REK puts its robot-fighting simulator on the iPhone
REK Sim, the San Francisco promotion's simulator, opened an iOS beta on 16 October under the line 'Anyone can become a robot pilot'. It is a simulator, not remote control of a real robot — and the widest funnel yet into REK's piloted fights.
Hosted on YouTube. Roboxing does not host this video.
REK, the San Francisco promotion behind this autumn's human-versus-robot fight and the bladed Deathmatch, has put its robot-fighting simulator on the iPhone. On 16 October REK posted "REK Sim now on iOS (beta)! Anyone can become a robot pilot", with a link to an Apple TestFlight beta.
To be clear about what it is: REK Sim is a simulator. Nothing in REK's announcement says a phone controls a real robot. What it does is put the pilot's seat in more hands. REK's site lists the sim for Steam, Meta Quest and now iOS, and its fights page claims more than 20,000 simulator fights across 65 countries. The Steam version is still listed as an alpha.
The point of the sim is the pipeline behind it. REK's channels describe it as the way to "train to become a robot pilot", and REK has said its real fights are piloted by people rather than run autonomously, through VR headsets and controllers. A free app on a phone is the widest possible top of that funnel. REK has not published how simulator players qualify for the real robots, or how many have.
It also fits the direction REK has been forced into. California's athletic commission has told it to stop fights involving a human in the cage; robot-against-robot is unaffected. A league whose fighters are pilots, recruited from a game anyone can download, needs neither human opponents nor professional fighters.
Separately, REK has published an official highlights reel from Deathmatch, its robot-only weapons night on 9 October. It is in the watch archive. REK has still not named any winners from that night.