Rec Room (video game)

Rec Room supported optional virtual reality (VR) gameplay across compatible devices, including headsets from Meta, Pico 4, and Steam VR platforms. In virtual reality mode, players interacted with the environment using motion controllers, enabling object manipulation and spatial movement. A non-VR mode known as "screen mode" was also available, allowing access to the game without needing a headset through a PC or PS4,^[5] and was later expanded to iOS,^[6] PS5,^[7] Xbox,^[8] Nintendo Switch,^[9] and Android.^[10]

In VR mode, players could explore the in-game space within the confines of their physical floor space, while roaming further in-game by using the controllers. Players could "teleport" a short distance, and likely experience no virtual reality sickness, or could "walk" smoothly with the thumbstick, although this posed a higher risk of motion sickness.^[11]

When loading into the game for the first time, new players would start in Orientation, a place where they would be introduced to the game's basic mechanics and given their virtual watch. After going through orientation, players would start in their Dorm Room any time they loaded into the game.^[12]

The Dorm Room was a small private room with a flexible dummy that players could punch, a whiteboard that players could draw on, and a mirror.^[13] Players could change their outfit and appearance via buttons on the side of the mirror, which could also be used to access the in-game shop to buy more outfit items.^{[14] [15]}

Players could leave their Dorm Room by either interacting with a door, which would load them into the Rec Center, or could choose a room to go to from their watch menu.^[16] The watch menu had a list of rooms sorted by their genres and types. Players could also use a search bar to search up a specific room to play.

In the Rec Center, players could interact with other players, join Rec Room Original rooms through doors, or play minigames like darts, or throwing basketballs into hoops.^{[17] [18]} The Rec Center would occasionally be updated during events with decorations and sometimes usable or responsive components.^{[19] [20]}

All rooms joined by a player were public by default, but players could also create a private instance of any room, or join other private rooms (if invited).^[21]

In all rooms, players could interact with other players in real time through voice and text chat, (though players under the age of 13 on "Junior" accounts could not use either^{[22] [23]} ) and interact using their hands and movement of their body.

Rec Room had many social features, all accessible through the watch menu, but often had accompanying gestures. For example, players could choose to friend another player with a handshake.^[24] Players could also invite, mute, or report^[25] other players, as well as block^[26] with a 'talk to the hand' gesture,^{[27] [28]} "cheer" them for various reasons with a thumbs up,^[29] or form a party with other players to travel between rooms together with a fist bump.^[24]

By playing, players could earn experience, and eventually level up, receiving a gift box and an increase to the indicator next to their username showing their level.^[30] Levels were originally capped at 50, but were later increased to 87.^[31]

On Feb 15th, 2018, Rec Room introduced the Circuits V1 system in the Maker Pen.^{[41] [42]}

This system was developed mainly from 2018 to 2021, and worked with a system of wires. In the code, events ran constantly. An integer value was assigned to each event which could be changed by wiring, and when an event occurred, an integer would send to the next chip.^{[citation needed ]}

As a chip would detect a change in integer value at the input, it would be able to send output to the next chip. Players were assigned player IDs, which served as the primary form of integer input in order to keep track of players.^{[citation needed ]}

In 2021, Rec Room introduced a more feature-rich version of the circuit system called Circuits V2 (often abbreviated "CV2"), a visual programming language. CV2 chips had a different design than Circuits V1, with gray rectangular chips with ports on either side, where each port represented a different kind of input or output. Circuits V1 continued existing alongside CV2.^{[43] [44] [45]}

The most common types of ports in CV2 included an orange arrow-shaped port, (an "input exec" port), triggered by an exec signal sent from another chip, and multiple colored rectangular ports; a blue port representing a floating-point, a green port representing an integer value, and a purple port representing a string or text input.^[45]

When an event was triggered, input ports wired to that event would have their data updated, either locally or globally. The code would then be accessible as an output connectable to another input. For example, an If statement triggered by another condition could send an exec signal to another chip in order to trigger a delay timer, only when the condition was true.^[45]

