Vacation Simulator

What it is

Vacation Simulator sends players to a VR resort staffed by robots simulating human leisure in the year 2060, exploring a beach, a forest and a mountain range to complete comedic tasks and freeform interactions in pursuit of collectible "memories" that unlock further content. Developed and published by Owlchemy Labs as the full sequel to their celebrated VR debut Job Simulator, it released on 9 April 2019 at NZD 28.99, expanding significantly on the original's scope with genuinely explorable environments in place of static single rooms.

Its review corpus, 713 in English, sits at a strong Very Positive 92.3% (658 to 55), and reading through it in depth reveals a game that succeeds for most of its audience on genuine expansion and polish — alongside two specific, serious concerns worth flagging directly rather than treating as minor asterisks.

A genuine, well-executed expansion on the formula

Reviewers consistently credit Vacation Simulator with real structural growth over its predecessor. "Job Simulator is over in less than 2 hours. It is just an experience to introduce you to VR... Vacation Simulator takes that, multiplies the stuff you can do by like 50, and throws a full on actual game into the mix," writes one detailed reviewer, calling it their new favorite VR game. Another reviewer highlights the specific mechanical improvement: "a huge improvement over Job Simulator, I think almost entirely due to the way they track your progression and tie it to story progression, as well as the addition of really interesting new interactions." A separate, especially candid account frames the appeal in a genuinely relatable way: a father buying the headset to entertain his son for a few hours ends up losing track of time in the game himself — a small, specific anecdote that speaks to the game's broad, cross-generational appeal noted repeatedly throughout the corpus.

A serious, specific accessibility gap

This review needs to flag one complaint with real weight rather than treating it as a footnote: "not wheelchair accessible. having no option to use the controller to turn renders the game inaccessible to those of us in wheelchairs that wish to play," states one of the most-upvoted reviews in the entire corpus, with 297 helpful votes — a specific, checkable design gap rather than a subjective complaint. VR games that require physical turning without an alternative controller-based option create a genuine, concrete barrier for wheelchair users and others with limited mobility, and this review corpus makes clear that gap is real and specifically named by an affected player rather than speculated about secondhand. Anyone considering this purchase for themselves or a household member with mobility limitations should verify current accessibility options directly before buying.

A large, detailed case that the sequel lost its predecessor's soul

Beyond accessibility, the most consistent critical thread in this corpus concerns tone rather than technical execution. "A lot of the humor that made Job Simulator what it was... just seems missing," writes one detailed reviewer. "It really feels like it has all the makings of a good game, but its missing something like a soul. It just feels like a collection of mini-games." A separate, especially thorough negative review agrees: "everything Job Simulator did well, is not here. It had full job-like atmosphere, witty jokes and so on, and was never boring. In vacation simulator, I get the feeling of mini-games" strung together rather than a cohesive comedic experience. A third reviewer names two specific recurring tasks as particular sources of frustration: "the frustrating 'copy this building' game that appeared twice, the bug hunts that appeared 3 times... served to spoil the experience more than enhance it" — a specific, concrete complaint about content repetition rather than a vague dissatisfaction. A fourth reviewer frames the disappointment as a matter of degree rather than an outright rejection: "3/5. Fun, but not as fun as Job Simulator. Funny, but not as funny as Job Simulator. Good, but not as good as Job Simulator" — a fair, measured summary of how this critical camp tends to land, rating the sequel as a genuinely enjoyable game in its own right that simply falls short of an exceptionally high bar set by its predecessor rather than failing on its own terms.

Technical reliability concerns

A smaller but real thread reports serious crash issues. "The game started and seemed fun to play, however after second day the game would only load to black screen. Reinstalling would not help," writes one reviewer, adding that a bug report submitted to the developer went unanswered. A separate reviewer independently reports the identical failure mode: "game goes to blank screen and never starts... this is a common issue with this game," per their own troubleshooting research — worth noting as a real, if not universal, technical risk rather than a one-off hardware conflict.

What the achievement data suggests about full completion

Vacation Simulator's achievement curve shows a real, gradual decline: the top achievement sits at 57.4%, descending through the 30s and 20s for deeper content engagement, before falling to under 3% for the hardest full-completion achievements. That's consistent with the "100% requires repeating already-finished mini-games" complaint documented above — a healthy share of players engage substantially with the core content, but comparatively few push through to full completion, plausibly because the back stretch offers more of the same rather than new material.

Verdict

Vacation Simulator succeeds as a genuine, well-built expansion on Job Simulator's format for most of its audience, offering real exploration, strong writing, and broad appeal across ages with minimal motion sickness reported. But a large, detailed contingent of the original's fans makes a fair case that something essential was lost in translation, and a specific, serious accessibility gap around controller-based turning is a real limitation this review can't responsibly treat as a minor detail. Recommended for most VR owners and families, with clear eyes about both of those caveats.