After the strong reception of the Nutty Putty Cave virtual tour released in 2025, 3R Games is expanding its “Real Caves in VR” initiative with Thailand’s Tham Luang Cave, one of the world’s most widely known underground locations. The cave became globally known following the dramatic 2018 rescue of a teenage football team trapped inside the cave after sudden flooding.
“Our goal remains the same,” says 3R Games CEO Piotr Surmacz. “We want to let players experience the scale, atmosphere, and complexity of iconic underground spaces from the inside.” The cave will arrive as the second real-life map in Cave Crave’s Tourist Mode, offering a faithful, non-gamified VR recreation.
Recreating the iconic Thai cave system goes far beyond standard map design. To ensure historical accuracy and a deeply respectful presentation, 3R Games has invited experts to collaborate on this project: Vern Unsworth, an experienced cave diver directly involved in the 2018 rescue effort, and Roo Walters, a 3D cave-scanning specialist.
The Tham Luang recreation is being built with the support of LiDAR-based cave scanning technology, allowing the team to capture the cave’s real geometry, scale, and atmosphere with a high level of accuracy. By using detailed scan data as a foundation, 3R Games aims to bring players as close as possible to the feeling of standing inside the actual cave — preserving not only its structure, but also its vastness, darkness, and unique underground character.
Alongside the new map, 3R Games will implement swimming mechanics long requested and awaited by players, opening a new layer of exploration in Cave Crave. With this update, players will be able to dive into flooded corridors and navigate underwater passages, where limited visibility and darkness, and restricted oxygen will create a tense and challenging experience. To make their way through the submerged sections of the cave, players will need to stay focused and carefully orient themselves as they navigate the dark.
Cave Crave is a realistic VR caving experience focused on immersion, exploration, and the thrill of navigating underground spaces, combining gameplay set in fictional environments with an initiative to faithfully recreate famous real-world caves. The game is available on Meta Quest, SteamVR, and PSVR2, with a standalone non-VR version also planned for Steam.