reflexes – brawls will transform into dances of parrying, counterattacking, dodging, and exploiting vulnerability and environmental hazards.

However, because of the open-world nature of this title, I recommend going in with some adjusted expectations. It’s not as open-world as Skyrim or Tears of the Kingdom, where you can go almost anyplace. Instead, I’d compare it to God of War (2018): there’s a clear path to the next objective, but there are also lots of possible side routes and treasures to discover along the way that take you off the main track.

That said, I’d rather have Asgard Wrath 2’s kind of open-world – one loaded with hidden obstacles – than a larger territory that seems empty.

If Asgard’s Warth 2 seems fun but you’re put off by the prospect of playing a sequel, don’t worry. There’s an introductory cinematic that summarizes all of the main information from the first game – and while you might miss the occasional easter egg or allusion, you’ll never feel lost because you started with Asgard’s Wrath 2.

PianoVision

Inspired by the video for The Instrument Meta Quest 3 – which depicts a person learning to play the piano using a virtual keyboard – I decided to purchase PianoVision this month to see if it may help me hone the music talents I haven’t used since high school.

This Quest 3 mixed reality program displays a virtual keyboard in front of you, which you can play with your hands using hand tracking. If you’re already a piano genius, you can either jam freestyle or load up a tune you’re trying to learn. If you do, notes will fly toward the keys in a Guitar Hero-like fashion, indicating which ones to press.

While the program encourages you to play at full tempo, you may take as much time as you need with each note, and you can even practice tracks one hand at a time if you’re having trouble playing two-handed. Furthermore, if you prefer to learn your own songs rather than the ones given by default with the MR app, you can easily add your own. You only need a MIDI file and the free PianoVision desktop program to get started. The only tough part is locating MIDIs that are compatible. The program recommends Musescore for this, which is a terrific resource, but downloading tracks after your seven-day trial period is not free, so it will add to the expense of learning to play.

The hand tracking on the Meta Quest 3 is excellent, although it occasionally struggled to tell where my fingers were – registering presses I didn’t think I was doing and not counting others that I felt were apparent. It was fine for slower basic songs, but as you progress to faster tracks with more complex fingering, the app recommends using a Midi keyboard, and I can see why – while I haven’t used a real keyboard myself, I’ve seen reviews online from people saying it makes playing a lot less awkward, and apparently setting one up with the Quest 3 headset isn’t difficult.

Despite some of my troubles, I enjoyed using PianoVision; it felt like it was assisting me in getting back into the rhythm of playing piano after not having actively attempted it in over a decade. And, while I’m definitely considering acquiring a keyboard, you don’t have to get one right away. I’d recommend starting with PianoVision and then progressing to a real keyboard if you like it and want to get beyond the first couple of levels.