Probably Ubisoft’s biggest virtual reality (VR) title to date, Star Trek: Bridge Crew arrived last year to worldwide acclaim for Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and PlayStation VR. Then a couple of months ago the PlayStation VR received an update adding The Next Generation themed DLC, allowing players to enter the universe of Picard and his crew. While PC fans have had to wait, today the DLC has now become available.
Star Trek: Bridge Crew The Next Generation isn’t just a casual makeover of the original videogame, with all the buttons and switches like the 90’s series. As the DLC is paid for, fans will also get two new mission types, Patrol and Resistance, plus enhancements to the Ongoing Missions mode.
These new missions will see players come face to face with some of Star Trek’s most well known and feared alien races, long-term federation adversaries the Romulan Empire will appear in Patrol, a mode allowing players to explore openly, encountering enemies and objectives as they travel. As for Resistance the hint is in the name, coming across the ever deadly Borg, will your resistance really be futile? Pursued by a relentless Borg cube, players need to complete a series of objectives to prepare for a showdown against it.
Players who were fans of the Engineering role will now find it replaced with Operations. This role tasks that particular player with assigning crewmembers to different stations to activate features like precision targeting and shield modulation, as well as conducting repairs.
With the new DLC available for all formats it doesn’t matter if you’re playing on PlayStation VR, HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Windows Mixed Reality, or in a non-VR format as the title is completely cross compatible.
Star Trek: Bridge Crew The Next Generation DLC is available now via the Oculus Store for £12.49 GBP/ £15 USD, and should be available on Steam soon. For any further updates on the title, keep reading VRFocus.
To boldly go where no man has gone before – if there’s ever been a better reason to use virtual reality (VR) I haven’t heard it, and with Star Trek: Bridge Crew, there’s just one more reason to jump into the virtual world – and in our latest gameplay video, Pete shows us around the bridge.
In Star Trek: Bridge Crew, Red Storm Entertainment allow us to commandeer the USS Aegis or the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 in virtual reality, with the full bridge and crew intact. For a more satisfying – or potentially much geekier – experience, you can play with friends and take different roles on board the ship.
We reviewed Star Trek: Bridge Crew and really enjoyed the chance to jump into the Captain’s chair, saying; “While Star Trek: Bridge Crew definitely appeals to the core fan base – Ubisoft has added the original USS Enterprise in there as well – non-Star Trek fans of the franchise will also find something to like about the title, especially with a few mates playing. The production values are top notch making Star Trek: Bridge Crew one of those rare VR experiences that feels like a AAA title, and likely part of most VR gamers’ collections.”
Below Pete shows us the cockpit and the controls of the ship while exploring deep space – Star Trek: Bridge Crew, for many Trekkies, is a dream game. For news on the latest geek dreams that are coming true, make sure to keep reading VRFocus.
You can’t have failed to miss one of the biggest virtual reality (VR) releases this year, coming from Ubisoft in the form of Star Trek: Bridge Crew. The name alone has ensured a massive amount of hype for the title after its E3 2016 debut featuring actors from the recent movies and TV shows. The title puts you on the bridge of the USS Aegis, to boldly go into the stars on missions with other players, saving lives and encountering hostile enemies.
The videogame puts you in one of four roles, Captain, Helm, Tactical or Engineering, each with its own particular job to do, ensuring the success of each mission. To begin with you’ll sit round a table and select what role each of the four players will take. Generally this will involve the host taking the Captains position and the rest for you – either discussing democratically – or very quickly selecting which of the other roles you want to take, (this can vary depending on whether you play with friends or strangers).
What becomes quickly apparent is that Captain, Helm and Tactical are the three choice positions to grab. While all four are just as important for smooth running of the ship and its mission, in terms of gameplay those three offer the most entertainment. Those at the helm directly control the ship, and its flight path, so hostile encounters can turn into a sort of dog fight, alongside engaging impulse thrusters and warp. While tactical can scan ships to look for weaknesses to disable, life signs to transport, and the all important weapon systems – firing off a volley of proton torpedoes is always fun. Engineering on the other hand keeps everything running by distributing power to various systems or repairing them. It might be a crucial role – the helm can’t initiate warp without engineering activating it – the role is always the last to be chosen as it tends to be the most boring of the four.
For a videogame where you’re essentially sat at a desk pressing buttons the entire time Star Trek: Bridge Crew is still a very engaging experience. Completing missions with fellow players offers a really rewarding challenge as it’s only through concise teamwork that missions can be completed, building up a camaraderie that’s very difficult to achieve in other multiplayer titles – or just none existent. It’s an experience that thrives on player interaction and developer Red Storm Entertainment has delivered a formula that works exceptionally well.
