''Rec Room'' is a

virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), e ...

massively multiplayer online game A massively multiplayer online game (MMOG or more commonly MMO) is an online video game with a large number of players, often hundreds or thousands, on the same server. MMOs usually feature a huge, persistent open world, although there are ...

with an integrated

game creation system A game creation system (GCS) is a consumer-targeted game engine and a set of specialized design tools (and sometimes a light scripting language), engineered for the rapid iteration of user-derived video games. Examples include Novashell and Pie i ...

developed and published by Rec Room Inc. ''Rec Room'' is currently available on Microsoft Windows,

Xbox One The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third base console in the Xbox series of video game consoles. It was first released in North America, parts of ...

Xbox Series X and Series S The Xbox Series X/S are home video game consoles developed by Microsoft. They were both released on November 10, 2020, as the fourth generation Xbox, succeeding the Xbox One. Along with Sony's PlayStation 5, also released in November 2020 ...

PlayStation 4 The PlayStation 4 (PS4) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 3 in February 2013, it was launched on November 15, 2013, in North America, November 29, 2013 in ...

PlayStation 5 The PlayStation 5 (PS5) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 4 in April 2019, it was launched on November 12, 2020, in Australia, Japan, New Zealand, North A ...

Oculus Quest The Oculus Quest is a virtual reality (VR) headset developed by Oculus, a division of Meta, Inc., released on May 21, 2019. Similar to its predecessor, Oculus Go, it is a standalone device that can run games and software wirelessly under an ...

Meta Quest 2 Meta Quest 2 (initially sold as Oculus Quest 2) is a virtual reality (VR) headset developed by Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook, Inc.). It was unveiled on September 16, 2020 and released on October 13. As with its predecessor, the Oculus Que ...

, Pico Neo 3,

Pico 4 PICO 4 is a virtual reality headset developed by ByteDance. It is designed for virtual reality games and is only available in Europe and East Asia (China, South Korea, Japan and Singapore). It is currently not available in the United States. PIC ...

, the

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, and Android.

Gameplay

A hub room (called the “Rec Center”) is a recreational center (thus earning the game's title of ''Rec Room'') with doors that lead to various games called ''Rec Room Originals'' and featured

user-generated User-generated content (UGC), alternatively known as user-created content (UCC), is any form of content, such as images, videos, text, testimonials, and audio, that has been posted by users on online platforms such as social media, discussion f ...

rooms. The game can optionally be played on a

virtual reality headset A virtual reality headset (or VR headset) is a head-mounted device that provides virtual reality for the wearer. VR headsets are widely used with VR video games but they are also used in other applications, including simulators and trainers. VR ...

, specifically using SteamVR, virtual reality headsets by

Reality Labs Reality Labs is a business of Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook Inc.) that produces virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) hardware and software, including virtual reality headsets such as Quest, and online platforms such as Horizon Wo ...

, and

PlayStation VR The PlayStation VR (PS VR, known by its code name Project Morpheus during development) is a virtual reality headset developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, which was released in October 2016. It is fully functional with the PlayStation 4 a ...

. In virtual reality mode, the game uses full 3D motion via the

motion capture Motion capture (sometimes referred as mo-cap or mocap, for short) is the process of recording the movement of objects or people. It is used in military, entertainment, sports, medical applications, and for validation of computer vision and robo ...

system of a

and two hand-held

motion controllers In video games and entertainment systems, a motion controller is a type of game controller that uses accelerometers or other sensors to track motion and provide input. History Motion controllers using accelerometers are used as controllers for ...

, which are required to pick up and handle objects in the game world, including balls, weapons, construction tools, and other objects. Players can explore the space around them within the confines of their physical floor-space while roaming further by using the controller buttons to teleport a short distance, with minimal to no virtual reality sickness. A “walking” mode enables players to move continuously rather than teleporting; however, this poses a higher risk of motion sickness. When creating rooms, users can use the "Maker Pen"; a tool resembling a hot glue gun, that can be used to draw shapes in 3D. Players can also code in ''Circuits'', which is ''Rec Rooms

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language. The description of a programming l ...

. In Rec Room, users can pay for a monthly subscription called ''Rec Room Plus''. This monthly subscription grants the subscribers to this subscription several features; including the ability to sell their own user-generated content. Users can sell this content for in-game currency. This currency can be transferred to money in the real world. This lets in-game creators get paid with real-world money.

Game modes

''Rec Room'' consists of separate built-in multiplayer games, which are known as ''Rec Room Originals''. The games include

first-person shooters First-person shooter (FPS) is a sub-genre of shooter video games centered on gun and other weapon-based combat in a first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action through the eyes of the protagonist and controlling the playe ...

