One of the original best games for Meta Quest 1 will no longer support the outdated VR headset and will instead focus on later models.
The game that helped sell so many VR headsets back in the day, Beat Saber, is finally dropping support for the original Oculus/Meta Quest 1 headset, citing its lack of performance and the development of newer technologies as a better use of time of the development team.
Beat Saber has been a staple of virtually every headset since the Oculus Rift, but with the Quest 3 performing so well in recent months and packing so much more power with it, it’s perhaps an inevitable end for the Quest’s version 1. More relevantly, it may actually spell the death knell for the original standalone headset.
The official Beat Saber account on Multiplayer functionality is being discontinued and leaderboards may be discontinued in the future.”
Dear players, in order to focus our development efforts on our next projects within Beat Saber, we will no longer support Meta Quest 1 from November 2, 2024. The game will still be playable, but multiplayer functionality will be discontinued and leaderboards may be discontinued in the future. pic.twitter.com/h7Jefa3g75
— Beat Saber (@BeatSaber) May 6, 2024
So it appears that while the game will remain playable in some form, Quest 1 players will lose access to multiplayer and future leaderboards.
Over the weekend, Beat Saber was also made cross-playable, meaning that people (like me) who bought it on the Oculus Rift on PC many years ago could now add it to their quest libraries for free.
For a game that’s been out for so long, Beat Saber is truly a bastion of VR gaming and recently received a Daft Punk music pack. It will be interesting to see what direction things go now that the Quest 1 is not considered powerful enough to compete.
While most players were pragmatic, the response thread was still scattered with those upset about the decision:
“I guess I don’t play Beat Saber anymore. Shame. I don’t plan on spending another 400 on a headset. Multiplayer is part of the playability factor. If you ignore that, it’s about 50% of the functionality that enriches the game compared to solo play.”
The Quest 1 was released about five years ago in 2019 and is now showing signs of age, especially compared to the Quest 3. It looks like the headset is now destined to disappear from our desktops, and rather quickly, we suspect.