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Bonelab

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Bonelab
Information
VR/AR Virtual Reality
Developer Stress Level Zero
Publisher Stress Level Zero
Platform SteamVR, Oculus Rift (Platform), Meta Horizon OS
Device Meta Quest 2, Meta Quest 3, Meta Quest 3S, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Valve Index, Windows Mixed Reality
Operating System Windows, Meta Horizon OS
Type Game
Genre Physics sandbox, Action, First-person shooter
Input Device Tracked Motion Controllers
Play Area Room-scale, Standing, Seated
Game Mode Single-player
Comfort Level Intense (smooth locomotion, climbing, falls, vehicles)
Release Date September 29, 2022
Price US $39.99
App Store Steam, Meta Horizon Store
Website https://www.stresslevelzero.com/
See also: VR Apps and VR Games

Bonelab (stylized BONELAB) is a 2022 virtual reality physics sandbox and action game developed and published by the American studio Stress Level Zero. It is the sequel to the studio's 2019 game Boneworks and was released on September 29, 2022 for Windows PC VR and the Meta Quest 2.[1][2] The game is built on Stress Level Zero's in-house physics interaction engine, Marrow.[2] The player character is a fully physical body, and nearly everything in the game world apart from walls, ceilings and floors is physics driven and can be grabbed, thrown or used against enemies.[3][4] In October 2026 it sells for US$39.99 on both Steam and the Meta Quest store, and its most recent numbered update is Patch 6, released in August 2024.[5][6][7]

Unlike its predecessor, which launched only on PC VR, Bonelab targeted standalone Quest hardware at release. It set a sales record on the platform by earning roughly US$1 million in revenue within its first hour, the fastest any app had reached that figure in Meta Quest history.[8][9] By September 2025 more than two million people had unlocked the game's first achievement on Quest alone, and in Road to VR's May 2026 analysis of Meta's list of the best-selling paid Quest titles it ranked ninth.[9][10]

Reviewed 17 October 2026. Every cited source re-opened: release dates, prices, store ratings, patch history from Stress Level Zero's Steam posts, the five critic reviews, sales and chart claims, modding and Fusion facts, and PC requirements. About review dates.

Gameplay

Bonelab is played from a first-person perspective with a fully simulated physical body. Stress Level Zero states that its player rig does not simply use inverse kinematics to draw a body between the hands and head; it is a fully physical body with spine, elbow and wrist constraints on which the character art is drawn.[4] Movement uses smooth artificial locomotion only; there is no teleportation option.[3][11] Players walk with the left stick (clicking it toggles between running and walking), turn with the right stick and can raise or lower their character's height with the right stick, which also makes seated play possible. Holding the B button opens a menu of equipped weapons, the X button triggers a few seconds of slow motion, and weapons and many items can be grabbed directly or pulled from a distance with a "force grab".[11] Road to VR described pushing doors open with the barrel of a gun and pressing buttons with an elbow, and found climbing ladders and scrambling up ledges inconsistent.[3]

Weapons include ranged, melee and "exotic physics" weapons.[2][5] In PC Gamer's description, firing a gun means inserting a magazine and racking the slide, recoil spoils the player's aim unless the gun is steadied with both hands, blades stick in enemies and need force to pull out, and unarmed fighting allows grappling, tripping and pinning enemies.[12]

The game's defining mechanic is avatar swapping. About halfway through the story the player obtains the Bodylog, an arm-mounted device that switches between physically driven avatars; there are six main avatars, ranging from a small devil-maid character to a monster about 12 feet tall.[12] Each body has physics and stats based on its appearance, giving it physical advantages and disadvantages such as being fast and weak, strong and slow, or tall and lanky.[12][3] A body-remapping system keeps the player's real-world movements aligned with the in-game avatar regardless of how different the avatar's proportions are, and players can enter their own body measurements.[2][12] Custom avatars imported by players receive physical stats to match their appearance.[2][13]

Beyond the story campaign, Bonelab's hub gives access to arenas, obstacle courses, tactical trials, sandboxes, experimental modes, and user-generated levels; items, avatars and clues collected in these locations advance the story.[5] Road to VR listed time trials with combat and parkour, a full sandbox for spawning enemies and items, and mini-games such as physics bowling.[3] Players unlock additional props, weapons, avatars and non-player characters, delivered through in-game capsules, for use in the sandbox levels. A gashapon machine added in Patch 4 lets players redeem ammunition collected during the campaign for unlockable objects they missed.[14][12]

