Press kit · Meta Quest 3 · 3S · Free demo 16 November 2026
Starship IKAREE
A VR starship bridge where you are the captain and your crew answers when you speak.
The game
You take the captain's chair of the exploration ship IKAREE. There are no menus to learn. You give orders in your own words, and six bridge officers answer, advise and sometimes disagree. You set a course to a real star, launch probes, hail an unknown ship and decide what happens next.
The galaxy is built from real astronomical catalogues, so every star you can fly to exists. The game is played seated or standing, with no teleporting and no artificial turning.
The free demo arrives on the Meta Horizon Store on 16 November 2026. It contains a tutorial that brings the ship to life and the story mission Signature, set at the gas giant Thessaly in the Gliese 682 system. It runs about an hour and has eight endings that depend on the captain's choices.
- ~11,000real stars
- 6,423known exoplanets
- 6bridge officers
- ~100missions planned
A universe that can live on its own
Offline out of the box. Connected to any AI when you want more.
The full game runs in two ways. The game rules decide what happens to the ship in both of them; the AI gives the crew and the galaxy their voice.
Offline
Speech recognition runs on the headset. The crew understands your orders and responds with no internet connection and no account.
Online · AI Link
Players can connect the game through an API to any AI they choose: their own key for Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini or OpenRouter, or a local model on their own PC. The whole universe can then live a real life, and so can the ship's crew: officers write their own lines, remember, argue and react to anything the captain says.
The key is entered from a phone through a QR code and stays on the headset. The game's own server never sees it.
The free demo plays online. Speech recognition and the crew's free replies run on the IKAREE server, so the demo needs an internet connection and a microphone. The story's own lines are prerecorded.
Videos
- YouTube · TrailerStarship IKAREE traileryoutu.be/SLfFCucD7w4
- YouTube · ShortStarship IKAREE shortyoutube.com/shorts/HrZLVFmqRxQ
A 1080p MP4 of the trailer, 22 in-game screenshots, the logo and key art wallpapers are free to use for coverage at ikaree.space/press.
Key features
- Command by voice in natural speech, in English, with Czech voice commands supported
- A real galaxy of about 11,000 stars and their confirmed exoplanets, with 31 detailed destinations
- Six officers with written personalities and relationships, plus a crew that remembers
- Story missions with several endings and decisions that carry on
- Walk your ship by turbolift: bridge, captain's quarters, engineering, briefing room, shuttle bay
- Comfortable VR: seated (2 × 2 m) or walking, no teleport, push-to-talk, subtitles
- Mission editor in the full version, to build missions and alien encounters without code
Fact sheet
- Title
- Starship IKAREE
- Developer
- Lubomír Budin (ProBudin), Brno, Czech Republic
- Platform
- Meta Quest 3, Meta Quest 3S
- Store
- Meta Horizon Store
- Demo
- Free, 16 November 2026
- Genre
- VR space exploration, interactive story
- Players
- Single player
- Languages
- English voices and subtitles; Czech subtitles and voice commands
- Needs
- Microphone (built-in works). Demo: internet connection. Full game: internet only for AI Link.
- Full game
- Price and release date to be announced
The bridge crew
- Commander Thomas ReedFirst Officer
- Lieutenant Commander Emily HartScience Officer
- Doctor Sarah BennettCounsellor
- Lieutenant Ondra ColeTactical Officer
- Lieutenant Commander Daniel BrooksHelm
- Doctor Helen GrantChief Medical Officer
About the developer
Lubomír Budin is a filmmaker, producer and scriptwriter from Brno who builds games and AI-driven stories on his own under the name ProBudin. He has produced and written for a Czech YouTube channel with more than a million subscribers, made the sci-fi short film series DISTANCE, developed the audio film VOLÁNÍ with a live phone finale in the cinema, and builds interactive AI characters.
Starship IKAREE is the game he wanted to play for years as a lifelong fan of space TV series: a bridge where you listen to your officers, hear them argue, and make the call yourself. It is dedicated to Sir Patrick Stewart (1940–2026).
Contact
- Name
- Lubomír Budin
- [email protected]
- Phone
- +420 605 229 432
- Web
- ikaree.space
- Requests
- Interviews, full-game access for review, in-person demos in Brno
Česky
Starship IKAREE je VR simulátor kapitánského můstku pro Meta Quest 3 a 3S od brněnského filmaře a scenáristy Lubomíra Budina. Hráč velí posádce hlasem, vlastními slovy, v galaxii z reálných hvězdných katalogů. Demo vychází zdarma 16. listopadu 2026 v obchodě Meta Horizon Store. Plná hra funguje offline i online: bez připojení rozpoznává řeč přímo v brýlích, a když hráč chce, napojí ji přes API na jakoukoli AI (vlastní klíč pro Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini nebo lokální model). Celý vesmír i posádka lodi pak mohou žít skutečným, vlastním životem. Demo se hraje online: rozpoznání řeči a volné odpovědi posádky běží na serveru IKAREE, takže potřebuje připojení k internetu. Kontakt: [email protected], +420 605 229 432.