VR’s Top Combat Sandbox releases massive 1.0 update today featuring a 7+ hour campaign

Blade & SorceryArguably VR’s best physics-based battlebox is leaving Early Access today on Steam, which comes alongside the long-awaited 1.0 update that brings the last major content drop: the ‘Crystal Hunt’ campaign .

Update (June 17, 2024): Blade & Sorcery is complete, at least according to developer WarpFrog who is activating its campaign mode today in what promises to be 7+ hours of dungeon carnage.

We’re still deep into the review, though so far Crystal Hunt marks a significant departure from the game’s sandbox-centric arenas by throwing you into a number of connected maps that are supported by an honest-to-goodness story and an upgrade system of progress, all about collecting crystals scattered throughout the game.

Check back soon for our full review, which will be coming as soon as possible as we tackle this chunk of new content. The original article announcing Crystal Hunt’s release date follows below:

Original article (June 11, 2024): For many, Blade & Sorcery it was everything they ever wanted in VR: a place to beat the eternal crap out of anyone, anywhere, with anything. Beyond its massive assortment of melee weapons and AI enemies ripe for galloping, you can also modify it to be basically anything you want.

However, for some, the combat sandbox had all the right bones, but lacked story, progression, world-building – the adventures that only your imagination could create in their absence.

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

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

Here’s how the studio describes the action:

Deep in the mountains of Eraden, entrances to long-lost Dalgarian ruins have been inexplicably discovered, sparking what humans have come to refer to as the Crystal Hunt. Within weeks of the entrance being first discovered, major factions throughout Eraden mobilized to compete in finding these ruins and securing the valuables within.

Taking up temporary residence in the abandoned outposts dotted around Eraden, the factions race to map the surrounding wildlands and discover new Dalgarian inroads. This is where the Player comes in; also motivated to find the Dalgarian ruins, the Player will visit these faction-occupied outposts to gather information on the possible locations of the ruins.

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

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

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

“In the release decision Nomad as standalone rather than merging the two versions into one game, we basically doubled our work because it meant we had two separate developments to support. However, this was the only way to ensure that PCVR development wasn’t limited by the Quest 2 hardware, which is why Nomad is a completely separate “made for Quest” sister title,” the studio explains.

Notably, as it leaves Steam Early Access on June 17th, it will see a price increase from $20 to $30, marking what WarpFrog calls “our last major content update” outside of further patches to fix errors, stabilization and QOL stuff. If you manage to grab it before then, you’ll be sure to get the big 1.0 update for free when it drops next week.