Story

According to the store description, the player is an outcast sentenced to death who escapes and discovers a hidden underground research facility in MythOS city.[5] The game opens with a public execution by hanging; the player cuts the rope with a floating dagger and falls into an underground chamber.[11] PC Gamer described the setting as an alternate 1990s in which VR took off early, with a story about breaking out of a corporate-run metaverse to become a hacker and modder.[12] Reviewers put the campaign at five to seven hours: Road to VR and PC Gamer at five to six hours, UploadVR at six to seven.[3][12][13]

Development

Stress Level Zero, the studio behind Boneworks, developed Bonelab as a direct continuation, built on what it described as two years of additional work on its physics interaction engine.[2][15] Before its reveal the project was known publicly only as "Project 4", a tentative name used in a Stress Level Zero Steam post in late November 2019, which said the game would not be exclusive to any platform. In February 2020 the studio said in an Oculus blog post that it was "working on bringing Boneworks' mechanics and core systems to Oculus Quest in an all-new project".[16] Its soundtrack is by Michael Wyckoff, who also scored Boneworks.[15][12] Marrow is a physics framework the studio developed for the Unity engine.[17]

The game was announced on April 20, 2022 at the Meta Quest Gaming Showcase, where Stress Level Zero showed the first gameplay footage and confirmed Meta Quest 2 and PC VR as the launch platforms for a 2022 release.[15] A central engineering goal was running the full physics simulation on the mobile Quest 2 hardware while preserving the object interactivity of the PC original; Android Central wrote that the studio had ported Boneworks' Marrow 1 physics and interaction engine to Quest 2.[2][11] The release date was revealed in a trailer on September 23, 2022, six days before launch.[1]

Updates

Stress Level Zero released two patches in the first two months after launch. Patch 2 (November 2022) made keycards functional to unlock hidden developer rooms, added unlockable weapons, an avatar and more than 30 props, reworked the Sprint Bridge level, and on PC added variable rate shading for NVIDIA Turing and later GPUs and an interaction profile for the HP Reverb G2.[18] Patch 3 was released as a beta in February 2023 and never went public.[19] In a first-anniversary post in September 2023, the studio said it was focused on core technology, optimization and the Marrow SDK rather than rapid feature releases, and that the reworked player could use a full-body animation as input while running 38% lighter on a Quest 2 CPU than in Patch 3.[20]

On June 7, 2024, Stress Level Zero released Patch 4, the first major public update in more than a year, which the studio said followed 18 months of core development.[19][14] Patch 4 added Meta Quest 3-specific graphics enhancements (a larger texture cache, 4x anisotropic filtering, and improved foveated rendering), reworked the player rig (adding a physical neck and physical twist bones in the arms and thighs, plus improved mantling, lever, and aiming behavior), rebuilt the zone system used for level streaming, and overhauled the MarrowSDK modding toolkit, including the ability to connect a mod.io account and download subscribed mods directly.[19][14] Patch 5 followed in July 2024 and Patch 6 in August 2024, both largely focused on new Marrow SDK tools for level creators; a hotfix on October 31, 2024 corrected controller tracking under the SteamVR OpenXR runtime after SteamVR 2.8.[4][7][21]

Update Date Main changes
Patch 1 October 20, 2022 Bug fixes and level adjustments; level selection made available through progression[22]
Patch 2 November 21, 2022 Keycards and developer rooms, new unlockables, Sprint Bridge rework, VRS on PC, Reverb G2 profile, Index grip-force tuning[18]
Patch 3 February 2023 (beta only) Never released publicly[19]
Patch 4 June 7, 2024 Player rig rework, rebuilt zone system, Quest 3 graphics improvements, MarrowSDK level-creation tools, mod.io subscription downloads, gashapon unlock machine[14]
Patch 5 July 18, 2024 Zone Aggro, Spawn Force and surface data cards in the SDK, arm-twist changes to the player rig, material and VFX cleanup, PC transparent materials on Quest 3[4]
Patch 6 August 27, 2024 Circuitry system and fixtures (buttons, levers, slider, airlock door) in the SDK, rendering optimizations, fix for a Patch 5 avatar-switching bug[7]
Hotfix October 31, 2024 Controller tracking fix for the SteamVR OpenXR runtime[21]

In January 2025 co-founder Brandon Laatsch listed among the studio's goals for the year the release of Patches 7, 8 and 9 for Bonelab alongside versions 2, 2.1 and 2.2 of Marrow, a Quest 3 version of Boneworks developed in parallel on Marrow 2, and pre-production of its next game; no release window was given.[17][23] UploadVR reported that Bonelab is also planned to support the inside-out upper body tracking of the Quest 3 and 3S.[23] As of October 2026, Patch 6 and the October 2024 hotfix remain the latest updates announced on the game's Steam news page, and the documentation of the Fusion multiplayer mod, last edited in August 2026, still requires Patch 6.[24][25]

