Though everyone has their HMD cameras trained on Half-Life: Alyx as VR s killer app, I ve been staring creepily at Boneworks’ gif-rammed Steam page and saying soon over and over. Having spent a few hours working my way through its meta game-within-a-game world, I m not quite in the position to review it as a whole. It s exhausting and sweaty, and if I didn t take some breaks during my six hours of playtime I d have probably done a puke. I tried, but this is not an exhaustive review of Boneworks. It has exhausted me.

It s an innovative, fascinating, and flawed adventure that pushes VR in all sorts of directions, but makes some baffling design decisions, and still suffers from a number of VR specific issues. It s the first time during a review that I ve punched a lampshade.

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The official store page for the Valve Index is live now, featuring tech specs on the new VR headgear and controller combo, a June 28th launch date and a price-tag. If you’ve got no other VR equipment and this is your first set of space-goggles, it’ll set you back a cool 919/ 1079/$999. The full kit includes two tracking base-stations, the headset itself and a pair of their next-gen finger-tracking controllers, formerly known as Knuckles. There are cheaper options for people who already own HTC Vive or Vive Pro hardware, as the base stations and controllers are cross-compatible.

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Climbing a ladder seems like such a mundane thing to be excited about, but think about how complex it really is. You need both hands, feet, coordination, balance and power – something that seemed nigh impossible to simulate in VR with limited head and hand tracking until Boneworks surfaced today. As a game, I’m not sure what to make of it, but as a showcase of how solid a VR world can appear, developers Stress Level Zero have me impressed. Below, a trailer plus a longer video putting the game through its paces and demonstrating Valve’s upcoming ‘Knuckles’ controllers.

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