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Vankrupt Games

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Vankrupt Games
Information
Industry Video games, Virtual reality
Founded 2019
Founder David Villarreal
Notable Personnel David Villarreal (owner)
Products Pavlov, Pavlov Shack, Pavlov TV
Website https://www.vankrupt.com/

Vankrupt Games (legal name Vankrupt Games Inc.)[1] is an independent virtual reality game studio that develops and publishes Pavlov, a multiplayer VR first-person shooter for PC VR and PlayStation VR2, and Pavlov Shack, the standalone version of the game for Meta Quest headsets and the Steam Frame.[2][3] The studio was founded in 2019 by David Villarreal, who had released Pavlov on Steam Early Access in 2017 as a solo developer under the handle "davevillz". In 2021 Tom's Guide described Villarreal as the studio's founder and CEO. Its website describes Vankrupt as a fully self-funded studio with Villarreal as its owner and sole investor.[2][4][5]

Pavlov is a team-based multiplayer shooter; the studio's 2023 press release cites more than 65 fully interactable weapons and an extensive modding community.[6] It was a launch title for PlayStation VR2 in February 2023 and left Steam Early Access on 4 December 2024.[3][7] Pavlov Shack moved from free beta builds on SideQuest and App Lab to a paid release on the Meta Quest Store in November 2023.[8][6]

Reviewed 15 October 2026. Vankrupt website, Steam store pages and Steam news posts (Updates 29, 29 FAQ, 31, 34), PlayStation Store listing, the 2023 Games Press release, the 2021 Unreal forum job post and the cited UploadVR, Road to VR, MIXED and Tom's Guide articles checked against every date, number, quote, ranking and infobox value About review dates.

History

Pavlov as a solo project

Pavlov entered Steam Early Access on 27 February 2017.[3] In May 2017 UploadVR described it as "designed and published by a one-man team" and identified the developer as davevillz; the article named the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive as the headsets it ran on.[5] According to the studio, Vankrupt Games was formed in 2019 after the success of Pavlov on Steam, and it grew from a single developer into a small studio.[2][6]

Growth and new platforms

A cut-down standalone build for Quest headsets, Pavlov Shack, was first distributed free through SideQuest, where it had "nearly half a million downloads" by March 2021. On 31 March 2021 the free beta moved to Oculus App Lab, removing the need for sideloading.[8] A job listing that Vankrupt posted on the Unreal Engine forums in April 2021 described it as "a small VR gaming studio with currently 20 employees" that used Unreal Engine to develop for both mobile and PC VR hardware, and listed the position as fully remote.[9]

In January 2023 Vankrupt confirmed that Pavlov would launch alongside PlayStation VR2 on 22 February 2023. Posting as davevillz, the developer said the PlayStation version was "the same version as PC with crossplay" and that Pavlov Shack would not cross-play with it at that point.[7] The PlayStation 5 version is published under the name Vankrupt Games, Inc. and was priced at US$24.99 on the US PlayStation Store as of October 2026.[10] On the PlayStation Store download charts for March 2023, the first full month after the headset's launch, Pavlov was the top PS VR2 download in the US and Canada and in Europe.[11]

Update 29 in June 2023 moved Pavlov to Unreal Engine 5.1 and the OpenXR input standard and enabled cross-play between PC and PlayStation 5 players. Because the engine upgrade made older custom content incompatible, the studio retired Steam Workshop support and moved mod hosting to mod.io, which it said would let it deliver mods across platforms; older Workshop content stayed playable through a "Legacy" Steam beta branch.[12][13]

Quest Store release

On 14 November 2023 Pavlov Shack left App Lab and went on sale on the Meta Quest Store for US$19.99, supporting the Meta Quest 3, Meta Quest 2 and Meta Quest Pro. The launch build added Modkit 3.0, which lets several mods stack on one server, and three new maps. The launch press release quoted Villarreal, credited as "Dave Villz, Owner of Vankrupt Games", and said the studio had grown to 25 team members.[6] A sponsored post by Vankrupt's Will Cloxton on Road to VR the same week said that Pavlov Shack had moved from Unreal Engine 4 to Unreal Engine 5 earlier in 2023 and gained mod.io support with an in-game mod browser.[14]

In April 2024 Vankrupt said it was "no longer pursuing UGC on the PSVR2" because it could not work out a viable pipeline for delivering mods to the PlayStation 5.[15]

Full release and Steam Frame

Pavlov left Early Access on Steam on 4 December 2024.[3] Update 31, released the same day, added weapon cosmetics bought with an in-game currency called "Jared Coins", brought six Pavlov Shack maps to the Steam and PlayStation VR2 versions, and made the Pavlov TV spectator and replay tool a free standalone Steam application.[16][17]

In August 2026 Update 34 announced that Pavlov Shack would be available on Valve's Steam Frame headset and that existing Steam owners of Pavlov could redeem it for free.[18] The Steam listing for Pavlov Shack gives a release date of 21 August 2026 and states that it supports the Steam Frame hardware only.[19]

