LA-based virtual reality (VR) developer Survios has quite the lineup of videogames under its belt, being one of the earliest teams to see decent success with Raw Data back in 2016. Since then the studio has released titles covering a range of genres from sport to music and vehicular combat. This week sees Survios release a range of bundles on PlayStation VR for North American customers.
There are four bundles in total covering Survios’ back catalogue: Raw Data, Creed: Rise to Glory, Electronauts, Battlewake and Sprint Vector.
Raw Data – Survios’ first VR videogame, Raw Data adrenaline-charged, combat thriller testing your wits and endurance as you fight waves of mechanised opponents.
Creed: Rise to Glory – Take on the role of Adonis Creed as he looks to become the next world champion. Featuring iconic characters from the franchise including Rocky Balboa, Apollo Creed and Ivan Drago, Creed: Rise to Glory received a commendable 4-stars in VRFocus‘ review.
Electronauts – Become a music maestro as you build, drop, and jam on 80+ tracks from 80 world-class EDM, trap, and hip-hop artists. When reviewing ElectronautsVRFocus said the experience makes: “for a videogame that will have you playing for hours and wanting ‘just one more go.’”
Battlewake – Taking to the high seas as one of four Captains with battle-ready warships, battle fearsome pirates and unleash magical attacks in a single-player campaign as well as co-op and multiplayer PvP modes.
Sprint Vector– Mixing extreme sports with a chaotic game show, run, jump, climb, drift, and fly at extreme velocity through 14 intergalactic obstacle courses. Introducing a unique (at the time) swinging arm mechanic, Sprint Vector will have your heart pumping in no time.
Christmas is a time for coming together and helping others, it’s why VRFocus is happy to be part of Perp Games’ Combat AdVRent Calendar event this festive season. So not only are we helping put a smile on VR fans faces with a competition but also aiding UK charity Crisis which fights to end homelessness. If you’ve been following the campaign since 1st December, then you’ll know each day has a theme based around combat, and VRFocus’ is multiplayer gaming.
Perp Games originally held a similar calendar event last year, purely for the PlayStation VR titles it published. This year’s fun advent calendar event not only highlights entertaining virtual reality (VR) titles but also gives you a chance to win (most of) them.
It’s the 23rd December and with two days left to go until the big day, multiplayer videogames seemed particularly apt. So VRFocus has selected six titles with five of them available to win. Let’s start with military combat experience Onward, a videogame well known to a lot of VR players having also featured in Oculus’ VR League. A classic first-person shooter (FPS) developed by Downpour Interactive, VRFocus has both Steam and Oculus Store codes to give away.
Fire-Point Interactive’s Sabre VR for PlayStation VR is a very different beast. With a very bold cel-shaded art style, this is an arena FPS putting players inside mechanised animals called S.A.B.R.E.’s, offering cross-play functionality between VR and non-VR players.
Next up VR MOBA Cradle of Sins by British indie team U24 Solutions. Offering four playable characters and 28 weapons to select, Cadle of Sins isn’t yet available on Steam but the studio is currently running a $10k tournament which the competition codes will give you access to.
If none of those are quite your thing, then how about winning real-time strategy (RTS) title Final Assault from Phaser Lock Interactive on Steam? VRFocus gave the videogame a commendable four-star review saying: “There’s plenty to love about Final Assault. Providing a leaner less complicated approach to RTS gameplay, most fans of the genre apart from the die-hard stalwarts should find there’s enough depth and reply value to keep coming back for hours on end.”
The last videogame you can win is Survios’ high seas action experience Battlewake, offering a single-player campaign as well as multiplayer modes. Another decent entry from the developer, in Battlewake you captain a pirate vessel through hostile waters, using both magic and cannonballs to vanquish enemies.
The only title to make the list which isn’t winnable is Solaris: Offworld Combat. The next title from Firewall Zero Hour team First Contact Entertainment, Solaris: Offworld Combat promises 4 vs 4 battles in futuristic arena-style locations.
When it comes to supporting homeless charity Crisis its all part of Perp Games’ online store. Here the company sells all of its PlayStation VR hard copies, for those players who like to own a physical disk version. During December, Perp Games is donating 100% of the profits from each videogame sold to Crisis to help in its festive fundraising efforts.
