Skydance Interactive announced today that Arashi: Castles of Sin - Final Cut will release on November 16 for PSVR 2, PC VR and Quest headsets.
In terms of Quest models, the release from Skydance only specifically mentions Quest 2 in relation to the November release date (though by nature of cross-compatibility, Quest Pro will be supported by default as well).
In relation to the Quest 3 version, Skydance simple says it's "coming soon." Whether that's because that version will arrive later than other platforms on November 16 or simply because a pre-November 16 headset release date is still TBC by Meta, we don't know. That said, the latter seems more likely. We reached out to Skydance for clarification and will update if we receive a response.
This Final Cut release of Arashi: Castles of Sin brings an upgraded version of the previously PSVR-exclusive to current gen headsets, featuring a mix of stealth and sword combat gameplay.
We went hands-on with this new version of Arashi on PSVR 2 last month at Gamescom. Ultimately, we enjoyed our time with the game but found it be held back in some key areas that haven't been properly adapted in the transition to current gen headsets. We called it an entertaining upgraded marred by last-gen hangovers:
Despite [the hangovers], there is still an entertaining game to be found here – and perhaps one that many didn't get to experience when it first released. The original PSVR release of Arashi wasn't perfect, and it seems like the same might apply to this 'definitive' Final Cut. It's a testament that despite the disappointing last-gen hangovers, I'm still looking forward to the final release. Here's hoping that Skydance and Endeavour can make some further adjustments before the game ships later this year.
As is often the case with virtual reality, the best game I tried at Gamescom 2023 wasn't one in a big corporate booth or meeting room, but a small indie game called Outta Hand that I demoed in a hallway.
The hallway demo has become somewhat of a rite of passage for VR enthusiasts and developers alike. And while this certainly wasn't my first hallway demo, it was one of my most recent favorites – even though I was flaying my arms wildly for any Gamescom attended to see.
Outta Hand, featured in our recent Upload VR Summer Showcase, is a VR action platformer coming to Quest later this month (the specific date is still TBC). Part-Gorilla Tag, part-Crash Bandicoot, it takes the fundamentals of the movement system that the former made popular and evolves it even further with some new mechanics added into the mix.
VR platformers are having a bit of moment lately. As I spoke about with in my Max Mustard hands-on, there's two strains of the genre – Max Mustard falls into the Astro Bot-style first/third person hybrid, where you look down onto a character that you controller from above. Gorilla Tag is the title that popularized the newer first-person version of the genre, where you inhabit a character in full immersive first-person and use your arms to push and propel yourself around an environment via jumps and leaps.
However, Gorilla Tag wasn't first and foremost a platformer, but more like a multiplayer version of tag in VR that used those platforming movement mechanics. No More Rainbows changed that, taking a similar arm-based movement system and developing a true platformer experience around it. With Outta Hand, developers Capricia Productions are evolving the genre once again. Based off what I've tried so far, this new evolution is equally, if not more, engaging, with its own unique spin.
In Outta Hand, you play as a round creature that looks kind of like Mike Wazowski if he was blue, had two eyes, no legs and very long arms. You begin your journey in a facility owned by a Doctor Neo Cortox-like overlord called Dr Vendelboom. Locked inside a glass container, you move along a conveyer belt alongside other Wazowski-likes until you reach a scanner that deems your cerebral functions to be "above allowed parameters," marking you for termination. You soon escape your container, avoid termination and set out on a platforming adventure to escape the facility.
Both Gorilla Tag and No More Rainbows have an essential rigidity to their movement systems – the latter is more loose, for sure, but jumping in both games feels like a very specific, tight and defined arc of movement. That gives it a sense of precision and skill, allowing you to get a feel for the movement and improve as you go along.
Outta Hand doesn't throw this out the window – it's definitely still precise and you will get a feel for things, improving as you play – but it also makes the leaping movements feel a little more... spring-y. It feels more free, allowing you to jump much further distances while still keeping the required parameters to replicate specific, precise movements when needed. You'll soon find yourself flinging between platforms, across gaps, between smashing walls and around deadly spinning cogs.
Even in just the opening sections of the game, the obstacbles in Outta Hand were all incredibly varied and never quite the same. That's another key point of difference between Outta Hand and other similar platformers – Capricia Productions takes a Mario-like approach to spoon-feeding you new challenges and teaching additional mechanics gradually, adding layers of depth to the gameplay bit by bit.
One of these is the ability to flap your hands at your side like wings, which gives you a little mid-air boost jump. You can use this in a load of different ways, such as to course-correct when you leap too far or to get a last little boost for a jump that's a bit short of your target. You can chain multiple flaps together, but a depletable meter will prevent you from abusing the mechanic.
