Cave Crave (2025) is a VR sport the place you discover caves. No monsters, no treasure chests, no puzzles—simply the oppressive cave interiors tightening round you as you traverse additional underground. Now, builders 3R Video games are doing one thing few would anticipate: they’re purposefully recreating a now inaccessible cave system the place a person died.
Subsequent month, Cave Crave is releasing an replace on Quest and PSVR 2 that brings to the sport a recreation of Nutty Putty Cave, the notorious Utah-based cave system which attracted beginner {and professional} cavers alike earlier than being completely sealed shut in 2009, following a deadly accident that killed 26-year-old John Edward Jones.
In brief, Jones was caving by means of Nutty Putty with a gaggle when he broke off to go solo, discovering himself trapped in a vertical fissure simply 10 by 18 inches broad. What resulted was 27 hours of rescue makes an attempt that in the end failed to save lots of him. You could have seen the picture under, displaying Jones’ route, because the haunting story has reverberated across the Web ever since.
You may’t go there at the moment in any capability. Within the wake of the catastrophe, explosives had been used to break down the ceiling of the part the place Jones’ physique was, and all entry factors to the cave had been completely sealed off by filling them with concrete so nothing of the type might ever occur there once more.
To recreate Nutty Putty, 3R Video games says they’ve used public documentation and an official cave map offered by Brandon Kowallis, a rescuer within the incident who later wrote an in depth account of the efforts to extract Jones. Kowallis’ recounting is a harrowing learn that I received’t recap right here.
Revenue, Ethics, and the Digital Vacationer
Critically, the studio says its recreation of Nutty Putty “avoids gamification of the tragedy,” ostensibly by permitting customers to go to in ‘Vacationer Mode’, an possibility that removes bits like environmental hazards, collectibles, and participant demise.
“Our objective is to offer VR explorers entry to a spot that may now not be visited in actuality—nothing extra, nothing much less,” says Piotr Surmacz, CEO of 3R Video games and director of the title.
However recreating Nutty Putty raises questions. To the studio’s credit score, they appear to be dealing with the recreation with grace, because it received’t be gamified. Nonetheless, I’m conflicted.
Darkish Tourism isn’t something new. Purposefully visiting a spot you know has a historical past of distress and demise may be for remembrance, exploring your personal emotions on the matter, or easy morbid fascination. None of it must be penalized when it’s accomplished with respect, and particularly not when accomplished in such a low stakes enviornment as a single-player digital actuality sport.
I don’t take subject with the recreation. Ideally, some platform at a while sooner or later will recreate the entire world intimately, possibly even together with the previous and current so we are able to discover it just about. To today, certainly one of my favourite apps is Google Earth VR, which helps you to do this to an extent, admittedly with a lot much less granularity because it solely integrates 3D constructing, geographic scans, and Google Road View 360 photographs.
Google Earth VR is free although, which considerably abstracts revenue motive from the equation—realizing full properly Google makes cash in different unseen methods, however circuitously from me popping my head into a number of the most intestine wrenching locations on Earth, just like the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, the crematorium at Buchenwald, or public memorials to tragedies of all types—a lot of that are captured on Google Road View.
Whereas the replace is free, Cave Crave is a paid sport. In a method, it could possibly be seen as profiting off the distress of Jones’ demise to some extent. 3R Video games hasn’t made any indication that it’s related to any form of charity or caving affiliation, which you may anticipate given the character of the replace.
That distinction—between exploration as public service and as business product—is the place issues get murky.
This would be the first actual cave 3R Video games is recreating for the sport. Since launch on Quest and PSVR 2 in June 2025, Cave Crave has completely included fictional caves, which provide gamers difficult and memorable paths to traverse. Many widespread caves have been concerned in tragedies, albeit much less publicized than Jones’, so recreating any cave might include related ethical gray areas.
The entire thing leaves me with extra questions than solutions, which feels unsettling.
Is that this a somber homage to the true world dangers of caving? Or is it a publicity stunt to draw eyeballs to the studio’s sport? I feel it’s just a little of each.
And the way is moving into Nutty Putty totally different from taking part in any sport primarily based in historical past, like World Battle II? Firms revenue off these motifs on a regular basis with none whiff of controversy regardless of the true implication that the occasions undoubtedly noticed the deaths of hundreds.
I’m nonetheless unsure. Possibly as a result of it was newer. Possibly as a result of we are able to relate extra on to Jones; if he had been alive at the moment, possibly he’s be taking part in Cave Crave proper now. Possibly I’m partially wrapped up within the taboo of reopening one thing that was purposefully closed, not just for security, however as a memorial to a person who died in essentially the most grotesque method any caver can consider. Possibly having it featured in a sport, and never as part of a public software, feels just a bit too off-color.
Regardless of the case, in penning this, I’ve turn out to be a part of the identical darkish tourism circuit as Cave Crave. And by studying it, so have you ever.