PlayStation VR owners are the only virtual reality (VR) gamers who can buy videogames as a physical copy, which is great for those collectors out there. This has been mainly thanks to Perp Games which has already announced the physical launches of Golemand Groundhog Day: Like Father Like Sonthis winter. This week another has been added to that list, Survios’ pirate combat experience Battlewake.
Survios released the digital version of Battlewake back in September for PlayStation VR, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Windows Mixed Reality headsets. It’s the first vehicular combat videogame from the well-known VR developer whose previous titles include Creed: Rise to Glory, Electronautsand Sprint Vector.
Featuring a single-player campaign as well as multiplayer modes, Battlewake puts you in charge of your very own pirate ship. You take the role of one of four Pirate Lords characters, each with their own ship and special abilities. The 20-mission story campaign can be played solo or in co-op, while the other online options include a 10-ship deathmatch mode and a mission-specific mode called Warchest.
“Survios games are the most widely distributed VR titles in the world. This collaboration with Perp Games is an opportunity for Survios products to reach an even wider market in retail environments,” said Seth Gerson, Survios CEO in a statement. “From online distribution to LBE and now in-store retail, this continues our mission to bring VR to the masses.”
Rob Edwards, Managing Director of Perp Games, is excited to bring Battlewake to retail this Christmas. “We are extremely proud to form a strategic alliance with Survios, one of the leading global developers in VR. They have consistently developed amazing, much-loved games and we can’t wait to share a physical version of Battlewake with fans of Survios and VR.”
VRFocus gave Battlewake a solid four-star review, saying: “Battlewake is a bit of a mixed experience. While its looks great and handles very well the multiplayer definitely carries the whole thing as the campaign is a little lacklustre.”
Perp Games plans to bring Battlewake to European stores on 6th December with a North American physical release in the near future. For further updates keep reading VRFocus.
Now that Battlewake is out and fully released we put it through its paces for our full review after spending more time with the multiplayer. Find out what we think right here!
Survios have done a remarkable job of establishing themselves as one of the very best developers for high-quality, polished, and fun VR games. They often experiment with some quirky ideas, such as Sprint Vector and Electronauts, but also deliver great licensed VR games, such as Creed: Rise to Glory and Westworld: Awakening, as well as action-packed adventures that make you feel like a badass, such as Raw Data. It’s a big portfolio and it keeps growing.
Battlewake is their latest endeavor and newest IP full of their own original characters. In it you take control of a powerful pirate lord and embark on voyages to defeat other pirate lords and establish each of the four as the king of their respective waters. Add on top of that co-op features and some competitive PvP and you’ve got yourself a typical Survios game.
The issues start arising if you look past the raw bullet points, though. For example: yes, there are technically 20 missions, but they’re split up into four sets of five chunks across each of the pirate lords and you can breeze through the entire thing without much problem in just about two hours. There are some light upgrade elements sprinkled in between each mission chunk, but other than killing a few waves of ships and taking on each of the four bosses, that’s about it. Playing in co-op doesn’t change anything.
Clearly the campaign is designed as a sort of training ground for multiplayer. As you complete the campaign missions you’ll earn gold that can be used to upgrade your ship and all of those upgrades will carry over into the multiplayer matches.
Visually Battlewake looks wonderful. The bright, colorful art style really pops inside the headset and all of the environments have a very distinct presentation. I didn’t hear a ton of music, but from what I did hear of the OST it sounds appropriately epic as well.
Actually controlling the ships is a bit imprecise, but extremely fun. There is no wind direction to worry about at all, it appears to just always be blowing in every direction, so that takes a load off in terms of things to worry about. Instead you can focus just on steering the ship with the wheel and aiming your weapons with your hands. It works a bit like miming in that you just point and pull the trigger to fire even though you don’t physically fire a canon or anything. The same goes for special attacks like the Kraken (shown below) or giant typhoons.
All in all multiplayer is the star in Battlewake since it offers far more challenge and way more options. There is a good selection of game modes from your typical deathmatch-style battles to more objective-focused options with up to ten total players. The pirates seem balanced well against one another so no one is dramatically overpowered compared to the others. However, there is one pretty major issue and that’s the lack of cross-play. For a Survios VR game the lack of cross-play is confounding, especially when it’s so heavily bolstered by its multiplayer modes.
