It doesn’t really matter what your favourite VR game is — the game you use to introduce other people to the world of VR is always Beat Saber. The rhythmic sword slasher is the game that most perfectly distils the core concept of VR (movement) into a simple and intuitive gameplay mechanic that anyone can understand, regardless of their gaming experience. But Beat Saber finally has a competitor: Band Space.
Last year after Gamescom, I wrote about PowerWash Simulator being a potential rival to Beat Saber. I still think that’s true, with the similarly easy going and digestible gameplay, while the satisfaction of cleaning each item and hearing that ‘ding!’ pop is pure gaming serotonin. But PowerWash is not the sort of game you get out at a party, unless your party is more likely to serve cheese than beer. Band Space is a r rival to Beat Saber because it does the same thing — and dare I say it, I think it does it better.
Band Space is essentially Rock Band in VR. You can play the drum, bass, keyboard, or guitar, and if you have multiple headsets (or connect to a friend with one online), you can team up in a four-piece band too. I tried out the first three instruments — the guitar had a longer tutorial I ditched to get the most out of my 30 minute demo — and found them all to be a blast to play, and exactly as you’d expect.
For the drums, four different circles come towards you (two snares and two high hats, one each for left and right) in time with the music, and you just slam your arms down as they arrive. Some need to be hit harder, some need to be rattled back and forth, and combos of hitting two at once can happen too, but it’s exactly as basic as it should be at its core. It’s a similar story for keyboard, where rectangles float toward a transparent keyboard to be tapped down on, with your hands sometimes sliding across the board to hold a note. With bass, the left hand slides up and down the neck to find the same style of rectangle, and the right hand strums. Nothing complicated.
It perfectly recreates the days of plastic peripherals and makes you feel like you’re playing each instrument. Guitar’s complexity obviously comes from wanting to differentiate it from bass, and while I don’t have firsthand knowledge of it, I can’t imagine it goes too far off the rails when everything else works in harmony. I had Rock Band, Guitar Hero, and Band Hero back in the day, with several of the sequels and specialised artist editions, and Band Space fits right in with these classics, modernising the appeal through VR.
While the feeling of playing music is excellent, the catalogue left a lot to be desired. Right now, there are no major (or even recognisable) artists in the game. Thorr (19,315 monthly listeners on Spotify) is the only one I had heard of, and that was only because he was a composer for Sigil 2, the episodic add-on for the original Doom. However, you’ll be able to upload your own songs at launch to round out the roster.
That doesn’t make this entirely a non-issue though. It remains to be seen how difficult it will be to add songs and make them work for all four instruments, and while Beat Saber has largely avoided copyright issues for modded songs even as it had official licensing deals with the likes of Billie Eilish and The Rolling Stones, any songs added to the game this way would be unofficial and could be removed.
Your mileage may vary with how much this matters to you, and I still had a blast playing Band Space at Gamescom — in fact, owing a little to nostalgia and the element of surprise, it was a dark horse for my game of the show. But I’d probably be in a bigger rush to pick up a Meta Quest (it’s also coming to Steam, but not my PS VR2) if I was able to rock out to Look What You Made Me Do and not Thorr’s Gamer Girl.
It’s rare that VR games feel like throwbacks, with the tech not only so new but so focussed on selling itself as cutting edge. But Band Space VR was a reminder of a gaming yesteryear when karaoke had extra, big chunky plastic steps. A few games reminded me of why I loved VR at Gamescom this year, but none stood out quite as much as Band Space.