The Xbox Arrival We Never Expected
I had mentally slotted Polyarc’s Moss and Moss II on a list of games that were never going to be released on the Xbox. Not only were they locked behind PlayStation exclusivity, they were PlayStation VR titles. They were as likely to grace the big black box as a Super Mario Virtua Boy game.
I am humbly eating my words. Moss and Moss II have vaulted over the whole VR and exclusivity situation and are landing on the Xbox Series X|S (as well as PC via Steam, PlayStation 5, Switch and Switch 2) on July 16th, 2026. Their two campaigns have been united and glued together in the single story, Moss: The Forgotten Relic.
The July 16th release date was announced recently, and that information came with a publicly available demo (solely on Steam, unfortunately for us Xbox fans). We’ve sulkily gone over to Steam to try it out, mainly as an entry point for us to discover the world of Moss, but also to understand how a VR game can possibly be ported to a game controller.
The demo takes place midway through Moss II (and therefore three-quarters of the way though Moss: The Forgotten Relic). It’s a single level and about thirty-minutes of adventure-puzzling, and does a decent job of both explaining what Moss is as well as indicating how a VR port might be handled.
Meeting Quill And The World Of Moss
I’d always assumed that Moss was the name of the main character mouse, but that’s untrue. The mouse is actually called Quill, and the world around them is Moss. It seems that this world has been plagued by someone called The Keeper, who has corrupted the land and turned scarabs against its natives.
We could immediately see why Moss was destined to expand further than a VR game. 90% of the game is a traditional adventure-platformer in a 3D space. You control Quill as he does a lot of traditional adventuring moves, like smashing through urns, hauling himself up smaller blocks, and attacking scarabs. The world is broken up into discrete chambers, not much larger than the game screen, and you’re trying to find a way forward without being eaten.
Becoming The Reader
The remaining 10% of Moss: The Forgotten Relic is where it deviates from the Legend of Zelda hack ’n’ puzzle template. It’s where – presumably – the VR played a part. In Moss, you’re not only Quill, but you’re also ‘The Reader’. There’s a lovely segment at the start of the demo where you even get a peek at yourself in one of the game’s mirrors. You are visible only to Quill, and you’re some kind of ghost/god hybrid, hovering over the game.
As The Reader, you can tinker with the environment. These interactable elements flash blue helpfully. With the right stick, you can push, pull and press them, hoping to create a free path for Quill. In the demo, that’s mostly limited to creating gangways. In the demo’s best sequence, you’re pushing in pistons so you can pass, only to reach a higher platform where you have to pull them back out to act as a bridge. It’s reasonably conventional adventure gameplay stuff, but instead of pulling levers to make things happen, you have them all available with the right-stick.
It doesn’t take much squinting to see how this was so effective on PSVR. Manipulating the environment as an invisible giant would feel tactile and like you were intruding on the game space. On console, with a controller in hand, the novelty isn’t quite as pronounced. Making bridges with a controller isn’t wholly new, so there is a question: without the gimmick of using your hands to maneuver the environment, will Moss: The Forgotten Relic lose a little of its freshness? From the very short demo it’s almost impossible to tell. It worked neatly and effectively, but I never encountered something that I hadn’t encountered elsewhere.
Small Mouse, Big Adventure
Sidestepping the question of whether Moss: The Forgotten Relic is particularly innovative for now, it’s clear that it’s going to – at the very least – be a superbly crafted and immersive adventure. The environments are lit wonderfully, as you move from a jungle exterior to a furnace-like interior. Quill is almost sickeningly cute (the voice actor, Morla Gorrondona, is channeling her inner toddler), and we couldn’t face seeing her get hurt. She’s not alone in her adventure, either, as other characters cross her path. They are voiced equally well.
The demo also encompasses a sequence where you gain a new weapon – the hammer – and get to use it in puzzles and combat. The simple but effective combat has its ceiling hiked up a little: the wind-up animation for the hammer attack is quite a bit longer, so you have to anticipate the moves of the scarabs rather than react to them. It shows that there is going to be some interesting nuance to the button-bashing.
The hammer also ties into The Reader stuff, as you can leave a phantom hammer in the level, ready to be triggered whenever you fancy. That allows the puzzle-designers to have some fun, as pressure-pads can be triggered at distance. You can likely already imagine puzzles like pressure-pads on timers, as Moss ducks under gates just in time (but doesn’t leave a fedora behind).
One Big Question Still Remains
As a demo goes, particularly for a game that has been out for so long, it’s not long. There’s only thirty minutes here, and we didn’t get a complete handle on the depth of the combat or the range of abilities. But as an indication of the general quality it does a fine job: Moss: The Forgotten Relic is going to be as polished as its original reviews and plaudits would indicate.
What surprised us most, though, was how our original question – could Moss make the journey from VR to controller? – was so easily answered (yes, and with ease, apparently), only to be replaced by the bigger question of ‘will it be as original with a controller?’. That last question remains up in the air, but we’ve seen enough to know that we’re eager to play it and find out.
We’ll follow with full review, but for now huge thanks go out to Polyarc for access to Moss.
You can play the Moss: The Forgotten Relic demo on Steam now. The full game is due for release on Xbox Series X|S via the Xbox Store (as well as PC via Steam, PlayStation 5, Switch and Switch 2) on July 16th, 2026.