In a lot of ways Battlewake feels almost like a sampler platter of a yet-to-be-released more robust VR game. The campaign is brief, multiplayer is mostly shallow, and there aren’t a whole lot of options in terms of weapons, abilities, and characters.
Comfort
I know what you’re thinking: controlling a pirate ship, on water, in VR, could very likely result in the worst forms of both sea sickness and VR motion sickness, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here. I typically played seated, but it works well standing too. The design of the ship itself, plus the physicality of handling the wheel and directing attacks, keeps your body engaged so you aren’t affected by the movement across the water as much. And your character’s position is locked in terms of not bobbing up and down and even if your ship gets rammed or sent flying the camera doesn’t shift around to keep you oriented to the wheel — instead, you’ll just see the ship moving around, sort of floating in place, until it settles back down again.
This is purely conjecture, but it feels like some aspects of the game were rushed, likely to get it out the door after Westworld: Awakening (which was announced and launched on the same day) and before The Walking Dead: Onslaught later this year. Furthermore, it’s designed well to flourish in the arcade scene on Survios’ LBE platform — but that doesn’t factor into the review of the consumer version of the game.
Battlewake Review Final Verdict
Battlewake is a very solid pirate ship combat game that has great presentation, fun gameplay, and good core mechanics, but it just doesn’t have enough depth. The campaign is over just as you feel like you’re coming to grips with each character, multiplayer lacks the breadth and depth it needs, and generally it’s missing a unifying framework to tie it all together more strongly. It feels like Survios expected the multiplayer to really take off here, but without cross-play or a good reason to keep playing for weeks and months on-end, the buried treasure in this pirate conquest loses its luster far too quickly.
Battlewake is out now on PC VR headsets via Steam and Oculus Home as well as on PSN for PSVR. The Quest version is coming soon but we don’t know when exactly.
This review is based on the Steam and Oculus Home versions using a Rift S. For more on how we arrived at this score, read our review guidelines.
Earlier this month virtual reality (VR) developer Survios launched its pirate combat experience Battlewake across multiple headsets. There was one slight anomaly to that launch in the fact that the EU version for PlayStation VR was delayed for technical reasons. Today though that has been rectified, with Battlewake arriving across the territory.
Today hasn’t just been reserved for the release of Battlewake for European PlayStation VR players. As it’s Talk Like a Pirate Day the studio has announced a community challenge Pledge the Pirates Life with a grand prize of $1,000 USD up for grabs, plus additional smaller prizes.
All you need to do to enter is head to www.pledgethepirateslife.com to register, then follow Survios on Twitter and Discord to stay notified and updated in real-time. The challenge runs from 19th – 29th September 2019. Don’t forget that The Virtual Athletics League (VAL) is also hosting a Battlewake competition from today until 22nd September with cash and physical prizes available.
Additionally, Survios has released a performance patch across PlayStation VR, Steam and Oculus platforms. This will remove several bugs and glitches received from player feedback. The studio is working on another patch (v1.0.1) to optimise and enhance Battlewake’s multiplayer modes. These include:
Fixed an issue that could cause Campaign mission scrolls to not display.
Improve UI pointer offset for all controller formats.
Fixed an issue that caused Hosts to become stuck on Warchest Menu during matching.
Additional bug fixes.
Battlewake is the first vehicular combat title from Survios, placing you in charge of your very own pirate ship. Taking the role of one of four Pirate Lords, you can either complete the 20-mission story campaign solo or in co-op with a friend, or head out on the high seas to battle online opponents in a 10-ship deathmatch. Or collaborate with up to 4 other players on mission-specific mode Warchest.
VRFocus gave Battlewake a solid four-star review, saying: “Battlewake is a bit of a mixed experience. While its looks great and handles very well the multiplayer definitely carries the whole thing as the campaign is a little lacklustre.” For further updates and announcements from Survios including the Oculus Quest version, keep reading VRFocus.
Survios has one of the best catalogues of virtual reality (VR) videogames of any developer in the industry, all highly polished examples of what makes VR unique. So when another comes along it’s difficult not to get a little excited, especially seeing as it’s the first time the team has ventured into the realm of vehicular combat. A real pirates life may not have been all that glamorous but the legends and fantasy which have weaved themselves into modern folklore have ensured plenty of exciting entertainment, and that’s exactly what Battlewake is all about.
