The 10 best Meta Quest 3 games to play right now

Content is created by CNN Underscored’s team of editors who work independently from the CNN newsroom. When you buy through links on our site, CNN and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Learn more

When the Meta Quest 3 first hit shelves, its launch lineup was a little light on games that fully leveraged the next-gen headset’s enhanced graphical capabilities and mixed-reality features. But following its arrival in early October, the stand-alone virtual reality platform has seen a slew of existing titles receive visual and performance updates as well as plenty of Meta Quest 3-exclusive MR modes.

Toss in a number of brand-new post-launch releases, from Samba de Amigo: Virtual Party to Ghostbusters: Rise of the Ghost Lord, and there’s no longer any shortage of excuses for early adopters to lose hours beneath the goggles. And with highly anticipated entries like Assassin’s Creed Nexus, Asgard’s Wrath 2, Stranger Things VR and Lego Bricktales arriving before year’s end, it seems we won’t be taking a vacation from the virtual world anytime soon.

So whether you’ve been getting lost in your favorite virtual lands since day one or you’re looking to get your passport stamped in some brand-new reality-blurring realms, here are 10 of the best games to check out right now on Meta Quest 3.

Meta Quest 3

Meta’s latest VR headset features a thinner design, improved performance and updated passthrough capabilities for mixed-reality applications.

From $499 at Amazon
From $500 at Best Buy

Ghostbusters: Rise of the Ghost Lord

$35 at Meta

One of the more recent titles to leverage the Meta Quest 3’s mixed-reality capabilities, Ghostbusters: Rise of the Ghost Lord impressively invades our real world with virtual realm spooks. More specifically, the co-op shooter’s Mini-Puft Mayhem mode tasks you with taking on the iconic marshmallow menace, even as he tears the roof off your house. While dealing with the big bad towering above, your actual surroundings are infiltrated by his adorable minions, which can be humorously weaponized with a specter-slaying slingshot.

This Meta Quest 3-exclusive mode offers a fantastic showcase of the device’s augmented reality feature, but it’s far from the only reason to strap on the virtual proton pack. The base game is also a fun, arcade-flavored blast that arms you with imaginative, upgradeable gear before unleashing you (and up to three ghostbusting buddies) into a spirit-filled San Francisco.

Drop Dead: The Cabin — Home Invasion

$25 at Meta

Adding a mixed-reality mode to an existing VR title might result in a tacked-on experience lacking the original game’s appeal, but zombie survival shooter Drop Dead: The Cabin felt like a perfect fit for MR long before the Meta Quest 3 made its clever Home Invasion expansion possible. As its name suggests, the world-blurring mode builds on the core game’s horde-surviving action by inviting the undead uglies into your house.

After setting up your environment with virtual windows, doors and furniture, the incredibly immersive challenge literally puts you at the center of the zombie-slaughtering action as you fend off nasty swarms climbing through your windows and breaking down your doors. Don’t get too cocky behind your virtual arsenal of guns and melee weapons, though, as some of the brain-craving creeps bypass these obvious paths in favor of making a more dramatic, er, entrance through your living room wall.

Espire 2: Stealth Operatives

$30 at Meta

If you love the idea of Meta Quest 3 transforming your literal living space into a virtual battleground but you don’t want to stain your couch with zombie entrails, Espire 2’s new mixed-reality mode might be more your speed. Building on the stealth-action game’s Metal Gear Solid-like encounters and objectives, the MR Missions Update sees you thwarting terrorist threats in the comfort of your own home.

But while silently taking out ski mask-wearing mercenaries in your kitchen is worth the price of admission, the update also leverages many of the sneaking genre’s other satisfying staples. You’ll find yourself taking cover behind real-world furniture, dragging fresh corpses across your floor and maybe even looking out your window to discover a military chopper bombarding your fortress/apartment with homing missiles.

Samba de Amigo: Virtual Party

$30 at Meta

Meta Quest 3’s mixed-reality capabilities can significantly up the immersion of your favorite action games, cranking up the tension of up-close combat encounters and life-or-death survival scenarios. But as proven by the smile-inducing Samba de Amigo: Virtual Party, MR isn’t solely focused on turning your home into a virtual stage for gunfights and monster frights.

Thanks to its vibrant presentation, colorful cast of characters, captivating gameplay and incredibly catchy tunes, this rhythm-action entry had us hooked long before a maraca-shaking money appeared on our coffee table. But the MR features further this appeal, elevating the fun with world-blending effects capable of turning the most boring room in your house into an eye-popping party zone. Toss in multiple modes — including co-op and competitive challenges — as well as the promise of post-launch music packs, and Samba de Amigo easily earns a place in your regular VR rotation.