There's also variations on how you jump – a two-handed push directly onto the floor will spring you more upwards than forwards, which can be combined with the flapping for a new kind of short hop.
And then there's the punching. This is where Outta Hand really starts to come into its own – and lives up to its name. You can press your controller's grip buttons to enlarge your fists Ms Marvel-style, which can then be used in both combat and platforming maneuvers.
When mid-air, punching down on your landing spot – or even a mid-air enemy – will give you a huge boost back upwards. There's also some fan-like contraptions to be found floating in mid-air that can be punched through, launching you in a pre-determined direction.
In between platforming sections – or sometimes in the middle of them – you'll also encounter Dr Vendelboom employees, such as security bots, that aren't so happy with your escape plans. In these sections, the game switches gears once again, providing refreshing portions of combat.
Your fists have a fairly generous auto-aim, with targets automatically appearing on enemies as you point towards them. However, despite the way your arms comically extend out from your body when punching, your range is relatively short compared to the areas you'll be navigating. This means you have to use your platforming skills to leap around enemies, simultaneously throwing out punches and evading their attacks as you fling by. Some enemies engage in melee combat or explode when in close proximity, while others will shoot out bullets from afar
There's a stylish and amusing slow-motion effect that kicks in when you throw out the final blow on the last enemy too. It's a good example of the game's wider charm in both visuals and narrative. The platforming and combat is solid, but the game's world is also just a joy to inhabit. The visuals strike that perfect balance between charmingly detailed yet well considered for optimal performance on standalone headsets.
Putting all these elements together, it's easy to see how Outta Hand might offer something that becomes the next natural progress of the Gorilla Tag movement system. Not only is it an evolution of that system, but ot offers more mechanics and a sense of flinging freedom with satisfying bouts of combat interspersed throughout.
We can't wait to play more of the full game when it releases later this month on Quest. Keep an eye out for more Outta Hand news coming soon.
Banana-filled action plaformer Toss! leaps onto VR headsets today, available on Quest, PSVR 2 and PC VR for $19.99.
Published by Vertigo Games and developed by Agera Games, Toss! will see you play as a monkey grabbing onto pipes, handles, tree brances and more as you fling and leap around the open sky.
Here's an idea of what to expect, taken from the Quest Store description:
You've crash landed on a cloud planet and will need to collect parts to repair your ship by launching yourself around 75+ playground levels in 9 vibrant cloudscape biomes and rank-up to become a TOSS! Master.
The game features several levels of challenge: you can try to collect the many bananas spread across the maps, compete against the clock in a Time Attack mode, or complete the course in as few grabs as possible.
There's also global leaderboards to compete on, as well as a ghost system that allows you to compete against friends or other players around the world in asynchronous multiplayer. There's also game modifiers, such as Zero Gravity and Double Toss, to be unlocked across the campaign.
In an interview on Meta Quest blog, Agera Games says there's still "more content to come" for Toss! post-launch as well.
We'll be tossing ourselves across the game this weekend, with the aim of getting you our full review sometime this next – keep an eye out.
A new Demeo update, dubbed the Mixed Reality 2.0 update, brings support for hand tracking and colocation.
The update comes ahead of the launch of Quest 3 later this year, which is pitched as featuring improved mixed reality functionality. Resolution also confirmed today that Demeo is in development for Apple Vision Pro.
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In our video above, you can check out some footage of Demeo running in mixed reality with hand tracking. And yes, hand tracking support means you can now pat your dog in mixed reality while playing Demeo.
Resolution also confirmed that Demeo Battles, its upcoming standalone PvP spin-off, will include mixed reality support at launch later this year.
Demeo first added support for passthrough mixed reality on Quest almost a year ago, allowing players to snap the game board to a physical space and play Demeo in mixed reality on Quest 2 and Quest Pro.
However, players still had to use controllers – while Resolution Games previously announced hand tracking support for Demeo, it had yet to ship. Today, that changes – not only does Demeo now support hand tracking, but it also supports colocation as well.
Colocation is the ability to have multiple headsets share the same physical play space with the same virtual coordinate space. Essentially, it enables seamless local multiplayer. Now when users play Demeo in the same physical room with each other, everything will be synced up properly. In-game avatars will match the real world position of each headset/player, while game elements – such as the Demeo game board and other new optional decorations – are synced to the same identical position in virtual and physical space across all headsets.
This is an essential new feature for Demeo, which makes it akin to playing a board game together around a table or in a living room.