Battlewake is a pure action-combat experience which doesn’t concern itself with any real role-playing game (RPG) type elements. It’s all about captaining your ship and waging war on the high-seas. If that sounds appealing then read on.
Survios has ensured that all bases are covered when it comes to single-player and multiplayer gameplay, and it’s the campaign where you’re best to start off. Battlewake revolves around four Pirate Lords, whether you’re unlocking the storyline or competing in a deathmatch, each with their own particular abilities. In the solo campaign, there are 20 missions, five for each Pirate Lord, offering fairly easy gameplay throughout as there’s no difficulty level to speak of.
With a boss to defeat for each character, the rest of the enemies don’t offer the greatest variety when it comes to strategy so the entire campaign can be breezed through in a couple of hours. There is the option to co-operatively play the story but there isn’t much more to this side of the experience.
It’s worth playing as you’ll accrue gold to spend on upgrading your ship which can then be used in multiplayer battles, the best part of Battlewake. Upgrades aren’t particularly in-depth – there’s no option to directly swap weapons or alter parts of the ship – simply cost levels which unlock more health or damage. While basic these are still vital so it can be worth mining these in single-player, albeit a little boring.
Before discussing multiplayer let’s delve into the controls and comfort. Survios has certainly made sure that even on choppy seas playing Battlewake should be fine for most players. Suitable for those seated or standing, the videogame employs a mixture of direct interaction to make you feel like you’re actually in control of the ship and more conventional aiming elements to make fighting less laborious.
There’s a nice big traditional wheel to grab hold of for steering whilst two handles either side of your character can be grabbed to perform quick turns. These work perfectly well and it can get quite hectic making sure to avoid smashing into rocks when pummelling an opponent. Because of the style of gameplay Survios has gone for you won’t be suddenly running down onto the deck to load cannonballs. This is all handily taken care of with a point and shoot mechanism. Ships are equipped with guns at the front, traditional cannons either side and mortars, flame throwers or other armaments at the rear. Each one is automatically selected depending on where the target you’re aiming at is. This method does cut down on the immersion somewhat yet it’s very clear the type of audience Battlewake is being catered for, arcades.
Yes this a home release but Survios does have an arcade arm, and this style of gameplay perfectly fits into that quick and easy to pick-up mould. Thus making Battlewake suitable for those without any VR experience.
Having got the sailing mastered (it won’t take long), multiplayer is where a lot of time will be spent, with up to 10 players able to jump into a deathmatch. Here you can tailor the Pirate Lords to different ships to suit your strategic requirements, you may prefer Rev and her ability to summon the Kraken mixed with Diego’s ship with front-firing machine guns. While the maps allow for weaving in and out of icebergs or swampy marshes, battles do tend to concentrate around the glowing talismans which unlock your primary ability. As the AI ships in the other modes don’t offer a massive challenge offers the best replay valve in Battlewake (as long as players are available).
Also found in the multiplayer section is Warfare Mode, where up to four players can co-operate to complete constantly changing missions. You’ll be able to earn coins for the overall upgrades (used in deathmatches) while tankards upgrade basic abilities in Warfare. The mode is great for those who want a bit more focus on their missions or simply aren’t gelling with PvP.
Battlewake is a bit of a mixed experience. While its looks great and handles very well the multiplayer definitely carries the whole thing as the campaign is a little lacklustre. The combat is a good laugh once there are a few of you to banter with but it does get somewhat repetitive and so do the locations. Sea of Thieves in VR this certainly is not, on the other hand, for those not after sinking dozens of hours into a videogame to get anywhere Battlewake will have you wondering where the rum’s gone.
Battlewake is a pirate ship combat game that seems to have it all; not only does it boast a campaign for both solo and two-player co-op, but also online PvP and a co-op ‘ongoing missions’ mode—certainly nothing to sneeze at in terms of a VR game. All of this ultimately gives it a more secure footing where multiplayer-only titles may have faltered in the past, but some might still walk away from this mostly well-polished arena battler craving something just a bit deeper.