Dungeons of Eternity

$30 at Meta

Loot, level up and lay waste to dungeon-dwelling beasties in this hack-and-slash adventure that’s as close as you’ll come to a virtual reality version of Diablo. Featuring satisfying physics-fueled combat, Dungeons of Eternity puts you behind melee, ranged and magic-based weapons as you not only thwart threats of the horned, fanged and clawed variety but also evade deadly traps, solve clever conundrums and complete randomized runs alongside up to two other dungeon-diving pals.

On the subject of co-op play, the game also runs on the Meta Quest 2, so those who’ve upgraded to the latest hardware can leverage their last-gen goggles to put together a two-player monster-slaying party. But regardless of whether you bring a buddy or brave it alone, Dungeons of Eternity — which also benefits from graphical and performance boosts on Meta Quest 3 — is one of the best reasons to strap on the new headset.

Red Matter 2

$30 at Meta

When Red Matter 2 released late this summer, it quickly rose to the top of our favorite Quest 2 games. Now upgraded and enhanced for the new headset, the dystopian adventure has fully cemented its spot among the best VR games. Sporting a stunning, richly realized world, complete with console-quality textures, details and lighting effects, it fully immerses you in its fictional world just moments after you lower the headset.

But while you’re a stranger in its unsettling, lunar world, you’re no sightseeing tourist. Once you’ve scooped your jaw from the floor, you’ll find yourself participating in a variety of compelling gameplay scenarios — from puzzle-solving and combat to platforming and exploration — all wrapped in a gripping sci-fi, Cold War-inspired story you won’t be able to shake once you return to the real world.

Demeo Battles

$20 $18 at Meta

Featuring tactical, turn-based combat and a focus on cooperative play, the original Demeo impressively brought Dungeons & Dragons-inspired tabletop gaming into the virtual world. Its spin-off, Demeo Battles, builds on this solid foundation, pivoting to player-versus-player melees and doubling down on the mixed-reality support its predecessor dabbled in.

The result is immersive, deeply strategic matches that blend both the virtual and real worlds with stunning, high fantasy-themed visuals and slick effects that could see your virtual, 12-sided die rolling onto your actual living room floor. The detailed presentation and deep gameplay also get a boost from “The Burn,” a deadly sea of lava that slowly sweeps across the board, ensuring you don’t take too long deciding your next move.

The 7th Guest VR

$30 at Meta

Remakes and reimaginings have become incredibly popular, with recent do-overs like Dead Space and Resident Evil 4 garnering as much attention as original titles. But while the console and PC landscapes have seen no shortage of these fresh takes on familiar classics, few make the leap into virtual reality. The 7th Guest remedies this, morphing the ’90s horror classic into a full-on murder mystery staged in a haunted house.

And thanks to its ambitious VR makeover, its spook-filled manor is fully explorable from behind the Meta Quest 3’s goggles. But more than just granting the opportunity to navigate every nook and cranny of a home occupied by spectral squatters, the hardware ups the spine-tingling ante with volumetric technology that brings the game’s apparitions to life (death?) with incredible realism. Beyond its ethereal encounters, The 7th Guest delivers an absorbing mystery, clever puzzles and a nice dose of nostalgia crossed with cutting-edge tech.

The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners

$40 at Meta

Already established as a visual stunner on the Meta Quest 2, The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners sees some significant graphical enhancements on the next-gen headset. Crisper environmental details, updated character models, higher-resolution textures and a peppier frame rate put you in its undead apocalypse like never before. But it’s the updated lighting work that impresses most. Dynamic shadows and other realism-rivaling illumination effects breathe fresh life into the rotting corpses threatening to consume your brain.

Speaking of those flesh-eating foes, Saints & Sinners also delivers a frightening, first-person action-adventure that’ll have little trouble securing a spot in your regular nightmare rotation. Complemented by gripping gameplay — combining visceral combat, resource scavenging and survival elements — the console-like presentation ensures this one will keep brave players under the headset well into the wee hours.

Cubism

$10 at Meta

Combining a Zen-like vibe with challenging conundrums, this engrossing 3D puzzle game previously provided one of our favorite excuses for visiting the virtual world for extended stretches. But its Meta Quest 3 mixed-reality update only cements our affection for an experience that somehow simultaneously bends our brains and soothes our souls.

Tackling Cubism’s nearly 100 puzzles in the new update offers unmatched immersion, allowing you to carefully assemble its virtual blocks on real-world surfaces like a desk, counter or coffee table. Of course, its easy-to-learn, hard-to-master concept also feels a bit less daunting when you can actually look past the colorful bricks for a moment and see a friendly face or family pet via the headset’s full-color passthrough camera.

Note: The prices above reflect the retailers' listed price at the time of publication.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com