Cooking Simulator VR

Cooking Simulator VR is a virtual reality cooking simulation game that adapts the popular Cooking Simulator series into an immersive first-person experience. Using motion controls, players step into a dynamic kitchen environment to chop, stir, and cook dishes in real-time, emphasizing realistic culinary mechanics and fast-paced gameplay across platforms like Windows, Quest, and PlayStation 5.

Cooking Simulator VR: Review

Introduction: The Heat of Virtual Reality

In the crowded landscape of “X Simulator” games, few have achieved the cultural penetration or sustained player engagement of Cooking Simulator. When Polish studio Big Cheese Studio first released their chaotic culinary sandbox in 2019, it carved out a unique niche: a game that mocked the precision of professional cooking while simultaneously demanding it. Cooking Simulator VR, arriving in 2021, promised to translate this delicate balance of frustration and euphoria into fully immersive virtual reality. This was not a simple port; it was a ground-up reconstruction by specialists GameBoom VR, tasked with answering a fundamental question: could the tactile, often absurd, physics of virtual cooking be made truly tangible? The answer is a resounding, occasionally smoke-alarm-sounding, yes. Cooking Simulator VR stands as a landmark in VR simulation design—a game that captures the manic, glorious chaos of a kitchen gone wrong while offering a surprisingly authentic—if hilariously fault-prone—path to culinary mastery.

Development History & Context: From Flat Screen to Headset

The journey of Cooking Simulator VR is a tale of two studios with a shared vision. The progenitor, Cooking Simulator, was developed by Warsaw-based Big Cheese Studio and released for PC in June 2019. Built in Unity, it was an immediate hit with a specific audience: players who enjoyed the meticulous task management of Overcooked but craved a more realistic, physics-driven sandbox. Its success spawned a series of DLCs (Pizza, Cakes & Cookies, Shelter) and console ports, establishing a solid franchise.

However, the leap to virtual reality required a different expertise. Enter GameBoom VR, a studio specializing in VR adaptations. Their mandate was clear: this couldn’t be a lazy “VR mode” tacked onto the existing game. As stated in the official Steam FAQ, “simply adding VR support to the game would be a waste of potential.” The team knew that to achieve true immersion, every interaction—grasping a knife, tilting a pan, feeling the resistance of a carrot—had to be rebuilt from the ground up. This meant re-engineering the physics engine, redesigning the UI for a first-person perspective, and ensuring the game performed at the high, stable framerates VR demands.

This development occurred at a pivotal moment for VR. The Meta Quest 2 had launched months earlier, democratizing standalone VR. Valve Index and HTC Vive were established PCVR platforms. The market was hungry for “premium” experiences that justified the hardware cost—games that were more than tech demos or arcade shooters. Cooking Simulator VR launched on July 29, 2021 for PCVR (SteamVR/Viveport), followed by ports to Quest 2 (July 2022), Pico (December 2022), and PlayStation VR2 (December 2023). Its October 2025 rebuild in Unreal Engine 5.5—with 4K visuals, dynamic day/night lighting, and a vastly overhauled physics system—demonstrates a continued commitment to pushing the technical envelope, a decision driven by the limitations of the original Unity port and a partnership that had run its course.

Narrative & Thematic Deep Dive: The Story in the Steam

Make no mistake: Cooking Simulator VR is not a narrative-driven game. There are no characters with voices, no cutscenes, and no scripted plot twists. Yet, within its mechanics and modes, it constructs a powerful, albeit minimalist, narrative of progression and mastery.

Career Mode is the game’s primary narrative arc. You are not a silent protagonist; you are an entrepreneur. You start with a empty, grimy kitchen, a small loan, and a single unlocked recipe: tomato soup. The narrative unfolds through customer orders (presented as floating text), the gradual accumulation of “Fame” stars, and the literal expansion of your culinary empire. You unlock new kitchens, more sophisticated equipment, and increasingly complex recipes. The story is one of zero-to-hero, charting your transformation from a novice who might burn water to a virtuoso who can perfectly sear a steak while juggling three other orders. The “perks” and “skills” you unlock—like “Ice Sculpting” (freezing objects for precise cuts) or “Kitchen Sprite” (faster movement)—are explicit milestones in this personal legend. The theme is culinary ascension, framed within the pressures of a time-sensitive service industry.

In stark contrast, Sandbox Mode offers an anarchic anti-narrative. Here, all recipes and ingredients are unlocked from the start. There are no orders, no customers, no fame. The narrative is whatever the player’s chaotic id desires. Will you meticulously craft a three-course meal? Or will you stack every pot and pan into a towering Jenga structure and knock it over with a flying potato? The theme here is unfettered creativity and chaotic play. The game provides the tools for both high artistry and pure, destructive fools’-gold. The inclusion of a “Fruit Ninja” slow-motion mode for slicing airborne produce explicitly encourages a balletic, violent virtuosity.