Developer: Survios Available On: Steam (Vive, Rift), Oculus (Rift), Viveport (Vive, Rift) PlayStation Store (PSVR – EU version coming soon) Reviewed On: Rift Release Date: September 10th, 2019 Price: $30
Gameplay
Let’s get one thing out of the way before heading into the review proper: Battlewake is not Sea of Thieves in VR. Although there’s a lot of interesting things going on with this plucky little arena battler that may seem like they would translate to a larger, more expansive title, Battlewake decidedly focuses on discrete nautical arenas where you battle in a ‘one person, one boat’ style experience. It’s different, and not in a bad way, although you should definitely tailor your expectations before heading in. Now, on to the review.
Battlewake’s 20-chapter campaign follows the story of four captains, each of which has their own specific boats, weapons, and two levels of ultimate attacks—one that charges up more rapidly for smaller and more frequent attacks, and the big boy that eventually lets you spawn massive area-based effects like hurricanes, krakens, and title waves. And for whatever critique that follows, ultimates are unequivocally awesome.
Image courtesy Survios
Campaign mode promises a variety of medium-sized arena maps, but they basically fall into four categories: tropical, icy, swampy, and volcano-hellscape. Most maps present their own environmental quirks too—swamps provide better cover, volcano-hellscapes assault you with raining debris, icy maps have giant floating icebergs, and the tropics can get pretty stormy, generating large waves capable of obscuring potential targets at times. You don’t need a compass or anything to find your way around either because the maps are small enough so you’ll never get lost. If you happen to have your back turned to an objective, a floating symbol will tell you which way to go.
Although the later stages do present more of a challenge, I only ended up dying twice throughout the entire campaign, which took me exactly two hours to complete. I chalk these deaths up to initially misunderstanding how the targeting system works; it requires you to physically point either your left or right hand at the enemies, lock on to the target while tracking it, and wait for the reticle to shrink and pulling the trigger, signifying that you’re getting the most accurate shot possible. Ammo is infinite, although there’s a cool-down time for most weapons, which typically include a weak forward-facing gun, stronger cannons or ballistas on your two sides, and a closer range weapon on your rear.
Image courtesy Survios
I’ll talk more about the control scheme in the Immersion section below, although it was ultimately an easy way of shooting and navigating the boat that I think anyone can pick up in short order.
With no apparent difficulty settings, and the ability to pick up health from the crates that enemies leave in their wake as you damage them, the campaign turned out to be fairly easy once the controls schemes became second nature.
Enemy variety is however pretty lackluster, and includes small kamikaze-style vessels, a few unremarkable boats of varying sizes, and either a large boss boat or an island fort, each of which have more health and their own unique ultimate attacks to avoid. Outside of lining up correctly to target any given ship, you don’t really need any special tactics to kill anything in the campaign; just point, click, shoot, rinse and repeat.
If I don’t sound too hot on the campaign, that’s because I’m not. I felt like it could have woven a more engrossing story than the disembodied (and admittedly talented) voice actors provided. It also could have offered up some deeper gameplay to break up the standard flow of arena-based missions. Instead, you’re left with a one-way trip through a pretty predictable premise that felt like more of an extended tutorial than anything else. You don’t make any game-changing decisions, you definitely never leave your boat, and you just sort of sample what the game’s multiplayer has without really engaging with the story or anyone in it.
Adding insult to injury: after beating the last boss, which was only marginally more difficult than the previous one, you’re abruptly thrown back into the captains lodge for an unceremonious ‘You won! Thanks for playing!’ and a credit roll. It’s a shame the game ended so easily and with such little fanfare; there’s truly a lot going on for Battlewake when it comes to locomotion, environment, and its awesome ultimate powers, but the entire campaign felt pretty unremarkable.
Image courtesy Survios
The campaign isn’t everything though, and outside of the story mode, replay value comes in one of three flavors. You can co-op with up to four people in the infinite mix of objectives called ‘Warfare’, play in a 10-player online deathmatch called ‘Plunder’, or alternatively return to the campaign with a buddy for a two-player co-op run.
Warfare mode presents you two specific currencies. Tankards of grog are dolled out after each completed mission, and you can use that to continuously level up your ship’s basic HP, firepower, and ultimate power, all of which helps you battle the increasingly tough enemies. Coins can also be earned to be used on permanent upgrades too that you can carry over to deathmatches, although they’re harder to gain than grog in general thanks to ever-increasing unlock prices.
