Vanishing Realms

Vanishing Realms
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Information
VR/AR	Virtual Reality
Developer	Indimo Labs LLC
Publisher	Indimo Labs LLC
Platform	SteamVR
Device	HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Valve Index
Operating System	Windows
Type	Full Game
Genre	Action, Adventure, RPG
Input Device	Tracked Motion Controllers
Play Area	Room-Scale
Game Mode	Single Player
Release Date	April 5, 2016 (Early Access); August 23, 2019 (full release)
Price	US$19.99
App Store	Steam
Website	vanishingrealms.com

See also: VR Apps and VR Games

Vanishing Realms (full title Vanishing Realms: Rite of Steel; listed on Steam as "Vanishing Realms™") is a virtual reality action role-playing game for PC VR headsets, developed and published by Indimo Labs LLC, the one-person studio of former Valve developer Kelly Bailey. The player explores dungeons, forests and mines, solves light puzzles and fights undead monsters in close-quarters sword, bow and magic combat using two tracked motion controllers.

The game entered Steam Early Access on 5 April 2016 as a launch title for the HTC Vive. It stayed in Early Access for more than three years while Bailey added content, locomotion options and support for Oculus Rift and Valve Index hardware, and it left Early Access on 23 August 2019, when the paid expansion Vanishing Realms: The Sundered Rift was released. The base game costs US$19.99 on Steam.

Reviewed 12 October 2026. Steam store and app data (price, dates, languages, achievements, requirements, user rating), the DLC listing, all nine Steam announcements cited, the Forbes preview (archive copy), the UploadVR and Road to VR articles and reviews, the official site, and the merge of both duplicate pages' facts, image, video, links and categories. About review dates.

Gameplay

Vanishing Realms is a first-person dungeon crawler played standing or walking in a room-scale play space; its Steam listing requires a room-scale area of 2 m by 1.5 m. The game has little narrative. In its Early Access review, UploadVR wrote that exploring the world was the main motivation to keep playing. Weapons and items are held directly in the hands: the player picks up swords, shields, bows and magic items, blocks enemy strikes, looks for openings in their armor and strikes back, and can dual-wield swords. Road to VR's reviewer noted that the Vive controllers' haptic feedback gave weight to blocks, swings and shots. Enemies include sword-wielding skeletons and foes that throw fireballs, often in mixed groups.

In the pre-launch demo that Jason Evangelho of Forbes played, no interface covered the player's view; looking down showed icons for health, mana, a sword sheath and a backpack, and items such as apples (which restore health) or a torch were stored by reaching into the backpack with the controller. The player gathers gold coins hidden around the world and spends them on weapons found in the dungeon; UploadVR noted that there is no character progression system. Puzzles use the physical environment, for example lighting fires or finding keys, and many world objects can be grabbed, thrown, burned or broken.

At launch the main way to move was teleportation: the player points the controller, holds the trackpad and releases it at the target, and can also walk within the play space. Later updates added continuous "glide" movement, an optional vignette that masks peripheral vision during gliding, a sprint option, snap turning and climbing of ropes, chains and ladders. In his 2019 expansion review, David Jagneaux of UploadVR wrote that the game still leans heavily on teleportation, though smooth movement can be enabled.

The base game has two chapters. The first covers exploration, treasure and monster fighting. The second contains the "Rite of Steel" arena trials, which in the Early Access launch build had nine waves of enemies with a 60-second limit per round. The September 2016 update kept the arena's two-death limit but relaxed the time constraint, and added a hard mode with enemy AI that can parry, dodge, pursue and chain attacks.

Development

According to Forbes, Bailey was "pretty much the 5th employee Valve ever hired"; he created the music and sound effects for Half-Life and Half-Life 2, designed the test chamber disaster sequence that opens Half-Life, and was the basis for Gordon Freeman's face. He began Vanishing Realms after obtaining an HTC Vive development kit in 2015. In March 2016, Forbes reported that he had worked on the game for about seven months, 16 hours a day, and that he was its only developer; asked how many people worked on it, Bailey answered, "It's just me." A demo was shown in Valve's space at the Game Developers Conference in March 2016, during the last two days of the show, when Valve handed its booth to third-party developers instead of showing The Lab.

The Early Access store page estimated "4-8 weeks for Chapters 1 & 2" and listed performance tuning for lower-end graphics cards, Steam achievements and bug fixes as the remaining work. In a September 2016 roadmap, Bailey wrote that about five months of further full-time work had shipped since launch and that new content for a third chapter would likely be sold as DLC. A March 2017 edit to the same post removed the shipping schedule and stated that chapters 1 and 2 had taken more than 2,500 hours of development time.