So far Star Trek: Bridge Crew hasn’t suffered the same problems as other multiplayer focused titles – a lack of players – likely due to so many players looking forward to seeing the title release. The studio has made the wise choice of including a single-player option, where you can choose a role – always the Captain – and the rest are AI controlled. But this is the weakest mode to play, feeling hollow and uninspiring. Yes, it’s exactly the same as multiplayer, and you can switch between the different roles if you so chose but there’s no spark to the experience. Ideally you should look at it as a practice simulator – there is a training mode to teach you what does what – helping you fine tune those skills in each role so you don’t suddenly balls things up in the actual multiplayer.
While Star Trek: Bridge Crew definitely appeals to the core fan base – Ubisoft has added the original USS Enterprise in there as well – non Star Trek fans of the franchise will also find something to like about the title, especially with a few mates playing. The production values are top notch making Star Trek: Bridge Crew one of those rare VR experiences that feels like a AAA title, and likely part of most VR gamers’ collections.
Ubisoft’s long-awaited Star Trek: Bridge Crew, the co-op space sim that puts you at the bridge of your very own Federation vessel, is nearly here (coming out May 30th), but we’ve had our mitts all over a pre-release copy for a few days now. Wherever you may fall on the spectrum of Trek fandom, Bridge Crew promises more than just a genuine Trek experience with its exciting gameplay and a social component that is sure to immerse.
Stepping back a bit from my affection of the many iterations of Star Trek universes—explored in the recent re-boot films and older TV series spanning back to Star Trek (1966), aka “The Original Series” (ToS)—what I experienced in the last few days with Bridge Crew was a profound realization that I am not a Federation captain, not yet anyway.
Piloting the fictional vessel, dubbed the U.S.S. Aegis, on an exploratory mission to the uncharted sector ‘The Trench’ in efforts to find a new planet for the Vulcan race after the Romulans destroyed their home-world, I quickly found out that when the Klingon Empire is breathing down your neck and real people are counting on you to make the right decision, that I still need a lot more time with Bridge Crew before I can put on the well-deserved swagger of a Kirk, Piccard, or Janeway. That’s not to say you can’t have your ‘captain-y moments’ in the beginning campaign with your friends though, but when the goings get tough, role-playing that Starfleet swagger quickly deflates in front of the very real barrier of 2 Klingon warships and 4 scouts coming in for the kill.
And even though the game promises only 5 ‘episodes’ that range from 20-30 minutes of gameplay a piece, the difficulty level spikes significantly around the last two missions, so be prepared for the likelihood of an entire play session getting scrapped because you didn’t get a critical instrument back on-line while taking heavy fire. Despite some hypothetically quick mission times, you can easily invest several hours alone trying to beat the last two campaign missions.
flying high at Helm, image captured by Road to VR
I found the campaign mode, which can be completed with or without a fully-manned, live crew (AI can fill in the gaps), to be much more difficult as a lone player. Because AI can’t really take on detailed orders like, “avoid that gravitic mine while running away from that anomaly while shooting at the upcoming Bird-of-Prey,” you sometimes have to jump into the AI’s position to get what you want out it. You can also issue crew-wide orders to the AI from your captain’s chair that make some things a bit quicker, like aligning warp vectors and repairing critical ship functions, but that’s not really what Star Trek: Bridge Crew is all about.
When playing alone, I found that micromanaging a ship’s AI effectively photon-torpedoes the fun right out of the sky. Instead, the soul of the game is more about becoming an effective communicator with like-minded players and having those deeply surreal moments when your ego jumps into the shoes of a bridge officer commanding, responding, and caring about the world around you. Those are the deeply satisfying moments of the game, when you can cheer for victory and bond—even with perfect strangers.
at the Captain’s chair, image captured by Road to VR
Without going too deep into each station’s duties (you can a video of the full explanation here), the intensity of the enemy and the various objectives flying your way can quickly overwhelm any station. Besides requiring effective communication between players, the game hinges on your ability to keep systems repaired, and correctly balanced for the task at hand. At engineering, you can overcharge engines, phasers, shields at the expense of all other systems, or lower your output entirely to maintain a low profile radar signature for moments of stealth, a requirement for some missions. Engineers can repair everything except your hull, meaning once your shields go down, you’ll be accruing permanent damage.
As a captain in the co-op mode, you keep an eye on mission objectives, and also the game’s three maps; a local map, an impulse map for farther objects of interest, and a warp map displaying far-flung locations. Only mission-relevant locations can be accessed during the campaign mode, so exploring is a bit ‘on rails’ as it were. Here it’s your job to efficiently order the crew according to their roles and keep an eye on everyone as they go about their individual jobs.
Tactical can fire torpedoes in limited supply, phasers that need charging, and subsystem intrusions that let you knock out the enemy’s engines, phasers, etc.
