Here’s one of PAX East’s more unexpected VR reveals; Borderlands dev Gearbox is making a Penn and Teller VR game. No, this isn’t an April Fools.
Penn and Teller VR: Frankly Unfair, Unkind, Unnecessary & Underhanded was quietly confirmed in a press release this weekend. Very little is known about the game other than that it will star the titular magicians. It also seems to be developed by Gearbox internally. The release says it’s due to come to HTC Vive, PSVR and Oculus headsets this summer. It doesn’t say which Oculus headsets it will arrive on, which might suggest Rift S and Quest are both on the table.
Given that Gearbox didn’t mention the game in its PAX East presentation this weekend, it’s likely these details could change.
Surprisingly enough this won’t be Penn and Teller’s first VR trick. Back in 2017 the pair’s infamous bus simulator, Desert Bus, was turned into a full VR game. It had you making the eight-hour drive from Tuson, Arizona to Las Vegas, Nevada in real time. Yes, in real time. One wrong move and you’d be carried all the way back to the starting line, too.
The game was originally meant part of another Penn and Teller game, Smoke and Mirrors. It was a minigame compilation that never actually release. Perhaps FUUUU (that really is the abbreviation) will revive some of those other games?
It’s far from all that Gearbox has going on in the world of VR, either. This weekend the company announced it was bringing all of Borderlands 2’s DLC to the VR version of the game for free. The studio’s also publishing the upcoming Trover Saves The Universe.