We tried out hand tracking in Demeo on Quest Pro earlier this week and can confirm the integration is absolutely seamless. The game's interactions all work almost exactly as they would with controllers. It's completely intuitive and will require little-to-no explanation for those who are already familiar with Demeo (and even for those who aren't).
When starting Demeo after the new update, players will receive a system-level prompt asking if they want to share point cloud data with Meta, pictured below.
This system-level prompt will be presented to players the first time they open an app that supports local multiplayer/colocation on Meta Quest headsets. Users must agree to "share point cloud data with Meta" to enable local multiplayer functionality.
While these new features will be available on Quest 2 and Quest Pro, Resolution's increased commitment to improving Demeo's mixed reality experience bodes well for the game's future on upcoming headsets. Both Quest 3 from Meta and Vision Pro from Apple will strongly focus on mixed reality experiences.
Meta's big marketing focus for Quest 3 is on the headset's mixed reality features, thanks to its improved color passthrough and depth sensor. With the addition of hand tracking and colocation, Quest 3 players should be able to seamlessly boot up Demeo in the same physical space and experience it together in mixed reality.
Today, Resolution Games also confirmed Demeo is in active development for Apple Vision Pro. The addition of hand tracking support on Quest headsets and the wider mixed reality support lays the groundwork for the experience to be ported over to Apple's headset. Vision Pro supports a pinch-and-gaze input method that combines hand and eye tracking while also focusing on mixed reality functionality. It should make Demeo a perfect fit for the headset.
Resolution Games also announced it is dropping support for the original Quest headset today, receiving a final end-of-life update instead of the new mixed reality features. Demeo will no longer support cross-play with other platforms, but will continue to support playing multiplayer with other Quest 1 headsets running Demeo.
The hand tracking colocation update is available for Demeo on Quest now.
Resolution Games confirmed today that its tabletop dungeon crawler Demeo is in active development for Apple Vision Pro.
Demeo is one of the best social VR games available. Up to four players gather around a virtual game board to battle monsters with turn-based combat across successive levels of dungeons across a selection of fantasy-themed campaigns.
Resolution Games confirmed that Demeo will support "fully virtual as well as mixed reality gameplay" on Apple Vision Pro.
The news comes alongside confirmation that Demeo now supports hand tracking on Quest headsets, setting the stage for its arrival on Vision Pro. The headset will reportedly not support controllers of any kind, instead focusing on a unique pinch-and-gaze hand tracking solution that combines eye and hand signals into one seamless input system.
Resolution noted that it has "multiple mixed reality titles actively in development across a number of devices" for next year and beyond, including "several with dedicated controller-free play." The company says that half of the studio's current workload is focused on mixed reality projects.
Resolution also confirmed that the flatscreen version of Demeo, currently available on PC and PlayStation with cross-platform play across all supported VR and flatscreen devices, will receive a future release on Mac computers.
Demeo is a huge boon for Apple's upcoming standalone headset. While much of the focus on Apple's end has been on the productivity and computer-like work features – dubbed by the company as 'spatial computing' – there's been relatively little focus on gaming.
Rec Room is one of the only other existing gaming/social VR experiences confirmed for release on Apple Vision Pro. It will be available in full VR, which Apple calls 'Fully Immersive Experiences.'
Given Apple's approach to playspace boundaries in VR, Demeo should be a perfect fit on the headset. It's an experience mostly played stationary and seated, with relatively little movement and gameplay that suits mixed reality and hand tracking systems wonderfully.
Apple Vision Pro is set to release early next year, while Demeo's exact release date on Vision Pro – and whether it's targeting availability at headset launch – remains unconfirmed.
After releasing Ricie's Plank Experience, one of early VR's most memorable and seminal experiences, Toast Interactive is stretching its virtual legs into new territory.
The Australia-based studio is moving away from roomscale plank walking into something different: a VR platformer. It makes Max Mustard, the studio's upcoming release that merges first and third-person platforming, feel like a surprising yet welcome heel-turn. We've known for quite some time that Toast had been working on something "much more ambitious," but I don't think anyone predicted it would be an experience like Max Mustard.
Perhaps that speaks to the passion that's evident in the game from the get-go. When I jumped into the world of Max Mustard at Gamescom, it was clear that this genre heel-turn hasn't been made lightly. The world is packed with attention to detail and beautiful visuals, with gameplay that is obviously inspired by similar VR platformers (think everything from Astro Bot to Moss to Lucky's Tale) while still attempting to make its own mark on the genre.
