The last time I visited Sandbox VR was during the before times. This is prior to the pandemic and its monumental change around the company’s San Francisco venue. Back then, I went with friends to check out the “Star Trek: Discovery — Away Mission” experience and strapped on doodads to my wrists and ankles to boldly go where no one has gone before.
More than five years later, the place is still familiar, but the technology has changed and the experience has grown better. I checked out a quick demo at GDC and noted the subtle improvements. Sandbox VR has easier straps that snap on with magnets. They had more weapons available with the appropriate force feedback to enhance the realism.
But the biggest upgrade was that the demos were run on Vive Focus Vision, the latest headset from HTC. The standalone device acts much like the Meta Quest 3, meaning it works without being attached to a PC or console. At $999, the device is also nearly twice as much as the one offered from the owner of Facebook, but it has a few features going for it.
The Vive Focus Vision has a higher resolution screen per eye and a larger field of view, meaning the screens together give players a slightly wider perspective. The device has more storage with an expandable slot. The HTC headset also offers auto IPD adjustment, meaning that it aligns the lenses automatically with the centers of the user’s pupils. It’s a quality-of-life perk. It also has a hot swappable battery so that users can extend their play time in VR.
The Quest 3 and Vive Focus Vision have other comparable features with the ability to connect to a gaming PC via wires for better visuals. Again, the biggest difference is price with the Quest 3 at $499. Personally, from my experience at the Sandbox VR demo, I felt the Vive Focus Vision was heavier but more comfortable, but the device’s dual-element Fresnel lenses were inferior to the Quest 3’s pancake ones. It gave a rainbowish effect at times.
We played through a truncated version of Deadwood Valley, where I had to fend off a horde of zombies along with three other people. The experience had a thrill ride feel as most of it took place inside a speeding truck where we shot at zombies chasing us. We had plenty of scares as we drove through a dark tunnel and encounters situations where zombies would sneak through windows of the truck to flank us on each side.
It’s a far more dynamic and bloody experience compared to the “Star Trek” adventure. The Vive headset was an upgrade over what Sandbox used in the past. One thing to note is that the Sandbox used HTC’s newest headset for the media demo, but it’s not available in all places. Most Sandbox VR places use an older version of the Vive headset. Nevertheless, it was a good introduction to the device to see what it can be capable of in a dedicated setting.