Products

Title Release Platforms Notes
Pavlov Early Access 27 February 2017; full release 4 December 2024 Windows PC VR headsets (Steam); PlayStation VR2 on PlayStation 5 from 22 February 2023 Multiplayer VR shooter; PC and PS5 cross-play since Update 29[3][7][12]
Pavlov Shack free SideQuest beta (before March 2021); App Lab beta 31 March 2021; Meta Quest Store 14 November 2023; Steam 21 August 2026 Meta Quest headsets; Steam Frame Standalone version of Pavlov; US$19.99 at Quest Store launch; free on Steam for Pavlov owners[8][6][19]
Pavlov TV 4 December 2024 (standalone) Windows (Steam) Free spectator and replay tool for Pavlov and Pavlov Shack[16][17]

Reception and sales

UploadVR's May 2017 coverage of the Early Access game ran under the headline "Counter-Strike VR Is (Basically) Here And Its Name Is Pavlov".[5] Pavlov Shack was 39th on the list of the 50 best-selling Quest games of all time that Meta revealed in April 2025, which ranked games by sales and so left out free-to-play titles. In Road to VR's May 2026 update of that ranking it was 33rd.[20][21]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Vankrupt Games Terms of Service". Vankrupt Games. https://www.vankrupt.com/eula.html. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "Vankrupt Games". Vankrupt Games. https://www.vankrupt.com/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 "Pavlov on Steam". Steam. Valve. https://store.steampowered.com/app/555160/Pavlov/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  4. ↑ Shabana Arif (2021-03-30). "First PSVR 2 game just revealed - what you need to know". Tom's Guide. https://www.tomsguide.com/news/first-psvr-2-game-just-revealed-what-you-need-to-know. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Joe Durbin (2017-05-10). "Counter-Strike VR Is (Basically) Here And Its Name Is Pavlov". UploadVR. https://www.uploadvr.com/counter-strike-vr-pavlov/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 Vankrupt Games (2023-11-14). "Pavlov Shack, The Wildly Popular Multiplayer VR Shooter, Launches Today On The Quest Store". Games Press. https://www.gamespress.com/Pavlov-Shack-The-Wildly-Popular-Multiplayer-VR-Shooter-Launches-Today-. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Henry Stockdale (2023-01-19). "Pavlov Confirmed For PSVR 2 As A Launch Game". UploadVR. https://www.uploadvr.com/pavlov-psvr-2-announcement/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 David Jagneaux (2021-03-31). "Pavlov Shack Beta Is Out Now For Free On Oculus App Lab For Quest". UploadVR. https://www.uploadvr.com/pavlov-shack-beta-oculus-app-lab-quest/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  9. ↑ "[PAID VR Jr. Sound Designer - Vankrupt Games"]. Epic Developer Community Forums. Epic Games. 2021-04-10. https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/paid-vr-jr-sound-designer-vankrupt-games/212428. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  10. ↑ "Pavlov". PlayStation. Sony Interactive Entertainment. https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/pavlov/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  11. ↑ Scott Hayden (2023-04-11). "PSVR 2: 'Pavlov' & 'Kayak VR' Reaffirmed as Top Downloads in First Full Month Since Launch". Road to VR. https://www.roadtovr.com/psvr-2-top-games-march-2023-pavlov-kayak/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 "Update 29". Steam News. Vankrupt Games. 2023-06-12. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/555160/view/5129083846354038886. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  13. ↑ "Update 29 FAQ". Steam News. Vankrupt Games. 2023-02-16. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/555160/view/5059267908815013460. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  14. ↑ Will Cloxton (2023-11-17). "'Pavlov Shack' Revamps Modding, Now on the Official Meta Quest Store". Road to VR (Industry Direct). https://roadtovr.com/pavlov-shack-revamps-modding-official-meta-quest-store-launch/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  15. ↑ Tomislav Bezmalinovic (2024-04-17). "Pavlov gets two beautiful new maps and a revamped modkit". MIXED. https://mixed-news.com/en/pavlov-update-30/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 "Update 31 - Pavlov TV, New Maps, Weapon Cosmetics". Steam News. Vankrupt Games. 2024-12-04. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/555160/view/1784506359221365. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 "Pavlov TV on Steam". Steam. Valve. https://store.steampowered.com/app/3245770/Pavlov_TV/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  18. ↑ "Update 34 (August 2026) - Steam Frame, Refinements, Gloves & Watches". Steam News. Vankrupt Games. 2026-08-12. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/555160/view/1840944183775145. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 "Pavlov Shack on Steam". Steam. Valve. https://store.steampowered.com/app/3504270/Pavlov_Shack/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  20. ↑ David Heaney (2025-04-22). "Meta Revealed The 50 Best-Selling Quest Games Of All Time". UploadVR. https://www.uploadvr.com/meta-revealed-the-50-best-selling-quest-games-of-all-time/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  21. ↑ 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 2026-10-15.
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