This isn't a concept that the studio is making to satisfy its existing fans from Richie's Plank Experience. On the contrary, Max Mustard seems like the game that the studio felt most passionate about making, regardless of the expectations of any existing fans. Who knows what level of crossover there will be between fans of Richie's Plank and Max Mustard. Either way, at least Toast is shooting for something of quality instead of something cheap that simply aims to capture the same plank-walking thrills for a second time.
More Than One Platform
The platforming genre in VR is at a bit of a turning point. With the advent of the viral multiplayer game Gorilla Tag, there's been a series of releases since that use similar movement to focus on first-person VR platforming, such as No More Rainbows and upcoming releases Toss! and Outta Hand.
On the other hand, games like Astro Bot and Lucky's Tale represent the 'old' approach that brings the existing flatscreen format into an immersive medium. These titles take the basics of flatscreen 2D and 3D third-person platforming and then try to integrate that format into VR while adding mechanics or interactions that leverage the immersiveness of virtual reality.
Max Mustard falls into the latter category, which isn't necessarily a bad thing – neither approach to VR platforming is innately better than the other. It mainly depends on the execution and, perhaps, what a title can do to set itself apart. In the case of Max Mustard, it has a few things going for it. The most prominent is the way it attempts to support the traditional third-person, stick-based platforming sequences with some simultaneous first-person elements that will affect the world around Max Mustard as you move her through levels.
As seen in the initial reveal trailer, you'll use VR motion controls to wield tools like the plunger gun in first-person, which can affect the environment and open up new platforming pathways.
Max Mustard also tries to re-think some of the assumptions from traditional platformers. Collectible coins, for example, aren't as worthless as they might be elsewhere – in Max Mustard, you'll spend them towards upgrades between levels, which unlock new abilities for Max and hopefully let you cater towards a unique style of play. The third-person camera also isn't static – it will slowly move across the environment as you move Max around, as opposed to the fade-in, fade-out camera positions in a game like Moss. There's also mid-level power-ups to discover and special minigame rounds between platforming levels to break things up.
All of the above forms a solid base that positions Toast's second major VR title well. The real test will be whether the experience holds interest – and does enough – across the 40-level campaign. The level I tried did feel a little easy to run through, but it's also an earlier level and a game that, by nature of its visuals, seems more aimed towards a general audience than a truly competitive one.
In any case, there's a level of passion on display in-headset that makes Max Mustard immediately compelling. The visuals are stunning and a huge step-up in style and art direction from the fairly-basic presentation of Richie's Plank Experience. If nothing else, the game promises to be incredibly pretty to look at and given you'll be looking down on the world from a third-person view, that's an important element to nail.
With Richie's Plank Experience, the studio captured the pure thrill and fear that comes from being immersed in a terrifying scenario in VR. With Max Mustard, the studio is instead pushing towards a different style that moves away from roomscale and instead designs a world with far more intricate and playful visuals. Following up with something similar to the former would have been expected. Instead, presenting something this different proves a restlessness that's rare to come by. It really feels as though Toast Interactive is trying to grow as a creative team and challenge itself to nail something new, which is commendable.
What we tried at Gamescom was a positive first look – we're excited to try more when Max Mustard releases on VR platforms early next year.
Developed by vTime Games and published by renowned studio Team17, Border Bots will prepare its papers for inspection later this month on PSVR 2 and PC VR.
The game is set to land on PlayStation and SteamVR on September 28, presenting an adorable, robot-ified take on border patrol that's packed with witty humor.
A lighthearted take on a robot-led future, Border Bots VR arrives on Sept 28th for #PSVR2 & #SteamVR.
🏙️ Explore a futuristic megacity 🤖 Interact with quirky robots 🧩 Solve daily-expanding puzzles
Part-Job Simulator, part-Startenders, we gave Border Bots a try last month and come away quite impressed. There's a great level of polish to what we've played so far, packed with clever details and engaging gameplay that really puts the pressure on as the levels progress.
The main premise of Border Bots sees you, a human, manning the border booth in a futuristic city, inspecting robots as they approach your counter and approving or denying for entry. You'll be keeping an eye out for odd physical attributes, banned models, incorrect form details or other anomalies before stamping the robot's border form with a tick or a cross and sending them on their way.
Border Bots will launch on PSVR 2 and PC VR on September 28, with a release on Quest headset set for "early next year." You can read more about the game below in our preview from last month.
For the second year in a row, I've come away from Gamescom excited to play more of Drop Dead: The Cabin – except this time, in mixed reality.
In 2022, Soul Assembly's Gamescom demo of Drop Dead: The Cabin was one of our favorites of the show. Unfortunately, the game launched a few months later to a rocky start: not only did some of its spotlight get stolen by the release of PSVR 2 in the same week, but there were player reports of bugs and other issues that hampered the experience.