CV2 was intended to be a less buggy, easier to understand, and more powerful system than Circuits V1.^[42] CV2 was actively in development until the game's shutdown announcement.^[46]

On September 23, 2022, Rec Room announced Rec Room Studio at Rec Con 2022.^{[47] [48]} This was a partnership between Rec Room and game engine Unity in order to bring professional-level tools into Rec Room creation.^{[49] [50]}

Rec Room Studio's access was gradually rolled out starting in 2023,^[51] with it at first only being accessible to handpicked creators, and later to those who met minimum requirements and had Rec Room Plus,^[52] before opening access by November 13, 2024 to anyone who met the following requirements:^{[53] [54]}

• Player level of 20+
• One or more published rooms
• Good moderation history
  • No bans of 7 or fewer days within the last 90 days
  • No bans of 8+ days in the last 2 years
  • No violations of the Creator Code of Conduct

Rooms in Rec Room could be opened up as a scene within Unity using Rec Room Studio. It could then be edited with Unity tools, and allowed users to import assets and textures, custom sound, and custom animations, as well as utilize Unity's Terrain Editor and Unity ProBuilder.^[49] The game could then be uploaded to Rec Room and published, provided it passed an automated scan for inappropriate content. Creating an invention within Rec Room Studio rooms would also require passing moderation before the invention could be created.^[55]

Later, in 2024, Rec Room dropped the Rec Room Plus requirement from Rec Room Studio, making it free for everyone.^[56]

Rooms 2.0 (abbreviated as R2) was introduced on October 10 at Rec Con 2023^[57] and was made the default room system on April 14, 2025.^[58] It was an updated version of the original rooms system, intended to improve performance and creator abilities. Rooms 2.0 had new features, such as the removal of the ink limit, (though CV2 chips were still limited^[59] ) expanded compatibility with Rec Room studio, in-room monetization changes, as well as hierarchical building and compound objects, which allowed for nesting of objects, improving organization and performance in projects. CV1 could not be used in Rooms 2.0 rooms.^{[60] [61] [62] [63]}

Both Rec Room Studio and CV2 were supported in Rooms 2.0, but CV1 and some other features which were part of Rooms 1.0, such as certain props, were not available.^[64]

Rec Room later made Rooms 1.0 the default mode again, with players celebrating under the announcement. Rooms 2.0 remained an option for players.^[65] They previously stated that Rooms 2.0 "didn’t land like we needed it to."^[66] Multiple features of Rooms 2.0 were moved to Rooms 1.0, such as unlimited ink, room offers, inventory items, and Rooms 2.0 circuit components.

Rec Room had a variety of creative programs in-game and on its Discord server, and published tutorial articles and videos online to encourage room creation within Rec Room.^[67] This included creative classes. A player could apply to teach a class, and if accepted, they could create a classroom and allow students to enlist.^[68]

Maker Pen classes could teach many subjects, with the most common being Rooms 2.0, building, circuiteering, and Rec Room Studio. Incentives for teaching a class included maker pen skins, and a gown avatar item, which was colored based on how many hours an individual had spent teaching, in purple for 10 hours, orange for 20, and green for 30.^[69] Taking a class could lead to the receiving of an in-game green graduation gown, with a different design from the green teacher gown.^[68]

All classes had to be part of the Creator Hub, which was organized through Discord. Qualifications to start a class included minimum hourly totals and overall meeting quantities, and for teachers of a Rec Room Studio class, previously published quality content and access to a PC capable of running Unity with access to Rec Room Studio, as well as recording, streaming, and uploading video capabilities. Classes were limited to 3 teachers for those with under 50 hours of prior teaching, and 4 teachers with over 50.^[69]

Workshops were also led in Rec Room.^[70] To become a workshop host, application was necessary. Workshops were creative events where creators could join and free-create in themes led by the host.^[71] Workshop hosts could gain Maker Pen skins from leading a workshop, and requirements to host a workshop were much less strict than those for starting a class.^[72]

Creative events led by staff also occurred. The two most prominent being the Rec Room Gallery and the Maker Pen Class Q&A. The Rec Room Gallery was hosted every Wednesday at 8pm Eastern Standard Time, and featured submitted inventions, or creations, by creators. The Maker Pen Class Q&A was much akin to a workshop and occurred on Fridays and Sundays, although to create in it prior experience was necessary.

