Facepunch Studios announced that s&box, its upcoming physics sandbox and game development platform, is now using OpenXR, which will not only allow the studio to expand its VR feature set, but also the range of supported devices.

VR support has been on the table since Facepunch announced in 2015 it was working on a spiritual successor to Gary’s Mod (2006), which will not only include a sandbox as you’d expect, but also an entire development platform for users to make and publish their own third-party games.

Fast-forward to late last month, and the studio has opened its developer preview to the public, which until recently included VR support thanks to integration with SteamVR. Now the studio says its unplugged SteamVR from its backend, and adopted OpenXR support.

While Facepunch mentions in an update that it comes with “no major changes to functionality” to the user, in reality the switch to OpenXR gives s&box—and creators using the platform—more latitude to exist independently from Steam.

“The main benefits to this are that we get loads of control over everything, we can expand our feature set much further, and we’re able to support a much wider range of devices,” programmer Alex Guthrie says.

Whereas SteamVR apps are necessarily tied to the Steam platform, OpenXR is a more open cross-platform API standard aimed at maximizing compatibility and reducing fragmentation in the XR space—also making for a dizzying number of XR devices and peripherals supported by OpenXR.

You can technically dive into s&box today via the developer preview, however it still has a ways to go before its heads into a 1.0 consumer-ready version.

When it does launch on Steam at some point, Facepunch is no doubt hoping it has a stock of first and third-party content at the ready, which we’re hoping also comes with a healthy glut of unique VR games. To boot, the studio is now running a game jam open to all, which features £40,000 in prize money.

We’ll be keeping our eyes on the platform’s Discord (invite link) and its news portal for more info as it arrives.

Blade & Sorcery, arguably VR’s top physics-based combat sandbox, is leaving Early Access today on Steam, which comes alongside the long-awaited 1.0 update that brings its final major content drop: the ‘Crystal Hunt’ campaign.

Update (June 17th, 2024): Blade & Sorcery is complete, at least according to developer WarpFrog which is turning on its campaign mode today in what promises to bring 7+ hours of dungeoning carnage.

We’re still deep in review, although thus far Crystal Hunt marks a notabe departure from the game’s sandbox-focused arenas by tossing you into a number of linked maps that are underpinned by an honest to goodness narrative and a progression upgrade system all about collecting crystals scattered throughout the game.

Tune back in soon for our full review, which is coming as soon as possible as we fight through this thick slice of new content. The original article announcing Crystal Hunt’s release date follows below:

Original Article (June 11th, 2024): For many, Blade & Sorcery was everything they ever wanted in VR: a place to beat the ever-living crap out of whoever, wherever, and with whatever. Beyond its massive assortment of melee weapons and AI enemies ripe for the ganking, you can also mod it to be basically anything you want.

For some though, the fighting sandbox had all of the right bones, but lacked the story, progression, worldbuilding—the adventures only your imagination could create in their absence.

Now, a little over five years since its Early Access release on PC, Blade & Sorcery’s massive 1.0 drop is looking to change that, which is coming to the SteamVR version of the game on June 17th as a free update. Check out the trailer below:

Developer WarpFrog says the game’s ‘Crystal Hunt’ campaign is bringing along with it a progression mode, tons of new weapons and skills, lore, and a definitive ending to the story.

Here’s how the studio describes the action:

Deep in the mountains of Eraden, entrances to long lost Dalgarian ruins have Inexplicably revealed themselves, triggering what folk have begun referring to as The Crystal Hunt. Within weeks of the first entrance discovery, major factions across Eraden mobilized to compete in finding these ruins and securing the valuables within.

Taking up temporary residence in abandoned Outposts dotted all around Eraden, the factions race to map out the surrounding wildlands and discover new Dalgarian entrances. This is where Player come in; also motivated to find Dalgarian ruins, Player will visit these faction occupied Outposts to gather intel on potential ruin locations.

The Outposts are as you know them in Sandbox and will be occupied by one of four factions, each presenting different challenges and difficulty levels. Outposts will have loot scaled on that difficulty, from gold and valuables which the player can use to purchase new weapons and armour in the shop, to Crystal Shards, which are minor magical crystals that can be used to unlock new skills on the skill tree.

Blade & Sorcery: Nomad (2021), a pared-down version for Quest 2/3/Pro, is also getting the big 1.0 update at some point, however there’s no release date on the books yet. As one of the most popular games on Quest, we’re really hoping for sooner rather than later, although it may take time, the studio says.

“Once PCVR is released and stable, the team can switch to the Nomad update porting process, which will for sure take months as it is a mountain of work. However, take solace in the knowledge that it is our goal to attempt a full port of the PCVR update to Nomad,” the studio says in a Steam news update.

“In the decision to release Nomad as standalone and not merge both versions into one game, we essentially doubled our work because it meant we had two separate developments to support. However this was the only way to make sure PCVR development was not limited by the Quest 2 hardware, so this is why Nomad is a completely separated “made for Quest” sister-title,” the studio explains.

Notably, as it leaves Early Access on Steam on June 17th, there’s set to be a price bump from $20 to $30, marking what WarpFrog calls “our final major content update” outside of further patches for bugfixing, stabilization and QOL things. If you manage to grab it before then, you’ll of course get the big 1.0 update for free when it drops next week.