A year on, Soul Assembly was back at Gamescom 2023 with a new update to showcase. The team says they've not only been addressing issues that players experienced at launch with the main game, but also working on a new update that might ultimately grant the title a second chance.
This new update for The Cabin will pull focus towards the mixed reality features that Meta is pushing alongside its Quest 3 headset, set to debut this fall. A new mixed reality game mode titled Home Invasion will launch in October as a free update for The Cabin. It's clear the Soul Assembly are hoping that the new mode might put the wider experience up for reappraisal with players.
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A snippet of Home Invasion mixed reality gameplay, provided by Soul Assembly.
Inverting The Cabin
For new Quest 3 owners later this year, Home Invasion looks like one of only a few mixed reality experiences that actually put your entire play space to use, becoming a dynamic and integral part of the experience. While other experiences like Cubism or Demeo will bring a game board or a puzzle into your room, The Cabin's Home Invasion wants to take that one step further, transforming your environment into a battleground.
First teased in a video from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg showcasing the potential of mixed reality on Quest 3, Home Invasion inverts the premise of the original release: instead of slowly venturing out of the cabin to fight zombies and defend equipment, the zombies will come to you, invading your play space and forcing you to defend from within.
Zombies will arrive through virtual windows and doors, as well as giant virtual holes that they will smash open in later waves. You'll use a familiar selection of guns and melee weapons to stave them off, defending the real-life room that you're playing in.
Our demo at Gamescom used Quest Pro and took place in a fairly small area, with the room's real door converted into a virtual one in the style of Drop Dead, while a virtual window was positioned up on an adjacent wall. These virtual set pieces give you a glimpse out into the virtual forest from which zombies will emerge and stumble towards you, eventually leaping inside to attack you.
There's also a transmitter device in the room, which features a minigame that will get the satellite – visible outside through the virtual windows – up and running. This begins a 10-minute countdown to extraction, but if the zombies attack the satellite, you'll need to complete the minigame again to resume the timer.
Unlike the co-op-focused main mode, Home Invasion is a single player experience. At first glance, the mode feels more like an amusing arcade mixed reality experience that you could easily demo to friends and family as opposed to a challenge equivalent to the main offering.
With the advent of Quest 3's full reveal later this month – and its launch following after – we've yet to see proof of any mixed reality experiences that truly sell the feature as a must-have. Home Invasion will no doubt prove entertaining, equivalent to Resolution Games' Spatial Ops in its commitment to integrating with a physical space to create a new category of experience. That said, it hardly makes the case for a headset upgrade or new purchase on the basis of mixed reality. Granted, it's clearly not meant to, but it's nonetheless interesting to note as we get closer to Connect. We're still looking for the headset-selling mixed reality experience.
That said, it's also hard to see Home Invasion flourishing beyond hey-look-at-what-my-new-headset-can-do status. Anyone that wants something more in-depth and challenging will probably end up playing the standard virtual reality mode. Even though the aforementioned Spatial Ops experience came with its quirks (mainly relating to room and play area setup), it also presented a concept that will only truly be valuable in mixed reality. Taking the mechanics of The Cabin and playing with them in mixed reality will be entertaining, but hardly essential. The clear advantage that it has over the former experience is that it's single player and can adapt to any room large or small – Spatial Ops only truly shines with the tall order of multiple players present in one giant, empty play space.
A Few Caveats
There are some other caveats to consider with Home Invasion too. While it's fantastic to see a virtual window placed on a real wall, you will find yourself trying to extend your arm through the window, to give your weapon a better angle on an approaching zombie. The result? A hand that goes smashing into a real wall, instead of passing through the virtual opening that you see in-headset.
The Soul Assembly team understandably waved this off as proof of immersion, which it is – but at the same time, it also breaks immersion in its reminder of the limitations posed by the technology. Perhaps punching holes in drywall will become the mixed reality equivalent of the roomscale VR users who broke TVs jumping off Ritchie's Plank?
That said, this might not be as much of a problem in a less-confined space. Our demo took place in a fairly small room, not giving much room to move or place multiple windows and doors. It would be interesting to see the mode in an expansive living room with more furniture and areas to move around. Soul Assembly even told me that if your sofa is marked out, zombies will interact with it and even stand on top of it. Personally, I'd love to see them take a seat.
On Quest Pro, the virtual elements, such as the Drop Dead door and window, are positioned around the room manually by the users before starting, given that the headset doesn't have automatic room setup and detection. Quest 3 will seemingly be able to more intelligently understand a play space using its depth sensor. It's likely that Home Invasion might be able to more seamlessly generated a mixed reality battleground on Quest 3 automatically, but Soul Assembly understandably played coy with those details at Gamescom.