Image captured by Road to VR
I took a little while to gel with Warfare. Even playing with another person for a good 30 minutes, it ultimately felt more like a casual shoot-out than a real challenge. Going in with the max number of people does provide the best chance for competitive friction to occur, although Warfare may really only be valuable for farming XP and maxing out your ships for PvP. While you can technically play Warfare by yourself, it’s definitely more fun with a few other people, as you scramble to make the most kills and subsequently get the best loot at the end of the mission.
The ‘Plunder’ PvP mode instead presents a pretty standard shooter formula, as it puts ultimate boosters in specific spots on the map, and has up to 10 players duke it out. It is does diverge slightly from the formula though, as you can always tell where other players are on the map; you see both their name and health bars at all times, even when they’re camping behind a rock.
Unleashing the Kraken ultimate, Image courtesy Survios
Here, the power differential truly counts. The more you play deathmatch or Warfare co-op, the more coin you can potentially earn, thereby letting you permanently upgrade any one of your four ships. Some ships are by default better at long-range shooting, and others have more powerful closeup shot—pretty much what you’d expect from a bog standard free-for-all shooter.
If you’re looking for some uncomplicated PvP and a few random missions to play to fill out, Battlewake may not be a bad choice, but more variety could have ultimately added a ton of value to what, at least functionally, is a well-polished and functional pirate game.
In the end, Battlewake might better appeal to arcade audiences and new VR players, as its simple control scheme and uncomplicated gameplay makes for a good entry point into VR. At-home users who are mostly already over the VR honeymoon phase however may find Battlewake interesting, but too simplistic to truly warrant the repeat business VR multiplayer titles desperately need.
Immersion
One of the most (and arguably least) immersive bits about Battlewake is its control scheme. Some controls are based on direct object interaction, which generally feels pretty great. You can turn the wheel to maneuver the ship, and pull either of your lateral anchor handles to execute a tight turning maneuver; both offer a surprisingly satisfying way of guiding your ship through tight passages and scrambling to get out of the way of an oncoming kamikaze ship.
At the same time, there are a few less immersive controls here too, namely the reticle-based shooting system that activates different weapons depending upon where you’re trying to shoot. It’s all a bit of a strange mix, having physical controls mashed up with what essentially amounts to an abstracted laser pointer that comes from your hands. I know it’s done for convenience and ease of use, although the most convenient control isn’t necessarily the most immersive, I find. It’s definitely a balancing act, and I admit I’d rather have a quick and dirty solution for fast action than a slower solution when you’re in the heat of the moment, which in and of itself is a type of immersion too. When you stop thinking about the empty teacup on your desk and knock it over because you’re frantically turning your steering wheel like a madman, that means the game has done a pretty good job of immersing you, at least in the short term.
Both the art style and map designs are cohesive and well-built, although textures are a bit on the muddy side. As a separate issue, a VR headset with a sharper display than my standard OG Rift would also be a boon for anyone looking to play Battlewake, as distant enemies and environments can be hard to make out. While playing in Warfare mode with a friend in a Valve Index, it was immediately apparent that I was at a slight disadvantage in my Rift, as he had an easier time identifying baddies than me and therefore prioritize higher value targets better.
Comfort
Like all of Survios’ titles to date, Battlewake explores some pretty interesting territory technically speaking. I played for several hours at a time, and never felt a whiff of motion sickness, which is quite a feat for a game set entirely on a swaying, rocking boat.
Unlike a physical boat though, which can definitely upset the stomachs of motion sickness-prone users, Battlewake surprisingly provides a comfortable user experience. This is because you’re not exactly tied to the mast, so to speak, and you’re not exactly taking on the full brunt of the sea’s forces.
Instead, you’ll notice that as waves get worse, the ship will actually move somewhat independent from you, giving you more stability as a result. This can be irksome when you’re reaching down for the anchors, only to find they’ve moved a few inches behind you because the waves are tossing you so badly, but I’d rather take a look to relocate a handle than lose my lunch.
Snap-turn is also available so seated players can keep a better eye on their six without having to physically turn around.
Finally, Survios has implemented an optional FOV limiter that creep in to gently obscure your peripheral vision—or whatever’s left of it in the cramped confines of the VR headset. This helps to reduce the apparent motion you naturally sense when near-field objects whiz by you.
Starting today the latest VR game from Survios, Battlewake (hands-on preview), is now available for PC VR headsets and NA PSVR accounts. Its release for Oculus Quest and EU PSVR are still forthcoming.
