A new experimental AR passthrough feature in Puzzling Places on Quest 2 lets players change the color of the physical world.

The AR feature in one of our favorite puzzle games lets you colorize Quest 2’s typical black and white view of your surroundings. Realities.io CEO Daniel Sproll told UploadVR they’re rolling out this initial implementation to see how players use it and gather feedback.

“Passthrough really for us is something that we feel adds a lot to the game, and that we want it to get feedback on,” Sproll said. “For me personally, I still do play the immersive mode with full VR engaged without pass-through, but the passthrough [on] some occasions…really invites you to get up more because you can just place the puzzle pieces in the surroundings around you and walk up to them without having this underlying anxiety of tripping over things.”

While Quest 2 is a testing ground for Meta for AR passthrough, the company’s next headset Cambria will have color passthrough and higher resolution cameras that will likely make experiences like Puzzling Places in AR a much more enjoyable experience.

The feature works with the Oculus Touch controllers and is live in Puzzling Places on Quest 2 from version 1.9.

Ian Hamilton

Ian Hamilton is a journalist based in Arkansas and managing editor at UploadVR. He's covered VR full-time since 2015 as well as Oculus VR since 2012. He is interested in the people creating VR and AR hardware and software, their motivations, and how that work affects the people who spend significant time in simulations. If you have information to pass along you can send him a direct message on Twitter, Facebook or via email.