The franchise that once taught a generation how “to job” in virtual reality is now clocking in somewhere new — and this time, no headset required.
FarBridge, an Austin-based independent studio, announced today the development of Job Simulator: Human Relations, a four-player flat-screen co-op comedy built in official partnership with Owlchemy Labs, the Google-owned studio that holds the franchise’s intellectual property. Alongside the announcement, FarBridge launched a Kickstarter campaign — read the full announcement — with a $150,000 funding goal. It is the first time in the franchise’s ten-year history that the Job Simulator universe has existed outside a VR headset.
The original Job Simulator: The 2050 Archives launched April 5, 2016 as a defining launch title for the HTC Vive, eventually selling over one million copies and winning Best VR/AR Game at the 17th Game Developers Choice Awards. For a decade, the franchise remained VR-exclusive, releasing across PlayStation VR, Oculus Quest, and eventually Apple Vision Pro — but never once touching a standard screen.
Human Relations changes that entirely.
What the Game Is — and What It Is Not
The new game shares the original’s satirical premise: it’s 2050, human employment no longer exists, and robot curators have reconstructed the office experience for a museum exhibit — working from social media posts, corporate training videos, and what the developers describe as “toxic productivity gurus.” The results, predictably, bear only a passing resemblance to how offices actually worked.
Players step into this warped reconstruction with up to three other workers. The daily loop, which FarBridge calls “Do Job, Manage Chaos, Hit Goal,” runs through recognizable office torments: fetching coffee, processing paperwork, restocking printers, delivering packages, surviving mandatory meetings, and contending with unreliable Wi-Fi and limited desk space — all while escalating disasters including fires, floods, and earthquakes compound the situation.
This is an important distinction from the recent trend of VR games porting to flat screens: Human Relations is not a port or adaptation of the existing VR game. It is a new title, designed natively for flat screens and standard controllers from the ground up, with the Job Simulator premise as its foundation rather than its constraints. The question it answers is not “can the VR experience survive on a monitor?” — it is “can a new game built from scratch around this franchise’s satirical comedy deliver without the physical embodiment that made the original distinctive?”
How Co-Op Changes the Job
The answer FarBridge has built rests on a specific design insight: in the original VR game, the comedy came from physical presence — the laugh of literally reaching out and throwing a stapler at your robotic boss. That kind of embodied humor does not translate directly to a gamepad. But what does translate is the comedy of cooperative failure.
The carry-forward quota system sharpens this. Missing a daily target does not reset the clock — the shortfall accumulates into the next day, meaning a catastrophic Tuesday (say, a flood during the 10 AM all-hands) can actively endanger Friday’s performance review. Conversely, hitting targets unlocks promotions, new abilities, customization options, and additional management responsibilities that layer fresh chaos into subsequent sessions. The game gets harder — and funnier — as players succeed.
Two Studios, One Museum
FarBridge is not a stranger to the Job Simulator universe. The Austin-based studio, founded in 2017 and now with 25 or more employees, previously contributed development services to Owlchemy Labs titles including Cosmonious High and Dimensional Double Shift. The studio has shipped more than a dozen games across VR, AR, PC, mobile, and console — most recently Homeworld: Vast Reaches (May 2024, with Gearbox Entertainment), a VR real-time strategy game for Meta Quest.
Patrick Curry, FarBridge’s founder and CEO, framed the crowdfunding approach as deliberate. “Job Simulator has always been good at finding the joke in the everyday nonsense of work,” he said in the announcement. After nearly a decade as an independent studio, FarBridge sees Kickstarter as a way to build the game with players involved from the beginning.
Andrew Eiche, CEO of Owlchemy Labs, cited the prior collaboration as the foundation for handing the franchise’s flat-screen debut to an outside studio. Owlchemy spent the franchise’s tenth anniversary year — during which Dimensional Double Shift continued receiving content updates — considering how to expand the universe “without losing what made people love it in the first place,” Eiche said. FarBridge’s track record made the answer clear.
The Kickstarter Is Modest by Design
The $150,000 funding goal is structurally conservative for the genre and the platform. According to Kickstarter’s own 2026 analysis, video game campaigns raised $26.1 million on the platform in 2024 — the highest annual total since 2015. The 11 campaigns clearing $500,000 in 2025 shared a consistent profile: studios with prior shipped games, playable demos, and established audiences. FarBridge has all three of these attributes.
Backer tiers begin at $10 and scale to include private playtests, exclusive development updates, VIP Discord access, Steam copies, in-game recognition, and limited-edition opportunities to design a JobBot face or corporate motivational poster for inclusion in the game. Stretch goals add additional disaster types, customization options, and new job categories. The game is already available to wishlist on Steam.
What Comes Next
Job Simulator: Human Relations does not yet have a release date. FarBridge’s website will host ongoing development updates as the Kickstarter campaign runs.
For a franchise whose entire identity was built around what it felt like to physically throw a stapler in virtual space, the move to a flat screen and a co-op format is not a small step. The premise — robots earnestly reconstructing a workplace they have never inhabited, from— is, if anything, funnier when four humans are in the exhibit together, competing for the same broken printer while the sprinkler system activates
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Job Simulator: Human Relations require a VR headset?
No. This is the explicit purpose of the game’s existence: it is the first Job Simulator franchise title designed for flat screens and standard controllers, with no VR requirement. The franchise’s existing VR games remain VR-only; Human Relations is a new title in the same universe, not a port of any of them.
How is this different from other games that adapted VR games to flat screens?
Most recent VR-to-flat adaptations — like Moss: The Forgotten Relic (July 2026) — involved porting existing VR titles and engineering solutions for replacing head-tracking cameras and motion-controller input. Human Relations is not that: it was designed natively for flat screens from the start, with co-op multiplayer as the central mechanic. The design question is not “how do we preserve the VR experience?” but “how do we build new comedy around the Job Simulator premise for players who have never owned a headset?”
What does FarBridge’s track record with Owlchemy Labs mean for this game?
FarBridge previously contributed development services to two Owlchemy Labs VR titles — Cosmonious High and Dimensional Double Shift — meaning the studios have already worked together on projects under the same creative umbrella. This is not an arm’s-length licensing deal: Andrew Eiche specifically cited FarBridge’s prior collaboration history as the reason Owlchemy trusted the studio with the franchise’s flat-screen debut. The development relationship predates the announcement.
When does the Kickstarter campaign end, and is there a release date?
No end date for the Kickstarter campaign or release date for the game has been announced as of this writing. The game is available to wishlist on Steam, and FarBridge will post development updates at farbridge.com as the project progresses.
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