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Best VR headsets for immersive virtual reality gaming

The latest tech offers incredible realism, depending on how much time and money you want to spend

Steve Hogarty
Tuesday 06 February 2024 17:13 GMT
<p>Among other things, these headsets are rated by how comfortable they are to use in confined spaces</p>

Among other things, these headsets are rated by how comfortable they are to use in confined spaces

Virtual reality headsets entered the mainstream with the arrival of the Apple Vision Pro in January. But, while Apple’s new $3,500 “spatial computing” headset is dominating the headlines, it’s far from the first VR device to make it to market.

VR has been around for years and has its roots in gaming and entertainment. The HTC Vive, Valve Index and Meta Quest are all geared towards PC gaming as well as enterprise-level use. Meanwhile, Sony has the PlayStation VR2 – a headset accessory designed solely to be used with the PlayStation 5.

But it’s the Meta Quest 3 (£468, Amazon.co.uk) that is the most accessible VR headset. It doesn’t require any specialist knowledge to set up, so anyone can slip it on and start playing right away, and you don’t have to plug it into an expensive gaming PC to experience it.

We’ve taken that level of basic accessibility into account when rounding up our pick of the best VR headsets you can buy, but if you have a decent PC and a bigger budget, there are more powerful VR headsets out there.

How we tested the best VR headsets

A selection of the best VR headsets that we tested for this review

We tested these VR headsets in our homes (which are smaller than our offices, unsurprisingly), so, among other things, these headsets are rated by how comfortable they are to use in confined spaces. Except for the self-contained Meta Quest 3, we tested each headset while tethered to a gaming PC running on a 12th-generation Intel CPU and an RTX 3080 graphics card.

We used SteamVR as our main games platform and tested games such as Job Simulator, Superhot VR, Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, and Half-Life: Alyx. The PS VR2 was tested with a PlayStation 5 console with Horizon Call of the Mountain, Resident Evil Village and more.

The best VR headsets for 2024 are:

Meta Quest 3

meta quest 3
  • Best: VR headset overall
  • Release date: October 2023
  • Resolution: 2,064 x 2,208px
  • Refresh rate: 120Hz
  • Weight: 516g
  • Standalone: Yes
  • Why we love it
    • Full-coloured mixed-reality passthrough
    • Great selection of games
    • Can be wired to a PC for more functionality
  • Take note
    • Big price hike from the Meta Quest 2

The Meta Quest 3 is an astounding virtual reality (now mixed reality) headset, and is arguably the best consumer device currently out there. With full-colour passthrough, a faster processor, a more comfortable and ergonomic fit, as well as better hand-tracking and, of course, those pancake lenses that make everything so much more stable, this is the VR headset to beat.

The third-generation VR headset is a lot slimmer than the Meta Quest 2, and it’s all thanks to those new lenses. While it’s roughly the same weight as the Meta Quest 2, it has a smaller, less bulky profile overall, and we found the weight was more evenly distributed closer to our head (read: no slipping down your face if you don’t tighten the straps just right).

It’s a sleeker, more streamlined headset with plenty of adjustable elements, which helped us get the right fit, the perfect distance from our eyes and adjust the interpupillary distance (IPD) of the device.

Read our full Meta Quest 3 review

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Pico 4

pico 4
  • Best: Budget VR headset
  • Release date: October 2022
  • Resolution: 2,160 x 4,320px
  • Refresh rate: 90Hz
  • Weight: 586g
  • Standalone: Yes
  • Why we love it
    • Doesn’t need cables
    • Weight is evenly balanced and comfortable
    • Can connect to a PC for SteamVR
    • Easy to set up
  • Take note
    • Games library isn’t as big as Meta's

A well-balanced standalone VR headset, the Pico 4 was a great alternative to the Meta Quest 2 when it launched. Since then, the Meta Quest 3 has come along and matched it in terms of resolution and full-colour passthrough, but the Pico 4 still stands out as a cheaper alternative to the leading headset.

It offers excellent tracking with its pair of handheld controllers, and while Pico’s library of games isn’t as large as Meta’s, you can connect to a PC to access a fuller selection of SteamVR titles.

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Valve Index

Valve Index VR Headset
  • Best: SteamVR
  • Release date: 2019
  • Resolution: 1,440 x 1,600px per eye
  • Refresh rate: Up to 144Hz
  • Weight: 809g
  • Standalone: No
  • Why we love it
    • Advanced controllers can sense finger movements
    • Base stations allow for accurate, room-scale VR
    • Wide field of view
  • Take note
    • Expensive
    • Specs are starting to look dated
    • Must be wired to a gaming PC

Valve’s betting the house on the future of gaming being virtual, producing its very own VR headset to power its ambitious SteamVR games and experiences. The Valve Index is one of the most expensive gaming VR headsets around, and, like the HTC Vive Pro 2, it requires tethering to a gaming PC to work.

It also requires you to mount a pair of base stations in either corner of the room, to track your position in real-time, though these are the same base stations found in the HTC Vive range. That means if you’ve already got an HTC device, you can continue using your base stations and upgrade your headset, your controllers, or both, without overspending.

The display is sharp and responsive at 120Hz, but the controllers are what really set the Valve Index apart from other VR headsets in this list. They can track the movement of your individual fingers with unnerving precision, which not only allows for a greater degree of control within virtual worlds, but creates an unbeatable sense of immersion. As ridiculous as it sounds, simply wiggling the fingers of our virtual hand in front of our virtual face dupes our monkey brain into thinking we’re somewhere we’re not.

