In celebration of the developers' 13th anniversary, Young Horses has surprise dropped a PC VR beta for Bugsnax, alongside a discount for the game.
After 13 years of developing bizarre titles, Young Horses' latest game is now available in VR... well, sort of. Developed by the same team behind the Octodad series, Bugsnax sends you on an expedition capturing various bugs that look a lot like regular food, learning their likes/dislikes, and growing your journal of different species.
"We have been working on this as a side project for a while, which has been no easy feat since Bugsnax exists in a custom engine," Young Horses says. "All porting and small details have to be done from scratch. But we’ve reached the point [where] we think it merits a public release."
I decided to buy the game on PC after playing it on Xbox and dive into the VR version of Bugsnax while it's on sale. The team has put in a lot of work porting the game into virtual reality, making it feel like a true VR experience, minus some simple button presses over immersive gameplay.
Visually, the title looks spectacular when playing with on a Quest 3 via Steam Link. The bright colors of the strange Bugsnax world pop, and during my time with the VR beta of the game, I had no issues with rendering or performance. Moving between areas of the game does bring up a weird blue SteamVR home dashboard in place of a loading screen, but it's hardly a problem worth complaining about.
Many of the mechanics are, unfortunately, simple button presses. Slinging ketchup to taunt Bungers or placing traps relies on some VR aiming, but the rest of the gameplay is pressing associated buttons. Considering the extensive work that has gone into a free VR version of the game, I still have a lot of praise for this port of the game, but it would be nice if Young Horses had gone the extra mile.
That being said, it's an impressive feat regardless. It's completely playable, offering a new version to enjoy Bugsnax in virtual reality, with very little effort required to start playing it. Unfortunately, Young Horses hasn't got any plans to bring Bugsnax VR to other platforms, including Meta Quest, PS VR2, or Apple Vision Pro - but it would certainly be great to see the experience elsewhere.
To access the free Bugsnax VR beta, you'll need to own a copy of the game on PC via Steam, which currently has a 72% discount on the platform. After downloading the game, go to the properties and add the code 'virtualreality'. You'll then need to opt into the vrtest branch to access the VR version of the game.
There's no confirmation on the game coming to other VR platforms yet.
