VR News Roundup: Black Friday Deals, New Releases & Quest OS Updates

Happy Friday, VR enthusiasts! We're rolling into the holiday season with some seriously juicy news—Black Friday deals are dropping left and right, Meta just pushed a technical update that's honestly pretty impressive, and we've got a handful of new games hitting the ecosystem. Whether you're looking to upgrade your headset, jump into some free-to-play action, or just geek out over the latest OS improvements, we've got you covered.

Let's dive into what's happening in the VR world today.

Black Friday VR Deals: Time to Pull That Trigger

Alright, let's talk turkey—or rather, let's talk discounts. If you've been on the fence about grabbing a new headset or finally convincing that friend to join you in VR, Black Friday 2025 is delivering some genuinely solid deals.

Quest 3S Hits Its Lowest Price Ever

The Meta Quest 3S, Meta's budget-friendly entry into the Quest 3 generation, has dropped to its lowest price point yet. For those who missed the memo, the 3S is essentially Meta's play to get more people into high-quality standalone VR without the premium price tag. It sacrifices some of the pancake lens clarity and passthrough quality of the full Quest 3, but it's still rocking the same Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 chipset.

This is a massive opportunity if you know anyone who's been VR-curious. The 3S at this price point is probably the best "gateway drug" headset we've ever had in terms of bang-for-buck. Plus, with the holiday season coming up, you can finally get your squad together for some Walkabout Mini Golf or Gorilla Tag sessions.

Quest 3 Bundles Getting Sweetened

If you're eyeing the full-fat Quest 3 instead, Best Buy is throwing in a $75 gift card plus a month of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate with purchases. Now, before you roll your eyes at the Xbox Game Pass inclusion—yes, I know, it's not VR-specific—but hear me out: that gift card essentially knocks $75 off the price, and you can turn around and spend it on VR accessories or games.

The Quest 3 remains my personal recommendation for anyone serious about VR. Those pancake lenses are just chef's kiss, and the improved passthrough makes mixed reality actually usable rather than just a gimmick. If you can swing the extra cost over the 3S, it's worth it.

PSVR 2 and More

It's not just Quest getting the Black Friday love. PlayStation VR2 is also seeing discounts across various retailers, along with Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses (which, okay, aren't exactly VR, but they're in the extended reality family). If you're a PS5 owner who's been holding out on PSVR 2, this might be your moment. Just remember: PSVR 2 now has PC VR support, so you're not locked into just the PlayStation ecosystem anymore.

Horizon OS v83: Meta Gets Technical (In a Good Way)

Now for the nerdy stuff—and trust me, this is actually pretty cool even if it sounds like alphabet soup at first.

Horizon OS v83 just rolled out, and it's bringing two experimental features that could meaningfully improve your VR experience: System Positional TimeWarp (SysPTW) and Temporal Dimming.

What the Heck is System Positional TimeWarp?

Okay, so TimeWarp isn't new—it's been a fundamental VR technology for years. Basically, it's a technique that helps reduce latency by predicting where your head will be by the time a frame renders and adjusting the image accordingly. It's part of why modern VR doesn't make you immediately nauseous.

What is new is making this a system-level feature rather than something each app has to implement individually. SysPTW means every app on your Quest can benefit from improved motion-to-photon latency without developers having to lift a finger. For us users, this should translate to slightly smoother, more responsive experiences across the board—especially in older apps that might not have had the most sophisticated rendering pipelines.

Temporal Dimming: Flicker Begone

Temporal Dimming is Meta's solution to an issue that's plagued OLED and similar displays in VR: black smearing and flicker. Without getting too deep into display technology, VR headsets often use low persistence displays that flash images very quickly to reduce motion blur. The tradeoff? Sometimes you get visible flicker or weird artifacts, especially in darker scenes.