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HTC Vive Pro 2

HTC Vive Pro 2 with base stations and controllers
  • Best: For gaming
  • Release date: 2021
  • Resolution: 2,448 x 2,448px per eye
  • Refresh rate: Up to 120Hz
  • Weight: 850g
  • Standalone: No
  • Why we love it
    • Excellent displays
    • Accurate tracking
  • Take note
    • Lots of setup required
    • Expensive

The HTC Vive Pro 2 requires considerably more setup than the self-contained Meta Quest. Firstly, the headset needs to be tethered to a powerful gaming PC or laptop. You also need to mount a pair of Rubik’s Cube-sized sensors in opposite corners of your room, which scan the play area continuously to track your location in 3D space.

For premium VR gaming, the benefits of this type of setup outweigh the inconvenience. The HTC Vive Pro 2 provides an incredibly realistic experience, with a refresh rate of up to 120Hz and the highest resolution-per-eye of any of the headsets we’ve tested. Lower-resolution VR headsets produce a “screen door effect”, which happens when your eyes can make out individual pixels in the display. At higher resolutions, this effect is diminished, and in the Vive Pro 2 the effect is barely noticeable.

In games, the impact is impressive. In Half-Life: Alyx, you can make out more detail in the world around you. Distant objects have more definition, and the world feels more real. Hold a tin of virtual food up to your face and you can make out the ingredients list. The sense of immersion is boosted even further by the accuracy of hand and body tracking and the wide field of view, which all lead to a substantially less janky gaming experience.

The full Vive Pro 2 kit doesn’t come cheap, but with access to a rich and growing library of PC VR games behind it, this is the headset of choice for those who want the most immersive gaming experience possible.

  1. £999 from Vive.com
Prices may vary
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Meta Quest 2

Meta Quest 2 VR.jpg
  • Best: Cheap Meta Quest
  • Release date: 2020
  • Resolution: 1,832 x 1,920px per eye
  • Refresh rate: 90Hz
  • Weight: 503g
  • Standalone: Yes
  • Why we love it
    • Seamless and easy setup
    • Inside-out tracking for room-scale VR
    • Guardian system stops you walking into walls
  • Take note
    • No colour passthrough

The Meta Quest 2 is not the most technically advanced virtual reality headset out there, but it was the first genuinely user-friendly one. You don’t need an expensive gaming PC to plug it into (though you’ve got the option), and there are no snaking cables to trip over. Instead, you just slip it on, grab hold of the controllers, and are immediately immersed in a believable 3D space.

A tutorial teaches you the basics of picking up and interacting with virtual objects, using your virtual hands, while sensors and cameras embedded in the headset can track your physical location in the room and translate your movements at a 1:1 scale in the game world. That is to say: when you take a step forward in real life, you take a step forward in the virtual world, cementing the illusion that you exist within the virtual space. The Guardian system is particularly clever, too, prompting you to trace out your playing area with the controllers beforehand, then warning you in-game if you’re about to accidentally walk face-first into your living room wall.

The Meta Quest 2 no longer needs a Facebook account to work, which was one of our biggest problems with the device at launch. A VR experience without the fuss.

Read the full Meta Quest 2 versus PS VR2 review

  1. £249 from Argos.co.uk
Prices may vary
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PS VR2

8fd9c404e81dd1f0929b574b7689c9ae0fdaf5d4-scaled.jpg copy.jpg
  • Best: Console VR headset
  • Release date: 2023
  • Resolution: 2,000 x 2,040px per eye
  • Refresh rate: Up to 120Hz
  • Weight: 560g
  • Standalone: Requires PS5
  • Why we love it
    • Simple, one-cable setup
    • Excellent OLED display
    • Eye-tracking in a sub-£600 headset
  • Take note
    • You need a PS5
    • You’re tethered to that PS5 by a cable
    • Most launch games available elsewhere

The PlayStation VR2 is Sony’s second-generation VR headset and follows 2016’s far clunkier and more cumbersome PS VR, which needed half a dozen cables, separate controllers and an external camera accessory before you could use it. This version is a vast improvement. It’s streamlined and plugs into a PS5 with a single USB-C cable, making it easier to pick up and play on a whim.

It uses two bright and high-contrast OLED displays running at 120 frames per second for a highly realistic VR experience, while the included sense controllers allow you to reach out and grab objects, push buttons, shoot guns and interact with the world using your hands. Haptic feedback in the controllers and the headset push the immersion even further, while eye-tracking tech means games can tell where you’re looking (and when your eyes are closed) at any given moment.

The main downside is that it needs a PlayStation 5 console to work, making it more than twice as expensive as some standalone headsets. There are also too few unique and exclusive games at launch. But for gamers already invested in the latest Sony console, and eager to be part of the company’s latest VR experiment, there’s no better choice of headset.

Read the full PS VR2 review

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The verdict: VR headsets

The Meta Quest 3 is a genuine breakthrough for VR technology. Not only does it look smart, with no protruding cables or messy wiring to worry about, but it’s also straightforward enough to set up that even the most tech-averse users will be able to experience VR within minutes of opening the box.

For more serious gaming and professional applications, the HTC Vive Pro 2 is the most technically advanced VR experience in our round-up, with the highest resolution and refresh rate of any headset we’ve tested

Can’t get enough of virtual reality? Check out our review of Horizon Call of the Mountain

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