Black & White VR Mod 1.2.0, 2026-10-20 (build fd7f198)

The second public alpha of the Black & White VR Mod.

New

• A Vulkan renderer. The mod can draw the game with Vulkan, with no dxwrapper and no Direct3D. Frames are much shorter: on our test PCs a frame of play takes 3 to 5 ms in place of about 12 ms. It is the default when your GPU has Vulkan 1.3. Set the launcher row "Renderer" to Direct3D 9 to use the old way. Thanks to KrisTiasMusic.
• A fall back to Direct3D 9. If a start with Vulkan fails, the next start uses Direct3D 9, and the launcher tells you why.
• A status line in the launcher. A green tick says that your PC is ready. A red line names the first problem and what to do: the game version, the files of the mod, the 32 bit OpenXR runtime, a broken OpenXR API layer, or no Vulkan 1.3.
• Steam Frame (experimental). The add-on steam-frame-*.zip lets the game use the 64 bit OpenXR runtime of Proton on a Steam Frame. It works with the Direct3D 9 renderer only, so set the row "Renderer" to Direct3D 9 for it. See bwvr/src/vr/bridge/README.md in the repo. Thanks to hess-p.
• A crash report. If the game crashes, bwvr.log gets a report, and bwvr-crash.dmp goes beside the game. Please attach both to a bug report.
• Fish. Point at the fish in the sea, or put your hand in the water, and hold the grip to collect them.
• Hints that go away. A line of a hint card goes away after you did its action three times. It comes back after 10 minutes with no use. The launcher row "Hints" sets it.
• The walk follows the land. When you move with the stick, your view goes up and down with the land under you. The launcher row "Walk follows the land" sets it.
• Left handed play. The controllers follow the left handed option of the game.
• Fights of Creatures. The grip attacks and blocks.
• Cut scenes. A video of the game plays on the screen of the cut scene window, and the advisors stand in front of it. The launcher can also show a cut scene around you, with no window.
• Smoother frames. The game gets a clock of 1 ms, the God view moves by the time of the headset, and the headset keeps the last picture while the game loads.
• The Lionhead logo in stereo (off by default, intro_vr=1). Both hands push the orbs of the logo. Thanks to KrisTiasMusic.

Fixed

• The game crashed after a tap on a quest scroll that the quest then removed.
• The yellow text of the game looked double: the percent over a Creature that learns, and the tooltips while the game moves the Hand.
• The clouds jumped when you moved your head.
• The moon, smoke, fire, sparks and the glow of a miracle turned with your head.
• The totem of the Village Centre let go about one second after a grab from a distance. Its see-through copy flickered. After you let it go, it jumped back and slid to its new height.
• The name of a villager now shows at the depth of the villager.
• A failed start of OpenXR now says why in bwvr.log.

Install

Run the installer over the version that you have. Your settings stay.

If you played an earlier version, the launcher keeps your renderer, Direct3D 9. To use Vulkan, set the row "Renderer" to Vulkan one time and save.

Run the installer over the build that you have. The first line of bwvr.log in your game folder says which build you run: it must show build fd7f198.

Black & White VR Mod 1.1.0, 2026-10-14 (build 72ada9d)

public-alpha-1

Run the installer over the build that you have. The first line of bwvr.log in your game folder says which build you run: it must show build 72ada9d.

Black & White VR Mod 1.1.0, 2026-10-12 (build d1c4e44)

alpha-2

Run the installer over the build that you have. The first line of bwvr.log in your game folder says which build you run: it must show build d1c4e44.

What is new since alpha-1

Controls

• The left controller has a new layout. The left stick moves you over the land, Y opens the ring menu, and the menu button opens the game menu.
• Close the grip on a thing that falls, flies or rolls, and it is in your hand at once.
• A thing that your Hand can act on now glows. When you point from a distance, a villager or an animal comes before a tree or a rock.
• Point at your Creature and hold the grip to make it stay. With the leash on, hold the trigger and move off an object to send your Creature to a place.
• The zoom has new settings in the launcher: in steps or smooth, the direction of the stick, and the center of the zoom.

Picture and speed

• The frame rate is higher. The game now draws the scene one time for both eyes.
• The text of a signpost shows on a card, at one place for both eyes, so you can read it from near.
• In the Temple, a room shows at once with no camera flight, and the fade is in both eyes.
• A new setting, "Margin around the view", is for black edges when you turn your head fast.

Launcher and game

• The launcher has a new layout and fewer settings. "Play, no VR" starts the game on the monitor.
• The game ends with no fault when you quit.

Before you play

• We recommend that you skip the tutorial. When you start a new game, select "Skip straight to the Creature select".
• In Virtual Desktop, set Synchronous Spacewarp (SSW) to Disabled.

The setup steps and the controls are in the README. The known problems are in the section "KNOWN ISSUES" of the readme in your game folder. Report a problem in Issues, and attach bwvr.log.

Black & White VR Mod 1.1.0, 2026-10-07 (build feb8ced)

alpha-1

Run the installer over the build that you have. The first line of bwvr.log in your game folder says which build you run: it must show build feb8ced.