We’ll have a review for Battlewake later this week after we get the chance to dig into it a bit more and test out the multiplayer modes, but from what we’ve seen it looks to be another unique concept from Survios once again. The studio has really honed in on their skill to create compelling and original gameplay out of pretty much anything from running around race tracks, driving a boat, or boxing Rocky legends.
In Battlewake you take control of a powerful super-powered pirate lord that does battle across various zones in the lush locales of New Urth. Each of the pirate lords have special powers, such as summoning a kraken or beckoning enormous tsunamis in the water, that make them a blast to play.
You stand behind the wheel of your ship at all times spinning it to steer, pulling anchors like aquatic emergency brakes to make sharp turns, and point in various directions to fire different weapons. You don’t need to worry about wind direction at all, instead just focus on the combat and gameplay.
Some of the fights can be quite epic and visually it looks wonderful. From what I’ve played so far I can confirm that I’m enjoying myself and it will be getting a positive review unless it suddenly makes my computer explode or something.
Check out Battlewake on Steam or on PSVR starting today. Keep an eye out for the soundtrack in just a few weeks too. Let us know what you think down in the comments below!
The official score from Survios’ upcoming ship combat VR game, Battlewake (official website), is getting a full official release from composer Jeremy Nathan Tisser.
Battlewake (hands-on preview) hits PC VR headsets and NA PSVR stores tomorrow on September 10th for $29.99, plus a launch discount, with EU PSVR and Quest launches coming soon after. According to a press release, the album will be released a few weeks from now.
The soundtrack includes 14 original tracks specifically composed for the game ranging from classical orchestra music to “heavy metal” tracks. Notably, Tisser has worked with Survios in the past and collaborated with the VR company on their debut VR action game, Raw Data, as well.
Outside of VR, Tisser has scored over 70 projects across gaming, film, and television.
I can’t personally speak to the quality of the soundtrack at the moment since I haven’t had a chance to spend a lot of time with the game just yet, but if it’s of the same quality as Raw Data then there shouldn’t be any reservations with it or the quality of the soundtrack release.
We don’t often see music in VR games celebrated as highly as non-VR games, which is a real shame as it’s an integral part of the experience. Even if it isn’t a music-focused game like Beat Saber, the audio is hugely important.
What do you think about the news? Do you plan on picking up the soundtrack or playing Battlewake once it’s out? Let us know what you think down in the comments below!
Tomorrow is the launch of Survios’ combat title on the high seas, Battlewake, coming to Oculus Rift/Rift S, HTC Vive and PlayStation VR. It’s a big worldwide, multi headset, multi sales platform release, marking the studio’s first videogame launch of 2019. Trouble has arisen when it comes to the European PlayStation VR version, however, with the date now delayed.
VRFocus has been informed by Survios that due to ‘technical issues’, Battlewake for PlayStation VR in EU territories is now listed as coming soon. No further details have been given regarding what has occurred and how long this may take to fix.
Battlewake will feature both single-player and multiplayer modes with a big emphasis on the latter. You play as one of four Pirate Lords, each with their own particular boats and abilities. These abilities are magical powers to give you an edge in battle, for instance, Pirate Lord Diego can unleash a boost to avoid attacks or outflank an opponent, while his primary ability is a destructive maelstrom which can suck in enemies.
There’s a 20 chapter campaign with each lord having five levels to complete, either solo or in co-op. On the multiplayer side, up to four players can tackle Warfare Mode featuring changing objectives. Or there’s always the classic free-for-all PvP deathmatch mode where up to 10 players can fight for pirate glory.
VRFocus previewed Battlewake’s single-player mode several months ago, finding that: “At the moment the demo did everything right, providing a thrilling experience for roughly 15 minutes. Battlewake featured all the gloss you’d expect from a Survios title, with easy to use controls and exciting gameplay.”
When Battlewake does arrive tomorrow for those unaffected by the issue it’ll come with a limited-time launch discount, dropping the price from $39.99 USD down to $29.99. Additionally, from 19th – 22nd September the Virtual Athletics League (VAL) will host a Battlewake competition where players can win cash, and physical prizes worth over $10,000 in value -an HTC Vive Pro is up for grabs). The competition is international and there’s still time to sign up. The official website also lists the participating VR arcades. For further updates from Survios, keep reading VRFocus.
