On stage at Meta’s annual Connect keynote, Meta’s CTO Andrew Bosworth (“Boz” for those who partake) delivered one very salient message: “VR gaming is alive and well.”

The reason for that proclamation is twofold. For one, Meta has objectively pulled back from VR this year, shuttering and kind of reopening the Metaverse, axing VR gaming studios, widening the eyes of onlookers (myself included), and casting doubt on the future of VR writ large. With that uncertainty looming over VR, Meta—which has invested immensely in the future of mixed and virtual reality—has incentive to convince folks that the VR train is still chugging along.

The second reason for that statement is the more exciting one: Meta VR Glasses. In case you missed it, Meta took the wraps off new VR hardware—a pair of glasses tethered to a compute puck—and, having tried it myself, the promise feels real.

It’s good news for the future of VR and anyone who cares about it. It’s bad news for one unlikely bystander—VR headsets.

The second I was done using the newly announced Meta VR Glasses, I had one gadget on my mind—the Quest. That’s (obviously) because Meta VR Glasses are clearly in the same vein as the Quest; they’re capable of XR passthrough, they can be used to play XR/VR games, they can even be used for work if you’re that type of person.

That’s not the only reason I had Quest on the brain, though. Meta VR Glasses don’t just do all of that stuff, but they do all of the stuff in a way that (for the most part) feels… better.

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