Bailey later told UploadVR that by late 2017 he felt the base game was ready to ship, but he kept it in Early Access while building the expansion because the two shared technology. He said that leaving Early Access in 2017 "would have been a much clearer message to customers", and that working without a publisher's schedule "made the game much better in the end". In July 2018, UploadVR reported a post on the game's Steam Community hub saying that new content was "still in the works, albeit ridiculously slowly". In June 2019 the studio replied to a player on Steam that a "Full Expansion ships in a few weeks, Ch3 & Ch4". Road to VR reported that Bailey wrote at the time that he remained the sole developer on the project and apologized for the lack of communication; an August 2019 update to the article noted that the expansion had still not shipped and that no new date had been given.

Release

The game was released in Steam Early Access on 5 April 2016 for US$19.99. A September 2017 update improved Oculus hardware support, including the correct Oculus controller models in the training area, and a major game engine upgrade that allowed larger outdoor areas for future expansions. Steam achievements and Simplified Chinese language support followed in January 2018, and Valve Index controller support in June 2019, with grip-based climbing, throwing and dropping.

The base game left Early Access with the release of the expansion. In the announcement, Bailey listed changes made during Early Access, including the hard mode, a new mid-game dungeon with a two-story maze, two mining caves and three outdoor areas (17 new combat encounters and 3 puzzles), smooth movement and snap turning, simpler inventory with weapon "hot swap", climbing, and relit environments with 3D grass. He also wrote that Steam reported an average playtime of 3 hours 50 minutes for the game.

Date	Release or update	Notes
5 April 2016	Early Access launch on Steam	HTC Vive; US$19.99
29 April 2016	First update	Expandable inventory, multiple save games, haptic feedback, teleport wall-distance changes
3 September 2016	Second update	Hard mode, expanded mid-game, two-handed bow aiming and melee weapon, checkpoint replay
21 September 2017	2017 update	Glide, vignette, sprint, rotate and climbing; improved Oculus Rift support; engine upgrade
10 January 2018	January 2018 update	Steam achievements, Simplified Chinese, Oculus Touch input changes
28 June 2019	June 2019 update	Valve Index Controllers support
23 August 2019	Version 1.0 and The Sundered Rift	Base game leaves Early Access; expansion US$14.99
8 April 2020	The Sundered Rift update	Bug fixes; extra mana pickups near the end-game

As of October 2026 the Steam listing shows Windows support only, English and Simplified Chinese languages, nine Steam achievements and tracked controller support. The official website describes it as available "for the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and compatible VR Systems".

The Sundered Rift

Vanishing Realms: The Sundered Rift is paid DLC that requires the base game; the player must reach the end of the base game to start it. It was released on Steam on 23 August 2019 at US$14.99, with a 20% launch discount to US$11.99 until 30 August. Bailey told Road to VR that it was "even larger than the base game, spanning six distinct environments and featuring ten new monsters and many new weapon types"; his feature list also cited more than 15 new achievements, and Road to VR reported that the expansion concludes the game's story. According to UploadVR, the expansion had taken more than two years. In October 2019 the two games were offered together in a "Complete The Set" bundle on Steam.

Reception

Forbes's preview of the GDC 2016 demo described the game as "a real-life D&D game crossed with The Legend of Zelda" and called a fight with a skeleton "a battle with weight, with tactics, and honestly with a bit of fear". Reviewing the Early Access version for UploadVR, Jason Evangelho called it "a visceral, awe-inspiring VR experience steeped in intuitive, tactile gameplay", while criticizing textures that look flat up close, an inventory that was awkward to use in battle and the lack of a progression system. He played for about three and a half hours.

Garret Bullard of Road to VR played for about two hours and wrote that the game was "one of the best experiences to be had on the HTC Vive" and that it "justifies the $20 purchase". He noted that distant enemies sometimes stood idle within bow range and suggested that a more story-driven RPG would build on the game's strengths. In 2018, UploadVR still recommended the game for its sword combat, which used positional tracking for blocking with a shield and striking back, alongside archery and magic.

UploadVR's David Jagneaux tested The Sundered Rift on an Oculus Rift S and wrote that it was "an epic conclusion for Indimo Labs that successfully manages to expand on what made the original so great". He estimated the base game at about two to three hours and the expansion at upwards of four hours. Bailey told UploadVR that the expansion had been well received. On Steam, the base game holds a "Very Positive" user rating from more than 2,500 reviews as of October 2026.

System requirements

Component	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system	Windows 7+	Windows 7+
Processor	Intel Core i7	Intel Core i7-4790
Memory	Not listed	16 GB RAM
Graphics	Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 equivalent or higher	Nvidia GeForce GTX 980, AMD R9-290x or equivalent
Storage	2 GB available space	2 GB available space
VR support	SteamVR; room-scale area of 2 m by 1.5 m required	Not listed

Source: Steam store listing.

Images and videos

• Vanishing Realms Gameplay on HTC Vive - gameplay video from Polygon
• INSANE VIRTUAL REALITY - Vanishing Realms (HTC Vive) - gameplay footage from TobyGames
• Vanishing Realms Early Access Video Review - video review from UploadVR