Rec Room's in-game currency, Tokens, could be purchased using real money, earned by subscribing to Rec Room Plus (Stylized as Rec Room+ or RR+), or by playing Rec Room Originals (Paintball, Laser Tag, Etc). Rec Room Original rewards would present players with a choice of one of three reward options, where one option had a chance of being tokens.^[73] Additional tokens could sometimes be earned by completing daily challenges. Tokens could be used to purchase skins, clothing and avatar items, and food items.^{[74] [75]}

RR+ granted several benefits, including the ability to make and sell user-generated content (such as inventions, custom clothing, or room keys), a 10% discount on all token-denominated items (excluding items in rooms), and a special name tag with the ability to add emojis. Tokens earned by selling created inventions or room keys could be exchanged for real money. It also provided access to Roomie.^{[76] [77]}

Roomie was an in-game companion with conversational AI features similar to ChatGPT or Claude,^{[78] [79]} and was powered by "Roomie Energy". RR+ Subscribers would receive 8,000 energy per month, and further energy could be purchased at a rate of 1ドル per 1,000 Roomie Energy, either one-time for 5,ドル or as a 20ドル monthly subscription. An active RR+ subscription was not required for subscribers to the 20ドル plan to use Roomie.^[80]

Rec Room sued an approximately 16 year old Canadian player for copyright infringement and cheating in-game, alleging he had developed and distributed cheat software for the game, displayed a Nazi flag in a public room, taken over other players' accounts, and evaded bans by Rec Room through creation of new accounts. Though he was located in Canada, the lawsuit took place in a court in Seattle, as the venue was agreed to by the player in the Rec Room Terms of Service.^[81] Rec Room sued for damages under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which could have levied 2,500ドル per copy of cheat software distributed,^[82] but the player later settled with Rec Room for 50,000,ドル and an agreement to never play the game again.^{[83] [84]}

On April 23, 2026, GeekWire alleged that in January that year, someone had used Rec Room's friend-finder feature to match people's in-game usernames with their phone numbers, and that someone familiar with the incident stated Rec Room had never proactively notified players that had their phone numbers linked to their account. They also alleged that Rec Room acknowledged the usage of the friend-finder API had spiked when the individual was querying phone numbers, and that they had then disabled the feature and banned the user involved.^[85]

Most of the music heard in Rec Room Originals was composed by creative director Cameron Brown,^[101] going by "gribbly" in-game,^[102] using Reason, with Korg Gadget also being used for music used in Laser Tag and Jumbotron.^[103]

Some users seemed to be continuing to play Rec Room after the shutdown, with players uploading photos from in-game of rooms, themselves, and other in-game players to rec.net following the shutdown on June 1. Steam player counts indicated over 500 players still in-game as of June 3, after a previous increase (and subsequent decline) of over 1,000 players the night before over the span of a few hours.^[133]

The increase was attributed by a Rec Room developer responding to player questions to an automated build process that re-opened servers for Steam players,^[134] who were able to log into Rec Room on the 1st (1:50pm PT) and the 2nd (3:57pm-4:09pm PT and 6:36pm-8:59pm PT).^[135] By June 5, Just under 300 players were online according to Steam player counts, (which would include those on the main menu trying to log into Rec Room, even if not authenticated). Pico VR players were capable of logging in and continuing to play until June 9th.^{[136] [137]}

On June 9th, Rec Room officially shutdown with the closure of rec.net and its APIs, which meant no regular players could get back into Rec Room.^[138] Previously, a Rec Room developer stated that both developers and some select players were playing after the game's initial shutdown date to record things for posterity.^[139]