Modding

Bonelab shipped with official modding support on both PC and Quest, built on the MarrowSDK; Stress Level Zero said players would be able to import avatars, items, vehicles and entire levels.[3][19] At launch, players could import custom avatars, with stats assigned automatically from each avatar's silhouette, and the studio said mod support would expand over time.[13] Android Central noted an in-game mod browser at launch, and PC Gamer reported in November 2022 that the SDK did not yet officially support creating new AI or custom items.[11][12] Since Patch 4, players can link a mod.io account and download subscribed mods directly, and Patch 5 made the mod.io connection link copy automatically on Quest.[19][4] The SDK is set up in the Unity editor; the official setup guide specifies Unity version 2021.3.16f1.[26]

Community projects include Labworks, by modders Volx64 and EvroDev, which recreates the full Boneworks campaign and several non-campaign levels inside Bonelab on Quest and PC VR and is distributed through mod.io to Bonelab owners.[27] Laatsch said in January 2025 that the studio would not take Labworks down.[17] Fusion, by Lakatrazz, is "a multiplayer mod for BONELAB featuring support for all platforms" and states that it is not affiliated with Stress Level Zero; Bonelab itself has no official multiplayer.[28][12] Road to VR's review called modding the factor that could "make or break" the game in the long term, and PC Gamer wrote that the mod scene "is where Bonelab's true potential is".[3][12]

Release

Bonelab launched simultaneously on PC VR and Meta Quest 2 on September 29, 2022; the original Oculus Quest is not supported.[1][2] The Quest version includes cross-buy with the Rift platform version.[29] Quest 3-specific enhancements arrived with Patch 4 in June 2024, and the Meta Quest 3S, released October 15, 2024, is compatible with Meta's full Quest app library.[19][30] On Steam the game requires a 64-bit Windows 10 PC with at least an Intel i5 7600, 8 GB of RAM, a GTX 1070 or 1660 Ti with 6 GB of VRAM, 20 GB of storage on an SSD, and a SteamVR or OpenXR runtime.[5]

Platform / device Storefront Release date
PC VR (SteamVR, Oculus Rift platform) Steam, Meta Quest Store (PC) September 29, 2022[1]
Meta Quest 2 Meta Quest Store September 29, 2022[2]
Meta Quest 3 (enhanced) Meta Quest Store Patch 4 enhancements, June 7, 2024[19]
Meta Quest 3S Meta Quest Store Compatible from the headset's launch on October 15, 2024[30]

Reception

Bonelab drew divided reviews. The PC version holds a Metascore of 65 out of 100 on Metacritic, indicating "mixed or average" reviews, based on five critic reviews.[31] PC Gamer scored it 81 out of 100, calling it a game that pushes VR's boundaries, "strange, playful and committed to creativity, but intense if you're new to VR"; the reviewer praised the improved melee and unarmed fighting and the soundtrack, and criticized uneven pacing and some physics jank.[12] Android Central gave it 4 out of 5, writing that the studio had brought the Boneworks physics to Quest 2 and improved on it, while warning that most players would likely feel sick within minutes.[11]

Road to VR was more critical, giving it 5 out of 10: the reviewer praised the consistent physics-driven interactivity, the avatar-swap interface, the soundtrack, and how it looked and performed on Quest 2, despite some slowdowns in later scenes and occasional crashes, but criticized a thin narrative delivered through a few voice and text logs, bland enemies, weak weapon variety, and frustrating climbing and holstering.[3] Comfort was rated low (5 out of 10): the game launches the player through the air, uses smooth turning on vehicles and drops the player from great heights, and it warns players up front that they should have serious VR experience.[3] UploadVR's unscored review called the campaign "more of an afterthought" next to the sandbox features, reported stutters, frame drops and crashes on Quest 2 ("It's certainly playable, but not a completely smooth experience"), and said the game was not recommended for people new to VR.[13]

Publication Score Reviewed
Metacritic (PC, aggregate) 65/100 Five critic reviews[31]
PC Gamer 81/100 PC VR[12]
Android Central 4/5 Quest 2[11]
Road to VR 5/10 Quest 2[3]
UploadVR Unscored Quest 2[13]

As of October 2026, Steam shows a "Very Positive" summary from about 20,700 user reviews, and the Quest store listing shows an average of 4.6 out of 5 from about 35,000 ratings.[5][6] Bonelab was nominated for VR Game of the Year at the Steam Awards 2022, which was won by Hitman 3.[32][33]

