‘Blade & Sorcery: Nomad’ Coming Exclusively to Quest 2 November 4th

By
Scott Hayden
-
15

A sperate, standalone version of the PC VR combat sandbox Blade & Sorcery is going to bring its physics-based carnage to Quest 2 on November 4th.

Blade & Sorcery is widely regarded as the premier combat sandbox for SteamVR headsets, letting players take on hordes of realistic combat dummies with a variety of medieval weaponry, such as swords, daggers, axes, maces, and more.

Called Blade & Sorcery: Nomad, the Quest 2 version of the game will have “almost all of the features and content of the PCVR game version U10 Dungeons Update,” developing studio Warpfrog say.

The PC VR’s U10 Dungeon update arrived in late October, expanding beyond the game’s sandbox roots and introducing a more linear experience with procedurally generated dungeons for players to crawl and fight through. Take a look at U10 in action below:

The studio says it’s trying to make Blade & Sorcery: Nomad “as close to the PCVR version as humanly possible,” arriving with “just about everything the PCVR game has.” Like the PC VR title, the Quest 2 version will allow for third-party mods so you can do things like fight with your favorite weapons, such as lightsabers, modern military weapons, and create extra opportunities for blood and gore.

As a Quest 2 exclusive, it won’t be coming to the original Quest though. When asked, Warpfrog says this about original Quest support:

“No, I’m sorry, but it will not. I know I kept saying we would look into it, and we did. Ultimately we realized that making the game work for the original Quest would limit the full Blade & Sorcery experience, which is why we chose to focus our efforts on optimizing Blade & Sorcery for the Quest 2.”

SEE ALSO
Apple Reveals Official Vision Pro Accessories, Including $200 Carrying Case

Warpfrog says the reason for creating the version specifically for Quest 2 was based around the decision to not intentionally reduce the PC VR version’s quality in order to force Blade & Sorcery to work on the standalone headset.

“Similarly, we wanted to distinguish they are separate titles so that we can reserve the right to steam ahead with PCVR development without restriction,” says Warpfrog. “If they were the same title, then the PCVR version would be limited in scope by the Quest 2 capabilities, and we didn’t want that. Instead, we prefer to make exactly the PCVR game we want to, and then optimize things for Nomad and/or omit anything that is not yet possible for the Quest 2 tech-wise.”

Blade & Sorcery: Nomad is landing exclusively on Quest 2 on November 4th, priced at $20.

Update (4:30 PM ET): Further explanation was provided above to define B&S Nomad as a Quest 2 exclusive (read: not original Quest).

 

This article may contain affiliate links. If you click an affiliate link and buy a product we may receive a small commission which helps support the publication. See here for more information.


Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 3,500 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • Anon

    Screw Quest exclusives. We shouldn’t be celebrating this. At least LE2 can be played on any Steamvr or Oculus headset.

    • asdfas

      its not really an exclusive, its a version thats as close to the real version as possible with simpler aspects to make it work on the quest, while keeping it separate so it doesnt have to bring the full version down with it.

    • Arturs Gerskovics

      it is a skimmed down pcvr version

    • MeowMix

      It’s slimmed down Quest2 port, what exclusive ?

    • shadow9d9

      And that is exactly why they went quest only.

  • MeowMix

    Will this game be Crossbuy on the Oculus store ? I don’t own the game on PC, but if I buy the Quest2 version, it’d be nice to also see the full experience on the PC.

    • Kevin Brook

      I’m guessing definitely not as they are stressing it’s a separate title from PCVR Blade and Sorcery.

  • VRFriend

    Damn exclusives. Such a bs and hostile approach.

    • MeowMix

      It’s a slimmed down port of the PCVR version; I’m not sure why they say ‘exclusive’, maybe to signal its not coming to the Quest1

      • benz145

        That’s correct. Quest 2 but not Quest 1.

      • Kevin Brook

        Exactly, exclusive to Quest 2, not available on original Quest as they don’t want to further dilute the experience. This is a good thing. Honestly upgrading from Quest 1 to Quest 2 is the best value for money upgrade in all of computing. It cost me £3600 to build a PC capable of playing Microsoft Flight Simulator properly with a Reverb G2. It will cost me £2350 to buy a Varjo Aero if I choose to get the best display possible for that experience.

        Selling a Quest 1 for 99 dollars, and buying the Quest 2 for 299 and you’ve made a sizeable upgrade to your experience for the tiniest fraction of the cost of upgrading to high end PCVR beyond the Quest 2.

    • ViRGiN

      I will agree the moment Alyx is sold outside Steam.

  • shadow9d9

    A barebones framework of a game stuck in perpetual alpha.

    • ViRGiN

      Exactly like Pavlov and Onward, games forever in early access, never really going beyond it. But people love it, and that’s all that matters to them.

  • Squirrel

    Exactly how it should be done. Other developers take note. Keep the pcvr version as good as it can be, and just port a lesser version to the more limited hardware. Don’t neuter your game like the Onward and Eleven devs did when they questified them.