Take Control of an Excavator in ‘DIG VR’, Out Now on Meta Quest

Sometimes you just want to dig a hole. Good news: DIG VR is out today on Meta Quest, and uh, the title is pretty self-explanatory.

DIG VR sits you down at the controls of an excavator (or digger) and lets you unleash your primal hole-digging desires on any woefully hole-free ground you encounter. Become the mole-man you’ve always wanted to be, whether excavating someone’s future pond or digging up old dinosaur bones. Drawing inspiration from PowerWash Simulator, DIG VR is an arcade-y sim with a silly streak, packed full of interesting characters and off-beat minigames. Oh, and you can listen to the radio, of course.

We sat down with Ben Hinchliffe, Lead Designer on DIG VR, to talk about what makes excavators a good fit for VR, drawing inspiration from PowerWash Simulator and other sim-adjacent games, the non-digging tools you’ll have access to, composing seven radio stations’ worth of music for the game, and more.

Read on for the full interview, or head on over to the Meta Horizon Store and dig up a copy of DIG VR today.

Ben Hinchliffe: Dig VR started as an idea on an Italian farm during lockdown. Leo from Wired Productions was using a digger on his family farm when it struck him that the controls seemed like a perfect fit for VR.

From there, Leo got in touch with us at Just Add Water to add meat to the bone and turn that “Diggers in VR” idea into reality. We filled in the gaps and constructed a game around the idea, with minigames, a campaign, multiplayer, and much more. We wanted to make sure it wasn’t just a dry sim, but instead had a more humorous arcade-y feel, while still retaining the authentic-feeling controls.

Excavators—or Diggers, depending on your preference—are perfect for VR due to the controls and layout inside the cab. You have two main control joysticks for controlling the cab, arm, and bucket, and then two levers for the tracks. It was very important we stayed true to the real controls, as mastering these is part of the challenge. It’s all very tactile in how you control the joysticks, levers, and buttons in the cab, so it’s a perfect fit.

BH: For the main campaign we have roughly 28 missions, coming in around 8-9 hours of playtime. Some of these are pretty standard, like digging out a pond or moving pallets of materials. However, we also wanted to let you do things you would never do with a real digger. One mission has you breaking up a meteor that landed into someone's garden, another has you digging out dinosaur bones and making a dinosaur. Every mission comes with its own story and unique characters.

We took huge inspiration from PowerWash Simulator. The aim was to give that same chilled satisfaction vibe, and also to give you interesting characters with backstories that explain why you’re doing these jobs.

The extra game modes we have get even stranger—the minigames especially, where we have you playing hook-a-duck, bowling, or scooping up balls from a giant ball pit using a digger. I think people are going to be very surprised by what DIG VR offers. It’s not your usual run-of-the-mill sim game.

BH: You start with a really small mini-micro digger. As you progress through the Career mode you will unlock bigger diggers over time, up to a large 40-ton machine. And it’s not just diggers you unlock, but also new tools. People may think DIG VR would just be about digging but it’s not. We have seven different toolhead attachments for the diggers which let you do a variety of tasks, including a bucket (obviously), compactor, circular saw, auger, breaker, trimmer, and grabber.

On top of this there are indeed cosmetic unlocks and customizations. We have over 70 different options for you to fully customize your digger, from different paints and skins to decals. You can show these off to your friends in the Multiplayer modes too. Some of these can only be unlocked by acing levels and getting top grades, though we also included a Zen mode for those who don’t want the stress or pressures of grading.

BH: The radio and music are a huge part of DIG VR. DIG FM is actually just one of the seven radio stations we have in the game featuring in-house composed music. The game is meant to be played with the radio on. We want players to find a station that suits them, to chill and find their vibe while they get into the flow of the missions.

The radio stations do also have DJs to give it a more authentic feel. We’ve even thrown in some comical radio ads advertising some very obscure things, but all linked to the game and town of Diglington in Digshire, where the game takes place.

BH: There are plenty of areas we’d love to expand DIG VR—new modes, minigames, radio stations, additional jobs, customizations, officially branded machines…

We have a lot of ideas for post-launch updates. While there is nothing solid planned right now, our hope is to support DIG VR long after launch.

BH: I think the main takeaway I’d like people to get from this is that DIG VR is not a typical sim. Like PowerWash Simulator it offers much more. There’s plenty to dig into (pun intended) with lots of humor, whacky minigames, a campaign with different play styles, multiplayer, treasure mode—there’s so much for players to do. We’ve had so many people play the game and say, “Wow that’s not what I expected” (in a good way).

Give the game a try, even if you’re not into sim games or excavators/diggers, because it might just surprise you!

Itching to get your hands dirty? DIG VR is available now in the Meta Horizon Store for $19.99 USD.