Temporal Dimming uses some clever algorithmic tricks to reduce these artifacts while maintaining the benefits of low persistence. In practical terms: darker scenes in games like Metro Awakening or Arizona Sunshine should look cleaner with less distracting flicker.

Improved Scene Understanding

The update also brings improved scene understanding, which is Meta's spatial mapping technology. This is the system that lets your Quest understand your room layout for mixed reality apps. Better scene understanding means more accurate room boundaries, better object recognition, and generally more reliable mixed reality experiences.

Both SysPTW and Temporal Dimming are experimental features, so you'll need to enable them in settings if you want to try them out. I'd recommend giving them a shot—experimental features on Quest have a pretty good track record of eventually becoming standard once they're proven stable.

New Releases: Free-to-Play Shooters and December Preview

Let's talk games, because that's why we're really here, right?

Starvault Goes Full Release

Starvault, a free-to-play competitive 5v5 VR shooter, just hit full release on Quest today. I've been keeping an eye on this one during its beta period, and it's shaping up to be a solid addition to the competitive VR FPS scene.

The F2P model is interesting—we've seen mixed results with free-to-play in VR. Gorilla Tag absolutely crushed it, while others have struggled to maintain player bases. Starvault's 5v5 format puts it in direct competition with games like Contractors and Pavlov, but the free price tag could help it build a sustainable community.

The big question with any competitive VR shooter is: will the player base stick around? Free-to-play helps, but the game needs to nail the fundamentals—tight gunplay, good map design, and a progression system that feels rewarding without being pay-to-win. If you're into VR shooters, it's free, so you might as well give it a shot (pun absolutely intended).

Smash Eat Grow: The Katamari of VR Multiplayer?

Speaking of free-to-play, Smash Eat Grow just entered early access on Quest, and this one's weird in the best way. It's a multiplayer playground where you literally eat your opponents to grow bigger. Think Katamari Damacy meets Agar.io in VR.

I'm cautiously optimistic about this one. VR needs more games that embrace the inherent absurdity of the medium, and a game where you're running around eating other players definitely fits that bill. Plus, another free-to-play title means lower barriers to entry for getting friends involved.

December's Incoming Lineup

Looking ahead to December, we've got some interesting titles on the horizon. Thief VR is probably the most intriguing—the Thief series has always been about immersion and spatial awareness, which could translate incredibly well to VR if done right. There's also a Men in Black VR experience coming, though details are still sparse on whether that's a full game or more of an interactive experience.

True Surf is hitting Quest next month, bringing wave-riding simulation to VR. As someone who's tried VR surfing before (The Climb developers made a surf game that was... fine), I'm curious to see if True Surf can nail the sensation of actually riding a wave. The physicality of VR could make this really special if the controls are intuitive.

And for the flight sim fans, G-Rebels is launching into early access early next year with day-one PC VR support. This is an action flight sim, so think more Ace Combat than Microsoft Flight Simulator. The PC VR support is clutch—being able to experience it on higher-end hardware with better visuals could make this a standout.

Final Thoughts: A Solid End to 2025

We're closing out 2025 on a pretty strong note for VR. The Black Friday deals make this an excellent time to either upgrade or bring new people into the ecosystem. The Horizon OS v83 update shows Meta is still pushing technical improvements that actually matter (rather than just UI reshuffles). And the steady stream of new releases—even if they're not all AAA blockbusters—keeps the content pipeline flowing.

If you're sitting on the fence about any of these deals, my advice: the Quest 3S at its current price is a no-brainer if you're new to VR or want a second headset for multiplayer. If you're already in the ecosystem, the OS updates are worth exploring, and those free-to-play releases give you zero-risk ways to try something new.

What are you picking up this Black Friday? Planning to try any of the new releases? Hit up our Discord or socials and let us know. And if you grab that Quest 3S deal for a friend, make sure they know to add you in Walkabout Mini Golf—someone needs to witness your inevitable hole-in-one bragging.

Happy gaming, and we'll catch you in the next roundup!