The underlying thematic tension is between precision and pandemonium. The game’s genius lies in its physics engine, which makes both possible (and often, inevitable). A perfectly flipped pancake is a moment of serene satisfaction. That same pancake, slipping from the spatula and arcing into a customer’s face, is a tragedy-comedy of the highest order. The game doesn’t judge; it simply simulates consequences. This reflects a broader theme in simulation gaming: the emergence of narrative from systems. The story of your last shift—the fire you started, the dish you dropped, the five-star review you earned—is uniquely yours, written not by writers but by the interplay of your hands and the game’s robust, sometimes brittle, physics.

Gameplay Mechanics & Systems: The Anatomy of a Kitchen Nightmare

At its core, Cooking Simulator VR is a real-time, physics-based management sim. The gameplay loop is deceptively simple: receive orders → gather ingredients → prepare components → cook/assemble → plate → serve. Its complexity arises from the brutal translation of this loop into VR.

The Control Scheme & Haptics: This is the game’s defining feature. Using motion controllers, every action is a direct manipulation. You physically pick up a knife, grasp an onion, and saw with a back-and-forth motion. The revolutionary aspect is haptic feedback for resistance. As the source material notes, “Every product has a different resistance to the knife and you can feel it through haptic feedback of your VR controllers.” A carrot offers firm, even resistance; a ripe tomato yields with a soft shudder. This sensory input is crucial for learning the game’s unspoken rhythm. Stirring a pot requires a steady circular motion; flipping a steak demands a confident, swift wrist flick. The learning curve is steep—new players will spend their first hour knocking over spice jars and fumbling with plates—but mastery feels genuinely earned.

Career Mode Systems: The mode is a resource management puzzle wrapped in a skill-based challenge. Money is earned from completed orders and spent on:
1. Ingredients: Pulled from a pantry shelf, with each item costing a small fee. This forces strategic planning—you can’t just grab ten steaks for practice.
2. Equipment: Unlocking new appliances (deep fryers, blenders, ovens) expands your culinary repertoire.
3. Kitchen Upgrades: Better stoves, more counter space, etc.
The skill tree (perks) is a critical progression system. Early perks like “Strong Grip” (less dropping) or “Quick Prep” (faster slicing) alleviate early frustrations. Later perks like “Firefighter” (faster extinguishing) or “Time Dilation” (slows time when aiming) embrace the chaos, turning weaknesses into strengths. The review system—where dishes are rated on taste, look, and time—provides direct feedback, though the specific criteria can feel opaque.

Sandbox Mode Systems: This is where the game’s physics sandbox shines. With all unlocks, infinite ingredients, and no penalties, it becomes a playground. The “Slow Motion” mode allows for The Matrix-style vegetable chopping. The freedom to set fires, explode ovens (with the “Chaos Tool” DLC’s ray gun), and create Rube Goldberg machines of culinary destruction is a key selling point. It’s here the game reveals its heart as a comedy physics simulator first, cooking game second.

Flaws in the System: The very systems that create immersion also breed frustration. The physics are often overly sensitive; a slight bump can send a salt shaker flying. Object collision can be finicky, leading to ingredients clipping through counters or utensils passing through hands. The UI, while immersive (menus appear on virtual tablets), can be clunky and difficult to read in a moving headset. Performance, even on recommended hardware, can suffer when multiple particle systems (fire, smoke, boiling liquids) are active simultaneously—a critical flaw given the game’s later chaotic tendencies. These are not minor bugs; they are fundamental tensions between a hyper-realistic simulation and a smooth, enjoyable VR experience.

World-Building, Art & Sound: The Kitchen as a Character

The game’s world is, for the most part, the kitchen. But what a kitchen it is. The base Cooking Simulator featured several themed kitchens (Italian pizzeria, patisserie, post-apocalyptic bunker), but the VR version initially launched with a single, ultra-realistic, stainless-steel professional kitchen. This focus was a strength. Every surface gleams. Utensils hang in logical places. The pantry is stocked with140+ ingredients, each with a hyper-detailed, high-resolution texture—from the marbling on a ribeye to the seeds on a strawberry. The Unreal Engine 5.5 rebuild (2025) elevates this further with 4K textures, dynamic day/night lighting that casts realistic shadows from the range hood, and enhanced reflections on metal surfaces. The kitchen feels alive with visual detail.

The sound design is a masterclass in diegetic immersion. The sizzle of a steak hitting a hot pan, the glug-glug of oil, the crunch of a chopped carrot, the hiss of a fire extinguisher—all are crisp, positional, and essential feedback. The ambient soundscape is a constant, soothing (or stressful) chorus of kitchen life. There’s no background music, which reinforces the realism; your auditory focus is entirely on the task at hand, making every mistake audibly obvious.

