What you need to know
- SideQuest is a third-party marketplace for indie games, early access titles, and more for the Oculus Quest.
- A new update overhauls the store UI, making things easier to find, follow your favorite games and developers for updates, and more.
- Virtual Desktop and Oculus Link support have been added to make finding Windows PC VR games easier than ever.
SideQuest has long been one of the best places to get indie and early access titles for the Oculus Quest, not to mention mods for popular games like Beat Saber. But it's always had one big problem: the store just wasn't super user-friendly. That all changes with the latest update, which completely overhauls the UI for the store, including brand new categories and better sorting options. New options like Hot & Fresh, Staff Picks, and Latest Apps & Games right up top make it a lot easier to find what's great to play, especially for new Quest users who might just be jumping into the SideQuest marketplace.
You'll now be able to follow your favorite games and developers, and all updates from these favorites can be found in the new News section of SideQuest. That way you never miss an exciting update for your favorites. In addition to a new UI, SideQuest now natively works with Oculus Link and Virtual Desktop, adding in new tiles that make it simple to launch Windows PC versions of VR games from SideQuest. By popular community demand, SideQuest developers have been able to open-source SideQuest again and are also helping to combat piracy with the inclusion of the SafeSide system.
As a third-party marketplace you'll, of course, need to know how to sideload apps on the Oculus Quest with SideQuest first. Once you've got that setup, you'll have opened the doors wide open for hundreds of amazing experiences that can't be found in the official Oculus Store. You'll even be able to put custom songs in games like Beat Saber, which is a leg up on other platforms like the PSVR version, which don't offer ways to add custom songs.
The Oculus Store has a great selection of games to choose from, but Oculus has been notoriously stringent in what it allows on its store. We know from games like Crisis VRigade that SideQuest games are more than just tech demos or experimental titles. SideQuest has also been a bastion for games in beta, unofficial ports of PC classics like Quake, Doom, and Half-Life, and the place to get the best hand tracking games for Oculus Quest in 2020.
A fantastic experience
The Oculus Quest is the best way to get into VR. You don't need a PC, console, or smartphone to power it. Just put it on your head and game.
