The VR port of Quake 4 looks great on Meta Quest 2

Image: id Software / Team Beef

Team Beef is working on a VR port of Quake 4 that looks good and runs smoothly, as two videos show.

The three-man development team has released VR ports of first-person shooters such as Doom 1-3, Quake 1-3, Half-Life, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and Star Wars Jedi Knight II for Meta Quest 2. Currently, Team Beef is working on bringing Quake 4 to Quest 2.

Two short videos showing the VR port in action were recently posted on Reddit. The recorded scenes are running on Meta Quest 2 and show two different environments. “The game runs surprisingly well,” writes team member Bummser.

The light and shadow effects look fantastic. However, the so-called stencil shadows, a trademark of the underlying engine that made games like Doom 3, Quake 4 and Prey particularly impressive, are not feasible on Meta Quest 2. The XR2 chip simply lacks the power for this, among other technical hurdles. Quake 4, however, is a graphical showcase even without dynamic shadows and shows what is possible with Quest 2.

Meta Quest 3 will enable a new level of quality

The VR port is scheduled for release later this year and would be Team Beef’s second VR game based on id Tech 4 (the name of the engine) available for Meta Quest 2, after Doom 3 Quest.

If you want to support the developers, you can do so via Patreon and get early and exclusive access to this and other VR ports.

The projects will get a further boost with Meta Quest 3. The next generation of the headset, which will be released in the fall, is said to be twice as fast as Quest 2.

One of the developers recently wrote me that this extra capacity could be used for higher resolutions and frame rates, better effects, or VR ports that were previously impossible to implement. Would that include id Tech 4’s impressive Stencil Shadows? We should know more in a few months.

More information about Meta Quest 3 can be found in the linked info article.

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