The MR update (July 2024) lets you place the chessboard in your actual physical space using Quest 3 passthrough — on your desk, on the floor, on a table in the classroom. The board and pieces appear in your real room, and you move pieces by hand or controller. It's a genuinely extraordinary demonstration of what Mixed Reality can do. Note: MR mode uses hand tracking in passthrough — it does not physically scan your real chess set, so you play with virtual pieces placed over your real-world surface.

What is Chess Club MR?

Chess Club is the leading chess game across both Meta Quest and Pico stores — originally launched in 2021 by Spanish developer Odders Lab, and continuously updated ever since. It began as a VR chess experience with stunning environments and then, on World Chess Day (July 20, 2024), received a free Mixed Reality update that placed the game in your actual physical surroundings through Quest 3 passthrough. At the same time, the price was permanently reduced from $14.99 to $9.99 — making it one of the best value propositions in all of VR gaming.

The result is a polished, feature-complete chess experience that gives you everything you'd want: AI opponents at multiple skill levels, ELO-tracked online ranked play, casual online games, local friend matches, hand tracking, voice commands, animated fantasy pieces, motion-captured avatars, move history, time controls, and a rematch system. It's not a novelty — it's a genuinely excellent chess implementation that happens to be in one of the most impressive VR environments available.

The four VR environments — a Grand Palace, Stonehenge at dusk, an Escher-inspired Dream space with impossible geometry, and a tranquil Master Garden — are each beautifully realised and far more atmospheric than any physical chess club setting. MR mode adds a fifth "environment": whatever room you're actually in, with the board placed wherever you choose.

Everything Included

Curriculum & Educational Fit

Chess Club MR is the most broadly age-appropriate VR app in any school's library — suitable from age 7 upwards with no concerns whatsoever. No violence, no content issues, no motion sickness (you are seated at a board). The MR mode is also one of the best demonstrations of Mixed Reality technology available for students who have never experienced passthrough AR — placing a game board in the real room never fails to produce a reaction.