Beat Saber is getting a mode you play with your bare hands. Meta showed it at Connect on Wednesday under the name Flux, and it's due in spring 2027 on Meta Quest and on Meta VR Glasses, the new mixed reality headset Meta announced at the same show.
The game came out in 2019 and has always been about two glowing sabers and a stream of blocks you slash in time with the music. Flux keeps the music and swaps almost everything else. It uses hand tracking, where the headset follows your hands with nothing in them, and it's the first time Beat Saber has supported it. The notes change shape too. You get rods and orbs instead of blocks.
Meta calls the new moves Flux Powers. One of them, the Flux Tether, runs a line of electricity between your palms, and you use it to slice through the rod-shaped notes. Other notes you punch. They come in blue, red or a light purple, and purple means both hands together. Breaking notes builds up Jolt energy, which adds a boost to your score.
Road to VR's Scott Hayden played one song in a demo on Meta VR Glasses. He's played Beat Saber since the start, and he says the new controls clicked for him right away. He got an S rank, on what he thinks was the easiest setting.
If you'd rather hold something, Flux also works with Meta's Touch controllers. It launches with 35 songs drawn from the Original Soundtrack, Extras and Anniversary packs, including tracks from DragonForce, Camellia, Teminite and Jaroslav Beck. Meta says more Flux songs will come after launch.
Meta also describes an "enhanced Campaign mode" with a "light narrative element". New barriers, missions and in-game rewards come with it, plus a new menu meant to get you into a song faster.
Meta has given a season for Flux, not a date. Road to VR expects it to land alongside Meta VR Glasses early next year.