Puzzles of the World on Meta Quest is a well-made cozy experience that needs more content to compete with other cozy options and keep players coming back.
Puzzles of the World is a miniature building puzzle game that takes you to scenic locations around the world while putting together location-appropriate wooden miniatures like France’s Eiffel Tower and a gondola lifted straight out of Italy. At the time of this review, there are eight puzzles available, ranging from 48 pieces to 290 pieces.
What is it?: A cozy miniature building puzzle game
Platforms: Meta Quest 3/3S (played on Quest 3)
Release Date: August 6, 2026 (full release; previously in Early Access)
Developer: Astral Shores Games
Price: $14.99
Unlike a game like Puzzling Places, Puzzles of the World is not meant to challenge you. Every puzzle has clear instructions on how to complete it and while you do get a time when you finish building, there are no leaderboards I could find or any other sense of challenge or competition. Each puzzle is broken up into phases to keep the number of pieces available to grab low. It is a chill experience in every sense, more about the vibes and looking at the seven real-world locations while building than anything else. This is not a game for competitive players and those who prefer action in VR.
Visually, the environments are cel-shaded with hard outlines and a bright colorful palette that looks quite nice in the headset. All seven locations have a day and night scene with day being the default and the night unlocking upon puzzle completion. The background music is hit and miss. I disabled the music during the tutorial as the short play loop became distracting, but several of the other tracks were quite pleasant. One nice feature is that the music starts simple and layers more melodies on as each phase of a puzzle is completed.
Sitting in Paris building a mini of the Eiffel Tower – Captured by UploadVR
As I understand it, this game started out only supporting hand tracking in Early Access and controller support was added later, prior to the full release. I played multiple puzzles using both inputs and could understand why some players preferred controllers. It felt much easier to grab a piece with a controller. On the other hand, the precise placement of some of the smaller pieces benefited from just using my hands and a pinch gesture. Either way, it’s always better to have options.
Another nice touch is that the instruction manual has some quick facts about the location you are playing in, adding to the atmosphere.
Puzzles of the World is a stationary game and requires no artificial movement to play. There is a snap turn option to look around the environment, but you can simply turn naturally or use the teleport to shift to any of the three predetermined locations.
It is a highly accessible option for VR newcomers.
The biggest shortcoming in Puzzles of the World is simply that it is short. The longest puzzle, at 290 pieces, took me roughly twenty-five minutes to complete and I took my time. I completed every puzzle in just over two hours and thought to myself, “Now what?” I did revisit the dark versions of the locations and while I guess you could challenge yourself to complete a puzzle without instructions, there just simply isn’t enough game here at the moment.
This is, ostensibly, a good thing if my biggest complaint is wanting more, but anyone buying this game will need to take the $14.99 price tag as an investment in hopefully more content to come down the line, free or paid. Puzzling Places has had years of additions and each puzzle has multiple puzzle count options while Jigsaw Night offers a custom puzzle builder. Puzzles of the World comes up short comparatively.
Sitting in Venice, Italy building a miniature gondola – Captured by UploadVR
One additional flaw to point out is that occasionally the pieces don’t match the instructions. For example, the gondola puzzle has two ornamental dragons that the instructions say to place on planks that were previously placed in a prior step. In reality, the dragons are already on the planks, so that step should not exist. The same happened with a cross-like piece towards the end. According to the instructions, it is composed of two pieces to be placed separately, but the actual puzzle has them put together already. This happened maybe half a dozen times and can be easily patched, but it is still worth noting.
Finally, the descriptive text set on top of scenic pictures in the instruction manual was a bit tough to read. This is in no way the developer’s fault, but rather the result of the Quest’s LCD panels. Other games have worked around this limitation by popping up a copy of the text against a solid color, usually black, background to make it easier to read.
All that said, there is absolutely room to grow here and developer Astral Shores Games has a near-endless number of scenic locations to draw inspiration from, on Earth or otherwise. Imagine sitting in a Mars location, terra-domed of course, while putting together a miniature of the Curiosity rover. Sign me up for that.
Puzzles of the World: Final Verdict
Puzzles of the World is a charming, relaxed time in VR. Its art direction, sound design, and varied locations all combine to make one of the better cozy puzzle experiences in VR. However, it desperately needs more content to turn first-time players into returning players, specifically more actual puzzles than locations. There is nothing inherently bad about it and overall it is quite enjoyable, but limited in scope.
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