Have you ever come across the issue of having to switch between the Horizon store, then Steam, followed by sideloading a new indie game on SideQuest? If you have, then you’ll know that hopping between all three can be rather annoying. So SideQuest has decided to fix it, integrating discovery and other features across all three stores.
One store to rule them all
While you might be quite happy heading to the Horizon Store for all your games, there are many more weird and wonderful VR titles out there. Especially if you have a PC to connect to. And while SideQuest has linked to the Meta Quest store for years, the addition of Steam massively expands its usability.
The new discovery feature is still in the early stages, gradually being rolled out across games. What it’ll allow you to see are prices, reviews, platforms, and availability side by side, all in SideQuest.
“We have put a lot of work into making VR app discovery as clear and painless as possible, and we are genuinely excited to share what we have built! While we are still fixing a few remaining issues, this marks a real shift in how VR discovery works, and we are excited for you to explore it,” notes the team in a blog post.
While the feature gives you all this information in one place, you’ll still make purchases on the respective stores.
Discoverability Features
So you’re researching your next game to buy, where do you look? Well, select titles on SideQuest will now show the following:
- Reviews and ratings from Meta, SteamVR, and SideQuest
- Review comparisons and averages across platforms
- Price comparisons with discounts, where available
- Related and similar apps
Furthermore, the platform hides another trick up its sleeve, video reviews. Both the Horizon Store and Steam feature written reviews for you to read. But if you want to watch a video review, SideQuest is the place to go. You can even upload your own if you so wish.
What is SideQuest?
SideQuest arrived in the very early days of Oculus Quest (as it was called then). Before the existence of the now-defunct App Lab, VR developers looking to connect with the community and upload early builds for players to test would use SideQuest. In those days, sideloading an APK file was a bit finicky, with several hoops to navigate first.
However, a lot of that friction has now been smoothed out, and SideQuest has managed to weather the various industry storms over the years.
Do you use the platform to sideload apps? What do you think of this new feature? Let us know in the comments!
