DIG VR

I came into DIG VR ready to be dismissive. Light sim, casual arcade twist, British humour about a fictional county called Digshire. It sounds like the sort of game that exists to fill a storefront slot. Forty minutes in, I had a genuine system for angling my bucket to clear soil without clipping the job boundary, and I was annoyed at myself for caring that much. That, right there, is the whole pitch. The structure is straightforward: a career mode in the town of Diglington sends you from job to job in a locked sequence, with missions unlocking progressively as you complete prior ones. Early assignments cover basic excavation, tree felling with a buzzsaw attachment, and pipe installation. Later the game introduces drills, grabbers, concrete crushers, and a trimmer that lets you mow hedges with an excavator arm, which is as absurd and satisfying as it sounds. The machine roster scales from a tiny starter digger up to colossal excavators, and each size genuinely handles differently, demanding you relearn your spatial instincts. That progression loop is the sim-adjacent part of the game that kept me clicking in for one more job. The two difficulty modes do real work here. Graded Mode charges you for property damage and sloppy soil disposal, turning every job into a small profit-or-loss calculation. You feel the sting of a careless arm swing when your rating drops and your payout shrinks. Zen Mode strips all penalties, which is the correct starting point for anyone new to motion controls or VR comfort settings. The game also ships with three comfort presets and adjustable vignettes for smooth turning, which is a more thoughtful accessibility setup than many bigger-budget VR titles bother with. The tutorial is comprehensive without being condescending, walking through the levers, the boom arm, and the bucket before letting you loose. Where it stumbles is in the finer positioning work: clearing the last few percent of a dig zone requires precision that the arm controls do not always cooperate with, and that friction is a consistent low-level irritant reported by most reviewers. A Dig Assist feature has been patched in post-launch to smooth this out, but exact bucket aiming remains the thing most likely to push patient players toward the quit button. Outside the career, there is a sandbox mode for consequence-free experimentation with every attachment, a Lost Treasure mode where you sweep your bucket like a metal detector to unearth rotating collectibles, and a set of mini-games including digger bowling that lean hard into the intentional silliness. Online co-op is also supported, though the session size is small. DIG FM, an in-game radio with over 45 original tracks across eight stations, does more work than you would expect to maintain the cosy atmosphere during longer sessions. The visuals are colourful and cartoony rather than technically impressive, a reasonable trade-off given the game's mobile-first origins on Meta Quest hardware before its SteamVR arrival in April 2025. Weight simulation is the one area where the arcade compromise shows most clearly: the machines feel more buoyant than several tons of steel should, which will bother anyone who came in wanting a serious sim. Over 70 cosmetic customisation options for your diggers round out the package without adding any mechanical depth. For strategy and sim players specifically, this is not a game with deep decision trees or AI opponents to out-manoeuvre. The decision-making is spatial and tactile rather than systemic. What it does offer is a well-paced loop with genuine tool variety, a difficulty toggle that respects different player goals, and enough content across its modes to justify more than a few sessions. The early career missions are the weakest part in terms of variety, but things open up meaningfully once the larger machines and specialised attachments arrive. Approach it the way you would a palate cleanser between heavier titles rather than a main course, and DIG VR earns its place in the rotation.

Diego · Scout Team

Strategy & simulation

Be the first to comment on DIG VR.