The demo we played also wasn't free of bugs. Soul Assembly wanted to stress that the Gamescom demo was an early pre-release build, which will be refined and tweaked prior to launch. That said, there was a known issue with weapon spawn positions during my demo, and a surprise issue in my colleague Henry's where zombies stopped spawning mid-round. Again, these might get fixed before October, but nonetheless felt worth mentioning given the buggy initial launch of the base game in February.
Home Invasion will be available in October on all supported Quest headsets (including Quest 2, but only with its black-and-white passthrough), included as a free update for The Cabin and accessible from within the existing game.
When it first released two years ago, Arashi: Castles of Sin didn't really get a fair shot at making its mark.
By the time it released as a PSVR exclusive in 2021, the headset had become remarkably outdated and there were whispers of PSVR 2 on the horizon. Everyone could sense that PSVR was at the end of a lifecycle that had already well outlasted expectations. It's strange to now look back on games like Arashi, which released on the headset in its dying days and perhaps didn't reach as many players as they otherwise could have.
Despite the odd timing, we still rather enjoyed Arashi on release. Our review praised the open-ended levels that granted huge player freedom, as well as the fantastic realization of Feudal Japan. That said, we also noted that bugs, as well as underwhelming AI and combat, let down the game's better moments. It was nonetheless probably worth a shot for the few people still looking for new PSVR content in 2021. Endeavour One had, against the odds of the creaky technology, produced an entertaining – if at times slightly clumsy – stealth experience.
Two years on, Skydance Interactive are working with Endeavor One to give Arashi a second shot with a new Castles of Sin: Final Cut release, bringing the game to a wider audience than it likely ever enjoyed on PSVR.
Coming to PSVR 2, Quest 2, Quest 3 and PC VR this fall, Final Cut is being pitched as the definitive version of Arashi, with "refinements and upgrades" to the original that include "improved visuals, updated enemy and boss behavior, revamped controls and tons of additional quality of life features."
After going hands-on at Gamescom, it's clear that this Final Cut release contains some solid upgrades from the original. However, there's also a few elements that are needlessly stuck in the last generation, with little justification as to why.
The Clear Upgrades
The Gamescom demo was on PSVR 2, presenting a fairly stunning version of the game with the added power of PS5 behind it. Even as someone who didn't play the original, the visual upgrades are immediately clear compared to footage of the PSVR original. The environments, particularly texture quality, and lighting have obviously been improved – everything looks a little less blotchy.
The most immediate visual upgrade is seen in your adorable companion wolf Haru. While still just as loveable, she now looks much more realistic compared to her PSVR counterpart – her fur alone is hugely improved, and there's much more of it.
So while definitely not a complete visual overhaul – it still looks like a game from the previous generation with selected upgrades – there's enough here to be impressive in-headset. It definitely helps that, as with the original, the presentation of Feudal Japan is beautifully done.
Visuals aside, the demo – which covered some exploration, a stealth section and a boss fight from early in the campaign – was hugely enjoyable overall. I had a fantastic time and came away excited to play the full game in full later this year. For those in a similar position to me, this will be a great way to catch up on a title that was easily missed – now on whichever headset you like.
Everything we loved in our initial review still stands, plus there's been some improvements to areas of criticism as well. The game's first boss fight is a good example – compared to the fairly slow and clumsy AI in the initial release, the Final Cut features a much more dynamic and extended battle that felt genuinely engaging to fight in.
The switch from Move to the more reliable and dedicated Sense controllers no doubt helps the combat feel more responsive and zippy, but Skydance also noted that changes have been made to add more depth to the encounter. The enemy AI felt aggressive, with multiple attack patterns that required quick, successive parries. The fight also now has multiple phases – after being downed once, the boss will return multiple times with an increasing numbers of 'shadow' clones that act as decoys, complicating the entire encounter. It's a step in the right direction – whether it will help with the overall repetitiveness that we noted in our review remains to be seen.
Sitting in the Shadow of Last-Gen
Frustratingly though, the Final Cut demo we played also feature aspects from the original that remained unchanged, representing missed opportunities to truly take advantage of new headset features.
Eye tracking has been a standout feature of PSVR 2, with many titles using it to enable quick and seamless menu selection and games like Synapse integrating it into gameplay with telepathic-like results. Unfortauntely, there's no similar support in Arashi's Final Cut.