, a

Battle Royale game A battle royale game is an online multiplayer video game genre that blends last-man-standing gameplay with the survival, exploration and scavenging elements of a survival game. Battle royale games involve dozens to hundreds of players, who st ...

cooperative A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-contro ...

action-adventure game The action-adventure genre is a video game hybrid genre that combines core elements from both the action game and adventure game genres. Typically, pure adventure games have situational problems for the player to solve to complete a storyli ...

s, a

Pictionary ''Pictionary'' (, ) is a charades-inspired word-guessing game invented by Robert Angel with graphic design by Gary Everson and first published in 1985 by Angel Games Inc. Angel Games licensed Pictionary to Western Publishing. Hasbro purchase ...

-like game, and various

sports game A sports video game is a video game that simulates the practice of sports. Most sports have been recreated with a game, including team sports, track and field, extreme sports, and combat sports. Some games emphasize actually playing the sport (s ...

s. ''Rec Room'' also provides in-game tools for user-generated content, which led to the creation of many user-generated experiences.

Music

Most of the music found in the game's ''Rec Room Originals'' is made by Cameron Brown.

Development

Seattle-based development studio Rec Room Inc. (formerly Against Gravity Corp) was co-founded in April 2016 by Nick Fajt, Cameron Brown, Dan Kroymann, Bilal Orhan, Josh Wehrly, and John Bevis. Prior to that,

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especiall ...

Nick Fajt worked as a program manager on the HoloLens team at

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation, multinational technology company, technology corporation producing Software, computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at th ...

. Dan Kroymann worked on the same team after working on the

Xbox Xbox is a video gaming brand created and owned by Microsoft. The brand consists of five video game consoles, as well as applications (games), streaming services, an online service by the name of Xbox network, and the development arm by th ...

team. Rec Room Inc.′s CCO Cameron Brown also worked at Microsoft as HoloLens Creative Director. In 2016 and early 2017, the company raised $5 million in funding for the development of ''Rec Room'' and its player community. According to CEO Nick Fajt, the company will keep ''Rec Room'' free to download. In 2017, ''Rec Room'' “Junior Mode” was COPPA-certified by Samet Privacy. In June 2019, Rec Room Inc. announced that the company raised an additional $24 million over two rounds of funding. In December 2020, Rec Room Inc. announced additional $20 million in funding. In March 2021, Rec Room Inc. announced another funding round of $100 million with a valuation of $1.25 billion leading to its ''unicorn'' status. In December 2021, Rec Room Inc. announced that they raised $145 million during another funding round, bringing the studio's valuation up to $3.5 billion.

Reception

Dan Ackerman, writing for '' CNET'', described ''Rec Room'' as VR's ''

killer app In marketing terminology, a killer application (commonly shortened to killer app) is any computer program or software that is so necessary or desirable that it proves the core value of some larger technology, such as computer hardware, a video gam ...

''. In January 2017, ''

Ars Technica ''Ars Technica'' is a website covering news and opinions in technology, science, politics, and society, created by Ken Fisher and Jon Stokes in 1998. It publishes news, reviews, and guides on issues such as computer hardware and software, sc ...

'' reported that

trolling In slang, a troll is a person who posts or makes inflammatory, insincere, digressive, extraneous, or off-topic messages online (such as in social media, a newsgroup, a forum, a chat room, a online video game), or in real life, with the ...

and harassment in ''Rec Room'' was a problem. In June 2017 ''

MIT Technology Review ''MIT Technology Review'' is a bimonthly magazine wholly owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and editorially independent of the university. It was founded in 1899 as ''The Technology Review'', and was re-launched without "The" in ...

'' contributor Rachel Metz described it as a great example of VR's potential for social interaction while criticizing its underdeveloped anti-abuse features. Filmmaker

Joyce Wong Joyce Y. Wong is an American engineer who is Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering at Boston University. Her research develops novel biomaterials for the early detection treatment of disease. Wong is the Ina ...

described ''Rec Room'' as her choice of “most interesting piece of art in 2017”.

References

External links

{{Portal, Video games
Official website

Official community website
2016 video games Android (operating system) games Cooperative video games First-person video games Free-to-play video games HTC Vive games IOS games Massively multiplayer online games Meta Quest games Multiplayer and single-player video games Oculus Rift games PlayStation 4 games PlayStation 5 games PlayStation Move-compatible games PlayStation VR games Social casual games Video game development software Video games developed in the United States Video games with cel-shaded animation Video games with cross-platform play Video games with user-generated gameplay content Virtual reality communities Virtual reality games Windows games Xbox One games Xbox Series X and Series S games