Sales

Meta disclosed during its Meta Connect livestream in October 2022 that Bonelab earned about US$1 million in its first hour on Quest, calling it "the fastest-selling app in the entire history of Meta Quest".[8] At the same event Meta said that Resident Evil 4 VR had passed US$2 million in its first 24 hours on Quest, Zenith: The Last City US$1 million in 24 hours, and Blade & Sorcery: Nomad US$1 million in two days.[34] On Steam, Valve's Best of 2022 chart of VR games by gross revenue placed Bonelab in its top Platinum tier, one of only two 2022 releases there alongside Zenith: The Last City.[35]

In its September 2023 anniversary post, Stress Level Zero said that after one year Bonelab had three times the median playtime, one third of the refunds and ten times the daily active users of Boneworks.[20] Achievement data indicated more than two million Quest players by September 2025, alongside an estimated half a million owners of the PC VR version on Steam per third-party tracking services. At that time Meta's list of the 50 best-selling paid Quest games placed it 11th.[9] In Road to VR's 2026 analysis of Meta's updated list, which covers initial sales and excludes DLC and in-app purchases, Bonelab ranked ninth, up two places.[10]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Ben Lang (2022-09-23). "New 'Bonelab' Trailer Reveals Surprise Release Date, Unique Avatar-swapping Gameplay". Road to VR. https://roadtovr.com/bonelab-release-date-quest-2-pc-vr-gameplay-trailer/. Retrieved 2026-10-17.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 "Let's Get Physical: 'BONELAB' Blasts Onto Meta Quest 2 and the Rift Platform". Meta Quest Blog. 2022-09-29. https://www.meta.com/blog/bonelab-boneworks-stress-level-zero-vr-physics/. Retrieved 2026-10-17.
  3. ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 Ben Lang (2022-10-04). "'Bonelab' Review - An Ambitious Sandbox Waiting for the Right Toys". Road to VR. https://www.roadtovr.com/bonelab-review-quest-2-oculus-steam/. Retrieved 2026-10-17.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 "Patch #5". Steam. Stress Level Zero. 2024-07-18. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1592190/view/5969041959965924938. Retrieved 2026-10-17.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 "BONELAB on Steam". Steam. Valve. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1592190/BONELAB/. Retrieved 2026-10-17.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 "BONELAB". Meta Horizon Store. Meta Platforms. https://www.meta.com/experiences/bonelab/4215734068529064/. Retrieved 2026-10-17.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 "Patch #6". Steam. Stress Level Zero. 2024-08-27. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1592190/view/5875595438707222822. Retrieved 2026-10-17.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Justin Carter (2022-10-13). "Bonelab made $1M within first hour of release, becomes Meta Quest's fastest-selling title". Game Developer. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/game-platforms/-i-bonelab-i-made-1m-within-first-hour-of-release-becomes-meta-quest-s-fastest-selling-title. Retrieved 2026-10-17.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 David Heaney (2025-09-03). "2 Million People Have Now Played Bonelab On Quest Alone". UploadVR. https://www.uploadvr.com/bonelab-at-least-2-million-owners-on-meta-quest-alone/. Retrieved 2026-10-17.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Scott Hayden (2026-05-06). "The 50 Best-selling Quest Games of All Time - 2026 Analysis". Road to VR. https://roadtovr.com/best-selling-quest-games-all-time-2026/. Retrieved 2026-10-17.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 11.5 11.6 Nicholas Sutrich (2022-09-29). "Bonelab review: The new standard for VR physics-based games". Android Central. https://www.androidcentral.com/gaming/virtual-reality/bonelab-review-the-new-standard-for-vr-physics-based-games. Retrieved 2026-10-17.