In the PSVR original, players made menu selections or directed Haru around the enviroinment with a selection reticule that was locked to the center of the headsets field of view. That meant that to make any selection, players had to physically move their head to aim the center-locked reticule. It was a practical solution for the relatively limited functionality provided by PSVR's Move controllers at the time. Unfortunately though, it remains entirely in tact in the Final Cut of Arashi, requiring players to move their head to make selections instead of integrating eye tracking or even a ray-cast, pointed-based solution with motion controls.
It's a baffling, seemingly lazy choice that rips you out of the present and sends you shooting back years into the past. There's no real excuse for it either. If marketed as the definitive next-gen experience, then it's fair to expect the PSVR 2 version to utilize all the definitive next-gen features where it can. It's a complete missed opportunity, but also ultimately a decision that drags down the immersiveness of the whole experience.
When asked, Skydance confirmed to me that Final Cut will control and operate the exact same on Quest 2, Quest 3 and PC VR as it does on PSVR 2. While eye tracking technology isn't present on those headsets, there's still no reason for the game to retain the center-locked reticule selection system on those systems either. A simple system for pointing and selection with motion controllers – as is standard in almost every other release – would be the bare minimum 'upgrade'.
This all might seem like a small nitpick, but it ultimately brings into question the entire idea of this being a "definitive" version of the game, upgraded for modern headsets. Plus, Final Cut's wider control scheme and button mappings didn't feel fully optimized for the transition from Move to motion controllers either. Sheathing weapons was confusingly mapped to the grip buttons and required placing your hands in counter-intuitive, specific positions. Meanwhile the triggers were being used to grab onto ropes and other climbable surfaces, as opposed to the much more intuitive (and again, standard) mapping of the grip buttons.
It seems like the focus has been put into upgrading the visuals and refining encounters, while leaving other aspects of the game relatively untouched. It's not like no control changes have been made either – stick-based movement is implemented in Final Cut, which simply wasn't possible on the stick-less Move controllers. It unfortunately puts a damper on the experience, making it feel more of a half-hearted upgrade than it should.
Despite that, there is still an entertaining game to be found here – and perhaps one that many didn't get to experience when it first released. The original PSVR release of Arashi wasn't perfect, and it seems like the same might apply to this 'definitive' Final Cut. It's a testament that despite the disappointing last-gen hangovers, I'm still looking forward to the final release. Here's hoping that Skydance and Endeavour can make some further adjustments before the game ships later this year.
Fast Travel Games announced that its upcoming single player RPG Vampire: The Masquerade – Justice will release on November 2 for Quest headsets and PSVR 2. After going hands-on with the game last week at Gamescom, we're looking forward to playing more.
Launching for $29.99 in November on Quest 2, Quest 3 and PSVR 2, Vampire is Fast Travel's latest bet on substantial single player VR campaigns, following on from Wraith: The Oblivion – Afterlife in 2021.
Besides their penchant for long names with hyphens and colons, both games share similarities: both are set in the World of Darkness universe and keep the focus on single player, first-person campaigns, unlike other recent Fast Travel titles. But while Afterlife focused on a survival horror angle, Vampire switches lanes over to more of a traditional single player stealth RPG experience, brought into VR.
Honorable Inspirations
After watching the game's trailers – and even moreso after trying the game out myself – Vampire's modern flatscreen stealth inspirations are clear. Yes, this very much looks and plays like a VR version of Dishonored, but that's not such a bad thing. In fact, it's about high time someone executed on the idea. Thankfully, from what I've tried so far, Fast Travel Games have done so fairly well. The game features a well-considered art direction that borrows from Dishonored but also presents a stunning take on the well-known Italian city of canals.
Smart creative direction with the visuals mean that they transfer admirably down to the lower-end Quest 2 on which I played my demo. While it still looks fantastic on that headset, I can't wait to see what it's like on it's more powerful Quest 3 successor and console-powered PSVR 2.
Vampiric Delights
Fast Travel have also been smart enough to put their own little VR twists on the Dishonored stealth gameplay formula, which give the game just enough panache to feel like it's own experience instead of a carbon copy.
Set in modern day Venice, you play as a vampire of the Banu Haqim clan in a linear narrative campaign, with a hub area from which you'll venture into main and side missions as you progress through the story. As you'd expect, the gameplay allows you to veer your play style across the spectrum of stealthy teeth-sinker to noisy vampiric menace. According to Fast Travel Games Creative Director and Co-Founder Erik Odeldahl, the less-stealthy options are more focused on noisy actions and being opaque with your intentions than playing in crazy aggressive and violent manner.
