Cave Crave VR - Quest 3 Review

A dark, cavernous mouth silhouette with the text "CAVE CRAVE" in bold, distressed font, evoking mystery and adventure.

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Published on the Quest 3 by 3R Games, Cave Crave VR promotes itself as a mysterious and immersive caving experience with no cheap horror tricks. That being said there is a horror mode which has been added as part of a comprehensive road map of updates due to have regular releases. It’s available now on the Meta store for £12.

I Do Enjoy Saying Spelunking

Spelunking! A word that entered my lexicon in 2008 thanks to The Dark Knight movie. It has since become an inside joke between me and my wife as to how often I say it. I seldom use the term, however she insists I use it with an unnecessary frequency. So imagine how she responded when I explained my next VR review was on Spelunking! Obviously she thought I was trying to be funny, but no, a spelunking simulator for VR. Lets get stuck in!

Gameplay

At the time of review there are 3 different game modes available to play. Story mode, tourist mode and the aforementioned horror mode. Apparently the claustrophobia simulator needed spiders, lots of spiders.

Story Mode

You are greeted with the level select screen showing 6 playable levels. You progress through them one at a time to unlock the next in a linear fashion. The words “coming soon” where the 7th level would be, indicates that there will indeed be more content added in future updates.

Players hands climbing through cave tunnels — Floating hands, perfect for climbing with

The first level, titled “baby steps” introduces the core mechanics of the game. The tutorial comes by way of a found tape cassette with a voice recording from your long time absentee father. This voice over acts as both tutorial and story exposition. As you progress through the levels you will add more tools to your arsenal and more information about your families past will be shared. You are encouraged to collect fossils along your way. The game also keeps track of how much of each cave you’ve explored, pushing the completionist in me to ensure I’ve checked out every nook and cranny.

Tourist Mode

This allows you to visit all the caves you’ve unlocked and just enjoy the level in a calm, free roaming exploration. There are no collectables to think of. No time limit on your torch battery. Just a way to explore what the cave has to offer.

Horror mode

Not aligned with the story, horror mode is it’s own stand alone group of levels. On their YouTube channel 3R Games CEO Piotr Surmacz stated in a video after the game reveal trailer, they were flood with “add monsters” requests. This wasn’t part of the original plan for the game so they decided to add the optional horror mode as that’s what the fans have asked for. Now the caves are occupied by realistic moving spiders, because caving isn’t scary enough already. It’s a nice addition for those that can stomach it, and refreshing to see how developers react to fan feedback of their work.

Large spider walking through the light of the head torch — Is it a spider or a face hugger? Either way it needs to stay away from me.

Game Mechanics

Cave Crave uses the standing/seated setup for the VR space. No room scale required here. You primarily move by crawling with your hands around there various tunnels. There are times where you will use smooth locomotion with the thumb stick, but this is only when the tunnels open up into larger spaces where your character would be able to crouch or stand.

You have a hammer to break stalactites and stalemates, along with spikes to drive into the cave walls for climbing. A scraper is available to clear the build-up of mud on your gloves, as this can impact your grip. Your head torch features an infrared mode to highlight collectibles against the rocky backgrounds. You can also adjust the light cone of your torch, switching between a short, scattered beam to illuminate nearby areas and a long, focused beam for seeing far into the distance. Keep an eye on your watch to track how much battery life your torch has left. After all, no one wants to end up stuck underground with a dead torch battery, right?

When faced with a tight squeeze, you need to fully exhale by holding both trigger buttons. Releasing the triggers before you exit a a tight space is a really bad idea. To crawl though, you do need to keep pressing and releasing the grip button so don’t get confused when you’re crawling and need to hold your breath.

Really tight tunnel ahead — A person couldn’t fit through there, surely?

Graphics & Audio

Since you spend much of the game with your face pressed against a cave wall or floor, it’s crucial for the levels to look good, and I’m happy to say they generally do. The graphics of the caves look detailed and realistic and your headtorch gives a nice specular finish to the wet looking rocks you’re crawling through. The breakable rocks are visually less detailed than the rest of the level, with the look of stretched textures over low a low poly model. It’s not enough to ruin the visual of the game but it is noticeable.

The audio shifts between calm, serene background music to set the mood and intense, stressful tones that mimic panic when you’re running out of breath. The sound of your heartbeat grows louder, signalling you need to get a move on. While it doesn’t quite reach the intensity of the original Sonic drowning warning, it definitely gave me a similar vibe. In one particular level you hear faint whispers as part of the story, this added a eery feel to an already creepy level.

Longevity

I found it easy to play this game for extended periods. The act of pulling yourself through the level helps with motion sickness, as the physical movement reduces the disconnect of being stationary while your surroundings shift. The same goes for climbing up and down your placed spikes.

With the developers’ commitment to adding updates and new levels, I think there will be plenty of reasons to keep returning to this game.

Final Thoughts

To be honest, before installing the game, I wasn’t sure it would be my thing. I couldn’t see how the premise could make for an enjoyable experience. As a VR enthusiast, I really should have known better. This game simply wouldn’t work as well on a flatscreen. It thrives on atmosphere and immersing the player—things that just aren’t possible with a TV or computer monitor. But that’s exactly where VR shines. It’s a completely different medium and as such, needs developers to take risks on new ideas for gamers to experience something truly different and Cave Crave VR does that exceptionally well.

I award Cave Crave the Thumb Culture Gold Award.