Trombone Champ, 2022’s funniest PC gaming phenomenon, is getting a snazzy VR version that aims to fully immerse you in fudging your way through Ode to Joy with the world’s most inherently comical musical instrument.
Titled Trombone Champ: Unflattened, this VR version will put players on a virtual stage in front of a “live” audience, letting you slide that trombone with your own two hands as you attempt to play a variety of classic musical pieces. Judging by the announcement trailer (viewable above) the VR version will feature the original’s surrealist humour and card-collecting system, letting you exchange cards for novelty trombones you can use to wow/further irritate your audience.
Unflattened isn’t developed by Holy Wow Studios, creators of the magnificently daft original. Instead, design duties are being handled by Flat2VRStudios, which is also working on a VR version of destruction racer Flatout, and assisting with an upcoming VR port for retro shooter Wrath: Aeon of Ruin.
The original Trombone Champ became an overnight sensation following Chris Livingston’s delightfully dreadful rendition of Beethoven’s 5th, selling an estimated 265,000 copies on Steam. “If Beethoven wasn’t rolling over in his grave it was only because he’d already burst out of it, staggered around shrieking, and then vomited,” Chris wrote of his own performance in 2022. “In Trombone Champ, playing the trombone badly is just as much fun as playing it well, which is just one reason why I love it.”
I was likewise given abdominal cramp by Trombone Champ when it released, and I can certainly see the appeal of a VR version. The trombone is arguably the ideal VR instrument, pleasingly physical yet functionally simple enough to adapt well to VR controls (unlike, say, the piano or the guitar). That said, I do wonder whether the VR version risks exhausting the joke. Part of Trombone Champ’s charm is how rough and ready it is, with your tooted tunes played to garish backgrounds that often resemble a lost ytmnd page. I worry putting on a VR headset to poorly play a fake trombone in a simulated theatre is all too much effort for something so inherently throwaway.
But perhaps I’m just being a curmudgeon. The world certainly won’t be lesser for the existence of Unflattened. We’ll find out how well Trombone Champ adapts to three dimensions soon, as the game is due to launch on Quest and Steam this autumn.