This also means that, like most games in the genre, missions will have optional objectives for those who remain a pacifist and/or complete levels undetected. You probably won't understand how to tick those boxes on your first try, but you'll be able to return and replay missions once you have better command of your vampiric ways.
The main gameplay loop will see you navigate towards mission objectives while evading or engaging enemies that stand in your way. In my demo, I encountered a puzzle-like arrangement of several patrolling bad guys, with a few options on how I chose to approach the situation.
Besides moving on foot, you have access to a Blink-like dash ability that lets you hop across canals or gaps, moving through windows or across enemy lines into hiding. There's also a Detective Mode-esque ability mapped to the trigger on your left controller, which will let you scan areas when pointing your left hand in any direction, revealing level obstacles and the bloody hearts of enemies ready to be bitten into.
When sneaking up behind a human – enemy or otherwise – you'll be able to grab their shoulder and pull them toward you. Once they're pulled close enough, you'll automatically bite into the human's neck and start draining blood, which you'll need to consume regularly if you want to use your abilities, such as your Vampiric Disciplines. These will drain you hunger meter when used, which is visible on your left palm and refillable by consuming the blood of living humans (the blood of dead humans is, unfortunately, worthless). You can also go the Edward Cullen vegetarian route, where you stick to finding rats to feast on and leave the humans alone.
The main Discipline I used in my demo was Clock of Shadows, which essentially allows you to move around mostly invisible for a short period of time. It's good for repositioning or passing an enemy unseen. There's also other noisier trap-like options, Cauldron of Blood and Shadow Trap, but I didn't get to using those.
Players can also use the wrist-mounted crossbow on their right hand, with different types of bolts that are crafted using your available hunger. The sleep bolt is invaluable, letting you put an enemy to rest from afar, either to sneak past them or drain their blood without attracting much attention.
As is standard in stealth games, you're also able to pick up items and throw them around the environment to attract or distract attention. It's a simple and staple mechanic, if slightly more engaging given you're now physically grabbing and throwing things in VR.
Overall, the vampire toolset is a familiar but solid set of abilities that seem like they should provide enough variety for players to alter the course of play to suit their preferred approach. New Vampiric Disciplines are unlocked with experienced earned in each level, so it will be interesting to see what unrevealed abilities lie ahead in the full game.
The physical grab-and-blood-suck mechanic is one that separate this from 'just' being a series of flatscreen stealth mechanics adapted into VR. That said, there's also an innate level of added stress that you get from being so present in-headset during stealth missions. There's not that same level of anxiety when you're playing on a screen and you definitely feel more of a heightened connection with the world and your stealth actions in VR.
Some Outstanding Questions
Heading towards release, Vampire's biggest unknowns relate to everything you can't show in a 30-minute hands-on demo. What I tried was a good set of tools with a decent first look at the serviceable semi-sandbox stealth levels. The real question is whether there will be enough variety – both in how your tools are used and the design of the levels that you use them in – to keep everything feeling fresh across a decently-sized campaign.
It's also difficult to gauge whether a given level will truly let you play 'your way', or whether the purported options to get from point A to B will end up tokenistic than meaningful.
On Quest 2, performance of the demo was mostly decent – especially given the impressive environments and visuals – but there were moments where it felt like the game was a bit jittery and struggling to keep up with my actions. Aiming the crossbow reticule felt a little unreliable and finicky at times, as did other interactions like aiming the dash ability or picking up objects.
It's of course worth keeping in mind that we played a demo build of a game that's still has two months worth of polish and optimization ahead before release. However, even considerable polish won't make up for areas where the game butts up against some fundamental unsolved problems with VR interactions.
While the concept of grabbing a human and pulling them close to suck their blood is fantastic, in practice it often felt like a bit of a cumbersome interaction to pull off correctly. The NPC body often didn't quite behave how I expected and sometimes it felt difficult to get everything in the right place. Again, it's something that might get improved between now and release, but even so, it won't change the fact that there's no weight to what should be a hefty action of pulling a body towards you with strong resistance.
Nonetheless, those are minor criticisms for what was otherwise an engaging look at one of the only big single player-focused campaign experiences coming to VR this year. The last couple of months have been drier than the Sahara Desert for such experiences on Quest, and Vampire looks like it will be a solid option for those players who have been waiting for something with more depth and substance than small arcade experiences or multiplayer titles. It's also a big step for Fast Travel Games, who might be able to capture a wider audience than ever before, given the general appeal of the subject matter.
Even with those few unknowns hanging open, I can't wait to jump in for more blood sucking fun with Vampire: The Masquerade – Justice later this year. It's available to pre-order now on Quest and PSVR 2, with a release date set for November 2.
Harry Baker
