Despite John Carmack’s efforts, the Oculus Quest 2 does not support Oculus Go games.
What you need to know
- The Oculus Quest 2 does not support Oculus Go games.
- Oculus Consulting CTO John Carmack states that he “lost the internal debate over backwards compatibility.”
- Facebook did not make it clear that Oculus Go games would not be supported.
The Oculus Quest 2 does not support Oculus Go games. That news was dropped by Oculus Consulting CTO John Carmack on Twitter recently when asked about trying to get Oculus Go games to work on the Oculus Quest. Until Carmack’s tweet, Facebook had not given any indication that Oculus Go games would not work on the Oculus Quest.
On the original Oculus Quest, dozens of Oculus Go games were supported. While you couldn’t play every Oculus Go game on the Oculus Quest, there was a notable library of games available through backwards compatibility.
“I totally lost the internal debate over backwards compatibility,” said Carmack on Twitter.
Support was remove on Quest 2. I totally lost the internal debate over backwards compatibility.
— John Carmack (@ID_AA_Carmack) October 15, 2020
Backwards compatibility is a hot topic amongst gamers, including fervent debates about how many generations of games should be supported on devices. It’s likely that demand for Oculus Go and GearVR games on the Oculus Quest 2 was low, or Facebook may have gone in another direction.
The Oculus Quest 2 is the direct successor to the Oculus Quest, and in some ways is the successor to the Oculus Rift S. If the Oculus Quest 2 supported some GearVR and Oculus Go games, you would have been able to play games from every generation of untethered Oculus devices on a single piece of hardware. Instead, if you want to play games from the Oculus Go or GearVr, you’ll have to grab an older headset.
