VR & Mixed Reality

How to play chess in VR and mixed reality on your headset

Put on your headset, open a browser, and play a sculpted 3-D chess set on your real table or in an immersive study — with your own hands. No install required.

Chess in 3-D runs as a plain web page built on the open WebXR standard, so playing chess in virtual reality or mixed reality on a headset needs no app, no store listing, and no side-loading. You open a browser on the headset, go to the site, and the same board you use on a laptop becomes a sculpted set you can reach out and touch. This guide walks through the whole setup.

What you need

  • A Meta Quest 3, Quest 3S, or Quest Pro (they share the built-in Meta Quest Browser).
  • A Wi-Fi connection.
  • A little clear floor or table space for mixed reality.
  • A Pro plan to enter MR or VR. The full game — the sculpted 3-D board on screen, online play, ranked ladder, replay, analysis, and voice moves — is free; Pro is what unlocks the immersive modes on your headset.

Step by step on your headset

  1. Open the Browser in your headset from your headset's app library.
  2. Go to the site. Type the address into the browser and let it load over HTTPS — that secure connection is all WebXR needs. There is nothing to install.
  3. Start a game. Choose Play the Machine or Play Online. The board first renders right there in the browser window.
  4. Enter MR or VR. In the game bar, tap Enter MR to place the board on your real table through passthrough, or Enter VR to drop into a calm virtual study. These buttons appear automatically once the browser detects a headset.
  5. Reach out and play. Move pieces with your hands (pinch to grab) or your controllers (trigger to grab). Turn your left palm up — or squeeze a grip — to open the wrist menu.

Placing the board in mixed reality

In MR the room stays visible through passthrough. Aim at a flat surface until the placement reticle appears, pinch to drop the board, then drag a corner to rotate and resize it until it sits naturally on your table. For precise alignment, open Board Tools for 5° nudges or Face Me. Once it feels right, start moving pieces — captured pieces settle onto graveyard rails beside the board so the state of the game is always clear.

Which headsets work

Meta Quest 3 is the reference device we build and test against, but because this is standard WebXR it also runs on other headset browsers: Samsung Galaxy XR and other Android XR headsets in Chrome, and Pico 4 / Pico 4 Ultra through the free Wolvic browser. Apple Vision Pro can run WebXR in Safari, but Apple has not yet enabled passthrough for the web, so mixed reality is not available there yet. There is a full, up-to-date compatibility list on the home page.

Keep reading

Curious how a browser can render all of this with nothing to install? See how WebXR browser chess works.