Open now · By request
WAR LAB playtest
by NestorVG
Be yourself without restrictions in this physics-based VR sandbox shooter. Fight for the future of humankind, rise an empire, defeat the mightiest tyrants, explore new horizons, enjoy unmatched experiences with friends, and build your weapons, vehicles, and bases with your own hands.
It's free to ask. The developer chooses who gets in.
- Access
- By request
- On playtest since
- Nov 4, 2026
- Planned release
- To be announced
- Developer
- NestorVG
- Platforms
- Windows, Linux
- Players
- Single-player
- Languages
- English
How to join the WAR LAB playtest
- Open the game's Steam page with the Request access button. Sign in to Steam if it asks.
- Request access to the WAR LAB playtest there. It's free and doesn't commit you to anything.
- The developer lets players in, often in batches, so it can take a while. Steam emails you when you're in, and the playtest appears in your library.
New to playtests? How Steam playtests work
How AI is used
The development of War Lab is aided by AI in the shape of an auxiliary tool, as explained below. This is a single dev project, no jobs are being taken by AI. No creativity is being replaced or substituted by AI. No content is created by AI out of nowhere. AI only transforms and expands existing content, it does NOT create it. -Coding: script templates, help refactoring, commenting, and optimizing human-written code. Aid solving problems, explaining errors/warnings and finding more optimized ways of doing human-designed functionality. -Performance and code audits: AI has been used to find sources of performance deficiencies and improvement opportunities in existing code. -Setup and repetitive actions: AI has been used to perform repetitive actions like setting up physics materials on -Testing: AI has been used to create, run, analyze, and report test scenarios in test scenes, usually copies of the empty simulation scene (This used to take multiple days to do manually, now it takes hours) -Debugging: AI has been used to make existing scripts show values in the inspector and during runtime using a new debug method. -Tools: AI has been used to create tools that help automate the setup of game elements, such as the new tree system, modular vehicle system, and make in-engine inspector elements look prettier/more appealing and organized. -Sound: some computer interaction SFX with fictional devices are AI-generated using sampled real-life devices. Some voices (NOT MUSIC) were AI-generated for the playtest (videos, audios, instructions, tutorials) years before generative AI became a topic of interest and discussion, and over two years before Steamworks (Valve) offered the option of declaring the usage of generative AI. -Shaders: AI has been used to translate the day/night cycle skybox shader from Amplify Shader Editor to Shadergraph and expand its functionality. The prototype Grid shader used in placeholders, and some elements of the game have been modified by AI (Adding grid offset) -Images: some textures have been upscaled using AI or edited to better depict the desired effects I was aiming for. Generative AI has not been used to create images from prompts, only modifying existing textures. (Textures upscaled/modified so far: CRT effect) IN THE GAME, NO PICTURES, TEXTURES, ARTWORKS, OR ANY OTHER KIND OF IMAGES ARE CREATED USING GENERATIVE AI, AND THEY WILL NEVER BE. -No decisions are taken by AI, all actions are vetted, understood, and manually integrated -No scripts are made by AI without a direct order and knowledge of the developer (No vibe coding, no using code without knowing what it does) -No lore/story elements are written or decided by AI -No 3D models have been made using AI -No images are generated from an AI prompt alone -No music being used is made by AI Last updated: June 25 2026 Possible changes in the future: -Realtime AI NPC actions -AI-driven text-to-speech and speech-to-text recognition for NPCs and chat functions -Player mimics (create player "doppelgangers" at runtime, not collecting personal information) -Multiplayer cheating flagging (but not automated banning)
The developer's own words, from Steam.
About WAR LAB
This award-winning in-development game aims to be a physics-based VR shooter with two main modes: Open World Survival with procedurally generated world and structures on one side, and Quick Matches and arenas on the other side. All this while you build and customize the weapons and equipment with your own hands!
The core features of the project include:
- Post-post-apocalyptic role-play and competitive experience, with some paid expansions and cosmetics, some of which are obtainable through the Official Discord. You will be prompted to join the Discord server from within the experience.
-Intuitive and advanced weapon system, ranging from pistols to guided missile launchers. There are all kinds of weapons, and each of them packs its own features and possible customizations.
-Crafting system with intuitive recipes, refine resources, create components, assemble your projects, and customize them with attachments or component variants.
-Building system with modular components such as the classical foundation, walls, and ceiling, in addition to stations such as dedicated workbenches.
-Vehicle system for air, land, and sea vehicles, fully customizable and configurable.
-Huge progression and tiers of weapons and equipment, you will start making a stone hatchet until you can build a small hut, once you have progressed through the game, you will be able to drive suborbital combat aircraft, or even assemble your own cyborg/android body to have your mind transferred into it for superhuman powers.
-NPCs such as the dumb infected or the savvy specialists, you will find survivors, soldiers, scientists, and everything in between, some of them will help you, others will try to kill you, find out before it's too late!
-Full physics interactions: your body can be pushed and thrown, you will also need a trained stomach. This is a game for VR experts!
-Procedurally generated world, structures, and complexes (bunkers, villages, camps, etc)
From the game's Steam page.
