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.