  12. ↑ 12.00 12.01 12.02 12.03 12.04 12.05 12.06 12.07 12.08 12.09 12.10 12.11 12.12 Dominic Tarason (2022-11-04). "Bonelab review". PC Gamer. https://www.pcgamer.com/bonelab-review/. Retrieved 2026-10-17.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 13.4 Harry Baker (2022-09-29). "Bonelab Review: Unrelenting Intensity Meets Mainstream VR On Quest 2". UploadVR. https://www.uploadvr.com/bonelab-review/. Retrieved 2026-10-17.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 14.3 "Patch #4". Steam. Stress Level Zero. 2024-06-07. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1592190/view/5746109972550527965. Retrieved 2026-10-17.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 "'BONELAB', Successor to the Popular 'BONEWORKS', Announced for Quest 2 & PC VR". Road to VR. 2022-04-20. https://roadtovr.com/bonelab-announcement-trailer-project-4-quest-2-pc-vr-release-date/. Retrieved 2026-10-17.
  16. ↑ Scott Hayden (2020-02-21). "Stress Level Zero Affirms Work on Next 'Boneworks' Game, Planned for Quest and PC VR Headsets". Road to VR. https://roadtovr.com/boneworks-rift-quest-stress-level-zero/. Retrieved 2026-10-17.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 Scott Hayden (2025-01-09). "Physics Action Puzzler 'BONEWORKS' is Coming to Quest 3, Pre-production for Next Game Announced". Road to VR. https://www.roadtovr.com/boneworks-quest-3-release-date-next-game/. Retrieved 2026-10-17.
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 "PATCH #2". Steam. Stress Level Zero. 2022-11-21. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1592190/view/4789043687486731703. Retrieved 2026-10-17.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 19.2 19.3 19.4 19.5 19.6 19.7 Scott Hayden (2024-06-07). "First 'Bonelab' Update in More Than a Year Brings Enhancements for Quest 3, Modding & Physics". Road to VR. https://roadtovr.com/bonelab-update-quest-3-enhancements/. Retrieved 2026-10-17.
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 "Anniversary Post". Steam. Stress Level Zero. 2023-09-30. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1592190/view/5220291886492357149. Retrieved 2026-10-17.
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 "Hotfix - controller tracking". Steam. Stress Level Zero. 2024-10-31. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1592190/view/6146943657173910363. Retrieved 2026-10-17.
  22. ↑ "Patch #1". Steam. Stress Level Zero. 2022-10-20. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1592190/view/4714731755413283952. Retrieved 2026-10-17.
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 Henry Stockdale (2025-01-09). "Boneworks Is Heading To Quest 3 As SLZ Begins Pre-Production On Next Game". UploadVR. https://www.uploadvr.com/boneworks-is-heading-to-quest-3-as-stress-level-zero-begins-pre-production-on-next-game/. Retrieved 2026-10-17.
  24. ↑ "BONELAB - News". Steam. Valve. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1592190. Retrieved 2026-10-17.
  25. ↑ "BONELAB-Fusion Wiki". GitHub. Lakatrazz. 2026-08-01. https://github.com/Lakatrazz/BONELAB-Fusion/wiki. Retrieved 2026-10-17.
  26. ↑ "ProjectSetup - MarrowSDK Wiki". GitHub. Stress Level Zero. https://github.com/StressLevelZero/MarrowSDK/wiki/ProjectSetup. Retrieved 2026-10-17.
  27. ↑ Henry Stockdale (2024-05-28). "PC VR Hit Boneworks Is Now Playable On Quest Via Bonelab Mod". UploadVR. https://www.uploadvr.com/boneworks-quest-mod-bonelab-labworks/. Retrieved 2026-10-17.
  28. ↑ "BONELAB-Fusion". GitHub. Lakatrazz. https://github.com/Lakatrazz/BONELAB-Fusion. Retrieved 2026-10-17.
  29. ↑ Henry Stockdale (2024-06-07). "Bonelab Update Adds Quest 3 Enhancements & Physics Upgrades". UploadVR. https://www.uploadvr.com/bonelab-quest-3-update-patch-4/. Retrieved 2026-10-17.
  30. ↑ 30.0 30.1 "Meta Quest 3S Is Available Now". Meta Quest Blog. Meta Platforms. 2024-10-15. https://www.meta.com/blog/meta-quest-3s-announced-connect-2024/. Retrieved 2026-10-17.
  31. ↑ 31.0 31.1 "BONELAB Reviews". Metacritic. https://www.metacritic.com/game/bonelab/. Retrieved 2026-10-17.
  32. ↑ "Steam Awards 2022". Steam. Stress Level Zero. 2022-12-22. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1592190/view/5000716037443266394. Retrieved 2026-10-17.
  33. ↑ Jordan Fragen (2023-01-03). "The Steam Awards 2022 announces winners". GamesBeat. https://gamesbeat.com/the-steam-awards-2022-announces-winners/. Retrieved 2026-10-17.
  34. ↑ Scott Hayden (2022-10-13). "'Bonelab' Made $1M in First Hour on Quest, Setting Record as Fastest Selling Game on Platform". Road to VR. https://www.roadtovr.com/bonelab-quest-2-record-1-m-revenue/. Retrieved 2026-10-17.
  35. ↑ "Valve Reveals Top Selling VR Games on Steam in 2022". Road to VR. 2023-01-03. https://www.roadtovr.com/valve-reveals-top-selling-vr-games-on-steam-2022. Retrieved 2026-10-17.
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