The atmosphere shifts dramatically between modes. Career Mode has a tense, focused energy—the pressure of the timer, the anxiety of a pending order. Sandbox Mode is liberating and silly, the sound of crashing pots and whooshing flames replacing the tension with comedy. The world-building, therefore, is not in lore or exposition, but in the absolute consistency of its physical and auditory rules. The kitchen is a believable space because everything in it obeys (or sometimes hilariously disobeys) the same physics.

Reception & Legacy: A Cult Classic Forged in Fire

Critical Reception was warm but measured. The lone critic score on MobyGames from Gameplay (Benelux) is 89/100, praising its hilarity and calling it “the best cooking game you can currently get for VR.” More prominent VR outlets were similarly positive: UploadVR (80/100) highlighted its “robust and realistic experience” and duality of satisfying cooking vs. glorious mayhem. Android Central (80/100) noted its niche appeal but enjoyed the creative freedom. Worth Playing (70/100) offered a caveat, suggesting it’s best played in short bursts to avoid burnout from its demanding pace and repetitive tasks.

User Reception tells a more complicated story. On Steam, it holds a “Mostly Positive” rating (77% positive from ~1,483 reviews). Players consistently praise the immersive haptics, the fun of sandbox chaos, and the satisfaction of nailing a complex recipe. The criticisms are a laundry list of the game’s technical pain points: performance issues, the steep learning curve, bugs (like items disappearing), repetitive career mode, and occasional imprecise controls. The recent “Mixed” reviews (47% positive in the last 30 days) suggest ongoing frustration with these issues, despite the major 2025 engine overhaul.

Commercial performance appears solid. Estimates place sales around 206,000 units (GameRebellion), a healthy figure for a niche VR title. Its win for VR Game of the Year at The Steam Awards 2021 cemented its status as a community favorite.

Legacy and Influence are significant, if subtle:
1. The VR Porting Blueprint: It proved that a complex, physics-heavy simulation could not only work in VR but be enhanced by it. The decision by Big Cheese Studio and GameBoom VR to make it a separate, fully-fledged product rather than a cheap add-on set a precedent for respecting the medium.
2. Haptic Feedback as Gameplay: Its use of controller vibration to convey material resistance (soft tomato vs. hard carrot) became a textbook example of using haptics for diegetic feedback, not just effect.
3. The Chaos Standard: It codified the “simulator” trope of embracing emergent comedy. Games like House Flipper VR or PowerWash Simulator VR follow its lead: offer a realistic task, then let the player’s incompetence and the physics engine create the fun.
4. A Long-Tail Success: The 2025 move to Unreal Engine 5.5—years after launch—is remarkable. It signals that the game has a dedicated enough player base and revenue stream to justify a total engine rebuild. This “Enhanced Edition” addresses many original criticisms (performance, visuals) and promises future DLC, ensuring its relevance.

Conclusion: An Imperfect Masterpiece

Cooking Simulator VR is not a flawless game. Its early version was plagued by performance hiccups, a UI that sometimes felt at war with your hands, and physics that could be as much a foe as a friend. Yet, these very imperfections become part of its charm. The moment you finally, after dozens of failed attempts, perfectly dice an onion in smooth, rhythmic strokes, the triumph is profound. The moment you accidentally knock a vat of oil into an open flame and watch your kitchen become a Christopher Nolan set, the laughter is immediate and genuine.

It succeeds because it understands the core promise of VR: embodiment. You are not controlling a character; you are in the kitchen. The weight of a cast-iron pan, the slip of a wet fish, the panicked wave of a hand to disperse a fire—these are experiences that no flat-screen game can replicate. It is a game about the joy and terror of literal hands-on creation.

In the pantheon of video game history, Cooking Simulator VR will not be remembered for its storytelling or its graphical fidelity (at least, not until the UE5.5 rebuild is universally adopted). It will be remembered as a pivotal case study in VR design—a game that dared to simulate a mundane, tactile task with brutal honesty and then celebrated the beautiful, fiery mess that ensued. It is a testament to the fact that sometimes, the most immersive worlds are not fantastical realms, but a kitchen where you can, if you wish, use a blowtorch to caramelize a crème brûlée or use that same blowtorch to melt a plastic spatula. It is, ultimately, a game that gives you the keys to a professional kitchen and asks: “What will you do next?” In that question lies its timeless, chaotic magic.

Final Verdict: 8.5/10 – A landmark VR simulation that trades polish for profound, hilarious, and unforgettable physical engagement. Its flaws are part of its character, and its successes redefine what a cooking game can be.