How to get the best free Oculus Touch games and experiences

The Oculus Touch controllers are now officially out, and most people who pre-ordered the hardware will likely be receiving their packages today. You can take a look at our video review of the hardware below, but the short answer to your inevitable question is yes. If you have an Oculus Rift, you should buy the Touch controllers. Absolutely.

So what games should you pick up, and how little should you pay for it? Let us help.

Here are the four “games” you will definitely get

Everyone who buys the hardware in the short-term will receive Dead and Buried, First Contact, Quill and Medium. Those four games are part of the launch bundle and they’re pretty great!

First Contact is a cute but brief introduction to the Touch controllers that features a little floating robot. You’ll likely play through this the first time you connect your controllers.

Quill is a drawing and sketching program with some really bonkers pieces of art built in for you to look at and explore before you try creating your own thing, and Medium is basically a “let’s get high and sculpt with foam” simulator. You don’t have to be high, of course, but I’m guessing more than a few people will when using the program.

Dead and Buried is a enjoyable shooter that offers a gallery as well as a series of competitive and cooperative multiplayer modes.

Here are the two games you may have gotten

You’ll also receive VR Sports Challenge and The Unspoken if you pre-ordered your Touch bundle, and both of those games will sell for $30 for everyone else.

VR Sports Challenge is a series of sports-related minigames and The Unspoken is an urban, magic-based deathmatch title that’s a bit hard to describe, but you can watch me play it for a bit below. I’m going to continue to refer to it as Dr. Strange: The Dresden Files Experience.

So what else should I get?

Good question! The Toybox demo is free, and it’s fun to explore all the little toys and experiences with a friend in social VR. You’ll want to give it a try, especially if you know someone else with the Touch controllers.

You can also grab Epic’s rather excellent Bullet Train demo on the store for free if you want something a bit more violent, and that’s a very pleasant surprise for launch.

Rec Room is a fun and surprisingly full-featured social game with plenty to do and a lot of people to meet, and it’s free as well. It also supports cross-platform play, as I met plenty of people of differing ages and from around the world when I tried playing before the launch of the Touch hardware.

We’ve talked about how the Rift is compatible with SteamVR games, which makes downloading Valve’s free The Lab minigame compilation a no-brainer. If you turn on the beta branch of SteamVR you can even get haptics working through the Touch controllers. This is still one of the best VR experiences offered on the Vive, and being able to play it on the Rift is great.

But wait, should I pay money for anything?

I would almost argue that the Touch launched too many games, as it can be overwhelming to try to decide what to buy if you’re still not satisfied with the rather impressive collection of free games and demos that come with the system.

That being said, Oculus is offering an $89.99 bundle that includes Space Pirate Trainer, I Expect You To Die, Kingspray Graffiti, Superhot VR, and The Climb, which has been updated with a new mountain and Touch controls. These are some of the best games available on the Touch platform at launch, and you’ll save 25% by purchasing them all together.

Here’s another fun detail: If you buy any game on the Oculus Home store right now, Oculus will throw in a free copy of Ripcoil along with your purchase. So you’ll get an additional $10 game just for putting in your credit card information and purchasing literally anything else.

Oculus has released its new hardware with a pretty extensive selection of free content, so have fun out there! Or in there, maybe?