Spatial Ops is a competitive FPS designed for mixed reality passthrough on Quest 2 and Quest Pro, now available in open beta on SideQuest. We recently tried it out and there’s a lot to rave about.
The past year has seen a big increase in “mixed reality” experiences available on the Quest platform, especially with the improved passthrough available on Quest Pro. There are some interesting concepts to play around with, but Resolution Games’ latest project, Spatial Ops, feels like a rare glimpse into the true future of mixed reality.
With support for 1-8 players, Spatial Ops takes place in a mixed reality battlefield that uses Quest 2 and Quest Pro passthrough to create a straight-up, laser tag-like experience. Spatial Ops is all about playing together in the same real world and creating your own custom map, taking advantage of Quest’s burgeoning mixed reality capabilities to create a unique experience on the platform. It’s the best of both worlds: the unique, immersive benefits of VR, with the thrill of competing against others in a real, physical space.
After spending a few hours hands-on with Spatial Ops at Resolution’s offices in Sweden, I was very impressed. I played on both Quest 2 and Quest Pro, in a full round-robin tournament with four teams of three players in three game modes. You can check out some gameplay from the tournament embedded above, with a full round of 3v3 Team Deathmatch captured on Quest Pro.
Team Deathmatch is just one of several game modes available, including Capture the Flag, Free-For-All, and Domination. There is an extensive map editor, which allows you to design a battlefield on top of your real world environment. Not only can you mark your walls and furniture, but you can also place in-game geometry and elements such as tactical barriers, weapon drops, and spawn points.
Spatial Ops is a blast to play, but it’s also a pretty remarkable technical feat. The games I played weren’t without their hiccups, but for the most part, Resolution definitely delivers on its core promise of an immersive multiplayer shooter that embraces mixed reality on a larger scale than we’ve ever seen before.
Of course, the best way to play is on Quest Pro, which benefits from the headset’s improved pass-through image – full color makes a big difference, especially here. However, Spatial Ops is also surprisingly fun on Quest 2. Yes, you’ll be using the headset’s grainier pass-through cameras, but Resolution also lets you toggle between a lighter and darker grayscale, in addition to color tone overlay options, such as red and blue . I played most of my Spatial Ops matches on Quest 2 and still had an absolutely amazing time.
The weapons you will use include pistols, shotguns, miniguns, sniper rifles, riot shields and grenades. The models for each look stunning, blend in well with the real world, and the smooth animations give each weapon a tactical feel. Most weapons have limited ammo, and while some can be reloaded, it’s often easier to get to a new one by running to a different weapon spawn point.
What’s most surprising is how mixed reality elevates a fairly basic multiplayer shooter into something much more engaging and surprisingly strategic. You’ll be able to interact naturally with both your own team and the enemy, and you’ll probably get a lot more physical than in any other VR experience. During our sessions, players ducked behind cover, threw grenades back over their shoulders, and used the physical cover of the real world whenever possible – it just feels natural. There was a point where I realized I could physically block another player’s path to the goal by getting in the way or even pushing them away. It’s more visceral and present than even some of the most immersive VR games.
That said, there are some major caveats and growing pains that come with Spatial Ops, all of which are understandable, but worth considering nonetheless. First, Spatial Ops works best with a fairly large room (especially with a higher number of players) and supports up to 20x20m, which is larger than the maximum size of the Quest Guardian system. To play in such a large area you have to use a developer mode to disable the guardian.
Likewise, not only do you need two (and up to eight) other players with a Quest 2 or Quest Pro headset, but they also all need to be in the same physical space. Even with VR becoming more popular than ever, that’s a big question for many people.
There’s also the Spatial Ops technical backend and installation process, which is a curious situation to investigate. The Quest platform still doesn’t support shared space colocation, which allows multiple headsets to occupy the same physical space with visibility into where each headset is in relation to each other. meta previously indicated that the feature is on its waybut it is still not available.
For a game like Spatial Ops, which can have eight headsets all playing in the same shared space, this becomes quite puzzling. Resolution has essentially created some internal solutions that work adequately but complicate things a bit.
Before launching a Spatial Ops game, one user marks the physical space (including walls, furniture, and more) in the game and designs a map for the space. Each subsequent player then downloads the map and follows an in-game tutorial that allows them to perfectly match the map to the same physical space. This involves placing a controller against an agreed angle of physical space, which is set and communicated by the map designer. This will align the card perfectly for any headset.
This solution is not true colocation, as the headsets do not use shared location data to update where they are in relation to each other. headphones. This also means that Spatial Ops is not yet a local network experience – everything still runs through online servers and is subject to interruptions and delays.
To Resolution’s credit, though, it works remarkably well and is fairly accurate and seamless when done right. There’s no denying that setting up the map and space is a hassle with the current solution, but it’ll no doubt be greatly improved when Meta finally launches colocation support for Quest and refines the functions for the arrangement of the experimental room. For now, however, Resolution’s solution is a smart solution that, given the circumstances, runs as smoothly as possible.
I also suspect that Resolution is playing the long game with Spatial Ops. There’s a reason today’s launch is only an open beta available on SideQuest – as technology improves, Spatial Ops adapts to it. The core concept and foundation of the game are solid, and that’s what’s important.
So while it might be difficult to find eight friends with Quest headsets, gather them in a huge indoor play area and set up a game, that shouldn’t detract from the performance and thrill of Spatial Ops. If you can, I highly recommend giving the game a try – it’s a magical glimpse into the future of mixed reality gaming and unlike anything else available at the consumer level.
The The Spatial Ops Open Beta is now available for Quest 2 and Quest Pro through SideQuest. You will find our guide at how to sideload games with SideQuest here.