Pocket Lands delivers a promising new sandbox for building digital worlds, and it's out now in Early Access on Quest. Read on for our full impressions.
Creative minds always find a way to express their individuality, no matter the means at their disposal. Pen, paintbrush, digital tools. Video games such as Minecraft exploded in popularity through the freedom of shaping its voxel art world, to the point where people created futuristic spaceships, sprawling cities, and medieval towns by hand. If you build it, they will come, so the old quote goes. Pocket Lands aims to deliver a world-building sandbox to allow those with inspiration a new avenue to convey their imagination. It shows signs of a promising future, even if what's here in early access leaves me wanting.
A full-scale playground to design complex architectural ideas is not a new concept, as previously seen in cyubeVR and RealmCraft among others, yet Pocket Lands stands out for several small but defining features. The first is its flexible way to engage with your blank canvas, as the diorama is viewable from three different perspectives: a resizable island in mixed reality, as that same snippet of the world but with your surroundings covered, or a sprawling fully immersive mode where everything is rendered in the voxel world, even the day-night cycle. Snappy hand tracking or a controller quickly lets you see how expansive your imaginative kingdom is becoming.
Second is the fact that you can drop into your own world at any moment, going from a God-mode perspective to walking around next to your creations. This feeling, especially once laser-focused on more elaborate constructions, is a brilliant addition that inspires awe. That's helped by the ability to jump and, most importantly, fly around the map to look at the environment from another area. This entices you to perhaps add a new tower to your castle, mast to your airship, or neighboring skyscraper to your skyline.
Finally, no creative sandbox is complete without accessible building tools. From a quick 17-slide tutorial where Pocket Lands succinctly explains how it all works, the onboarding to pick up and play is as easy as it gets. Making the motion of grabbing a rectangle from two opposite sides lets you spawn a figure as long, wide, or short as you wish. A handy menu with over 25 full and half block types awaits to accommodate every type of building. Concrete, sand, wood, and lampshades are but a few foundations to build unique creations on. The calming music, ranging from medieval Oblivion-esque melodies to soothing piano sounds, instills a relaxing vibe in the creation process.
However, hand tracking feels a little hit or miss right now. There is a nifty feature that by tapping your thumb to your hand, you can “scroll” through the map as you would a smartphone, turning it yellow to signify selection. You can close your fist to move around the map, pinch to move the edges of the mixed reality diorama, or grab blocks and add new ones. But Pocket Lands doesn't always register when I stop making a fist gesture, only to end up on an entirely different side of the map. Or worse, the diorama itself ends up in another area of the room.
While Mountainborn Studios is aware of these false positives, the only current solution is to be gentle with the movements so that they can be properly registered to avoid such nuisances. A bit of comic relief against these issues is the addition of arm-swinging locomotion, which doesn't add much, but it's undoubtedly fun to make that primal motion while exploring. For the avoidance of doubt, artificial stick-based locomotion is also available.
An unexpected but welcome addition.
I wish that I could do more in Pocket Lands right now. Yes, it's a wonderful Early Access release with all the aforementioned details. But I'd love to see more items, block types, and creatures added. Thankfully, the latter is in development, along with new biomes and multiplayer. It's a great playground for creative minds, one that hopes to fill a void after Microsoft abandoned VR support for Minecraft. Here’s hoping that this sturdy foundation builds a lasting legacy.
Pocket Lands is out now in Early Access for the Meta Quest platform.
Nearly 15,000 data breaches and leaks were reported worldwide in 2025, according to Cyble’s Global Cybersecurity Report. Corporations and government agencies were frequent targets, with experts warning that 2026 will bring even more attacks as hackers adopt AI-driven tools.
Qantas was among the hardest hit, with data from 5 million customers exposed and later sold on the dark web. Other companies, including Oracle, Volvo, and SK Telecom, faced leaks or disruptions. Researchers also uncovered the largest breach in history: 16 billion passwords linked to Apple, Facebook, Google, and Telegram. Government institutions were not spared, with the US Congressional Budget Office hacked.
Individuals were targeted as well. In South Korea, more than 120,000 cameras were compromised to capture footage of unsuspecting users, which could then be used in blackmail efforts. Konstantin Levinzon, CEO of Planet VPN, said AI amplified many of these incidents. “Even though AI improves our daily lives and strengthens cybersecurity, it is also widely used by hackers,” he noted.
Levinzon outlined three potential threats to watch out for in 2026:
“Potential wearable hacks, deepfakes, and autonomous AI systems mean that next year, users will need to take extra steps,” Levinzon said. He recommended two-factor authentication, regular software updates, and VPN use as basic defences.
KitGuru Says: Most major AI-focused corporations have a lot of safety nets in place to avoid their AI systems from ‘going rogue'. It is highly unlikely that criminals seeking to cause harm would have the same level of checks and balances in place.
The post Cyble says data breaches grew to record heights in 2025, AI could make it much worse first appeared on KitGuru.Christmas tech deals are starting to hit the market. MSI is slashing prices across a wide range of monitors once again, promising high refresh rate gaming from as little as £139.
Here is a list of some of our top picks, each focused on offering a high refresh rate for smooth gaming, tiered with the most expensive models first:
You can find all of MSI's Christmas season UK deals HERE.
KitGuru Says: Are you planning on picking up a new upgrade before the end of the year?
The post MSI rolls out new Christmas discounts across gaming monitors first appeared on KitGuru.If you're looking to build your own racing simulator set-up then there is good news for UK-based enthusiasts. Thermaltake's full line-up of racing sim gear is now readily available and in stock at one of the UK's biggest tech-specialist etailers.
Overclockers UK has full stock of the Thermaltake Sim Racing lineup, with all products currently available for pre-Christmas delivery. This includes popular options like the GR500 and GR300 cockpits, as well as wheel and pedal sets, along with other accessories.
You can find the full line-up HERE.
KitGuru Says: Are you thinking of putting together your own at-home racing sim?
The post Thermaltake’s racing sim gear fully in stock at OCUK first appeared on KitGuru.
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