Boost your Oculus Quest library with these sideloaded games and demos
Facebook curates the Oculus Quest gaming store with only the “best” apps, according to its criteria. This policy has shut out some truly fun VR titles, mainly from indie game developers, on the official platform. But thanks to sideloading on the Quest, you can still access them. We’ve outlined some of the best titles available via sideloading, along with information on what apps and files you’ll need to make them work.
★ Featured Favorite
To the Top
How Facebook rejected this game, in which robotic cheetahs with jets in their paws soar through beautiful, geometric sandboxes full of obstacles, challenging puzzles, and hidden treasures, we’ll never understand. Climb, skate, fly, and fall through 35 maps, with Mirror’s Edge-esque time trials encouraging you to improve your movement mechanics and find new, faster paths through levels.
Unblock mobile mining
Minecraft: Gear VR edition
Staff Pick
You can use Oculus Link to access the Bedrock VR edition, but for true wireless play, you must sideload the mobile Gear VR edition. This difficult process involves recreating the GearVR environment on your Quest via NoxPlayer, purchasing the Gear VR edition on Oculus Store, extracting the Minecraft APK via Packet Capture, and uploading the APK to SideQuest. Once done, however, Minecraft is a joy to play on the Quest, supporting strong frames per second and six degrees of freedom (6DoF) (though you’ll need an Xbox controller).
Killing the competition
Pavlov: Shack
The stripped-down port of this acclaimed Counter-Strike clone offers some of the best shooting mechanics and tense multiplayer you can find on the Quest. Free until the official Quest release launches in 2020, it offers multiple modes that let you team up with friends to capture objectives and kill zombies or kill friends and strangers alike in Deathmatch. It’s the most popular SideQuest app, so you’ll never wait long to dive into some violent PvP.
Save your quarters
Crisis VRigade
Your favorite trigger-happy, quarter-guzzling arcade game are transported to your living room with this difficult SWAT shooter, available on SideQuest. In solo or co-op with a friend, you’ll take on groups of terrorists on various maps. Be careful when you stand up from cover as barrages of bullets fly, but also be careful not to blind fire and hit hostages instead! This is a challenging, replayable title that drives you to improve your reflexes and strategy.
Name your own price at Itch.io
Half-Life: Gordon
Lambda1VR
Half-Life: Alyx will never come to Quest, so enjoy the next best thing and dive into Gordon Freeman’s HEV Suit in this VR mod of Half-Life 1. Purchase the original game and install the mod via SideQuest, and you’ll be crowbarring headcrabs, shooting enemies and dodging attacks using 6DoF support. Fair warning: running around in old VR worlds can cause serious nausea if you don’t have strong VR legs.
$10 at Steam (original game)
Free at Sidequest (mod)
Revisit a classic
Quake2Quest
Another free mod of a classic 90s shooter, this SideQuest app brings the single-player campaign to Quest, complete with 6DoF support, HD weapons and textures, and the original OST — although no multiplayer, unfortunately. A Quake 1 mod is also available for free, but we’ve picked the sequel as it offers many gameplay improvements over the original. You truly feel like you’ve been warped into id Software’s world, but dive in sparingly, as moving about too much can trigger nausea.
$5 at Steam (original game) Free at Sidequest (mod)
Stream Steam
Virtual Desktop
Not a game in itself, this Oculus Store app uses WiFi to connect your Quest (or Go) directly to your computer. The SideQuest mod takes the app and enables you to stream SteamVR games to your headset, including titles that your Quest hardware would not normally be able to support—thus removing the need for a wired connection. You’ll need a PC that can normally support VR, and likely a wired PC-router connection to stream your games with low latency, but with the right setup you’ll drastically improve your access to games, with no need to download APKs.
$20 at Oculus Store (original game) Free at Sidequest (mod)
Living room roguelite
Tea for God
Using Oculus’ Guardian system for mapping your living room, this prototype game procedurally generates a never-ending maze for you to explore. The non-Euclidian (physically impossible) maze goes on forever until you fail to shoot your robotic enemies. Gameplay beyond walking and shooting is somewhat limited, but few sideloaded titles incorporate roomscale VR so well, and it provides excellent replay value.
Name your own price at Itch.io
Become a god
Deisim
Guide the human race towards prosperity and destroy heretics supporting other gods in this early-access Steam title. You place tiles of land and cast spells to shape the growth of society indirectly, but you must occasionally use your omnipotent power to deal with troublemakers and keep humans on the right path with miracles. The one-person dev team continues to add intriguing new features for a target 2020 release, such as modern and futuristic societies, warring kingdoms, and even alien invasions.
Promising indie RPG
Arcaxer
Explore The Stack, a procedurally generated, cyberpunk dungeon full of random environments and enemies as a fighter, mage, or thief. Between battles, the top-down god mode perspective lets you manipulate the environment with touch controls or ride around on a hoverboard. Once in battle, you switch to first-person and must dodge attacks using 6DoF-tracked movement. You’ll enjoy gathering loot and get a decent workout dodging and defeating foes.
Attack on copyright
Attack on Quest
Directly inspired by the popular anime series Attack on Titan, this unauthorized fangame puts you in the omnidirectional mobility gear from the show and has you kill as many titans as possible. Low-res graphics and dubious legality aside, controls are easy to pick up, movement triggers less motion sickness than you might expect, and the developer is regularly adding updates to make gameplay more challenging and flight more dynamic.
Hot Wheels
PocketRacer
Build race tracks and upload them so people can compete on your course, or download user-created levels and compete against online leaderboards or other players’ ghosts. You can race in top-down mode, like you’re controlling your own mini model car, or sit in the cockpit and cruise off of ramps and into loops and half-pipes. With new content regularly added, you’ll find new features and racetracks to enjoy in the months to come.
Name your own price at Itch.io
(Side)load up on games
SideQuest is chock-full of promising indie developers that don’t have the time or resources to jump through Facebook’s hoops and achieve an official release. But that doesn’t mean the games they’ve designed specifically for the Oculus Quest platform aren’t worth enjoying. Thanks to sideloading, you can install and play games not sold through the Quest’s store. This opens up your library even more and gives you even more games to play. Plus, it’s not a super complicated process.
To the Top benefits from Quest’s wireless setup, as it lets you whip your head around faster to dodge mid-air obstacles and reach your targets.
Free or pay-what-you-like titles like Pavlov: Shack and Crisis VRigade offer just as much multiplayer replay value and stimulating gameplay as official Oculus Store releases in the $20-and-up range. Plus, releases that would never hit the official Oculus Store—mods of non-Oculus titles like Lambda1VR or early-access titles like Deisim—can still reach Quest owners eager for content.