Helm’s job is to maneuver the ship from point A-B, keep targets in sight, and be on point when it comes to aligning impulse and warp vectors for quick getaways.
Outside of campaign mode, Bridge Crew also offers ‘ongoing missions’, which serves up a selection of procedurally generated challenges available in both solo and co-op mode. These entail rescue, defend, attack, and exploratory missions. To add another level of difficulty, you can also fly the original Enterprise (NCC 1701) during ‘ongoing missions’, which is more powerful but less stealthy. To my surprise, the old Enterprise is fairly dead-on with screen accuracy, replete with a charming array of unlabeled flashing lights and buttons (you can toggle labels on if you need help).
Aboard the Enterprise, NCC-1701, image captured by Road to VR
In the end, Bridge Crew is more about ‘pew pew pew’ and less about peaceful exploration than I personally care for, but that’s probably better for everyone’s enjoyment in the long run.
Cross-play between Vive, Rift and PSVR was switched off in the pre-release version, but Ubisoft says it will be ready at launch.
Immersion
The look and feel of the game is nothing short of amazing, and fans are sure to appreciate the attention to detail. The ship’s interior, although taking after the J.J. Abrams re-boot films (love it or hate it), it thankfully lacks the director’s penchant for lens flares and dramatic camera angles, instead putting you in a very real, very well-crafted ship’s bridge.
Space exteriors are graphically less involved however, and seem too cartoonish to be believed. Science enthusiasts will undoubtedly shake their heads in anguish when they see the game’s lumpy-looking stars with equally lumpy-looking planets far too close to each other. That’s not a big concern, but it does detract a bit from the game’s wow-factor.
image courtesy Ubisoft
As for the interior, controls are logically represented and well-labeled for each station. Some buttons become unresponsive during and a bit after impulse and warp travel is concluded though, which isn’t exactly helpful when you’re trying to get a jump on your respective duty. This leaves you effectively tapping a button until the game decides you’re allowed to use it; annoying, but you get used to it.
image captured by Road to VR
Avatar creation falls slightly flat because its done via a collection of very rough presets, letting you choose between man or woman, Human or Vulcan, and a number of ethnicities via a slider so you try to create something unique. You can also make them stockier, older, and cycle through a few hairstyles and colors. I never really found an avatar that fit me though.
Thankfully the game lets you play either with gamepad or hand controllers, which means anyone with a high-quality VR headset can join in. Players with hand controllers will notice that console screens stop your virtual hands, which is helpful when it comes to accurately hitting a button. While this technically screws with your body’s proprioception, or the ability to innately understand where your body parts are without looking, it didn’t really bother me after hours of play time.
Comfort
As a seated game, Star Trek: Bridge Crew is an exceedingly comfortable experience. With the bridge and consoles acting as physical anchors, and the ship’s slower turning radius and speed, you likely to have minimal problems if you’re usually averse to artificial locomotion-induced nausea.
sitting never felt so exciting, image captured by Road to VR
The developers at Red Storm Entertainment are well-studied when it comes to VR game design, and offer plenty of near-field space debris and particles to give you the sense that you’re moving in space without the discomfort of artificial locomotion.
Conclusion
The big question remains whether Star Trek: Bridge Crew will be a flash in the pan with an initial period of hype, or a long-lived success with a steady player-base. I can see myself logging on and playing through the campaign with buddies and maybe even making the procedural missions a weekly addition to my routine amongst friends (as long as everyone is having fun). Even playing with random people was a blast, but the fact remains that fresh content like new campaign missions, ship types, and greater multiplayer-driven game modes, are all needed to keep users interested and coming back to have what I would consider one of the funnest social gaming experiences I’ve had to date.
A special thanks goes out to social VR industry pro Shawn Whiting, Road to VR exec. editor Ben Lang, and a random English guy by the moniker ‘the_weird’ for helping with the review of this game.
In front of me to my left sits Tal Blevins, Editor-in-Chief of UploadVR. But in this moment he isn’t my boss; he’s my subordinate. Currently he’s my acting Helmsman aboard the U.S.S. Aegis and is in charge of steering our ship through deep, dark space. Then I’ve got Ian Hamilton, Senior Editor, taking over duties as the ship’s Tactical Officer to the right — he’s in charge of phasers and torpedoes. Off to the far right at the Engineer’s station is Joe Durbin, Staff Writer at UploadVR, allotting power to various systems, repairing damaged sectors, and handling transports. I’m perched atop the Captain’s chair, barking orders and mashing the Red Alert button anytime someone oversteps their bounds. It’s a thankless job, but someone’s got to do it and that’s what Star Trek: Bridge Crew is really all about.
After what felt like years of waiting (despite the game only being announced less than a year ago) we are now officially at launch week for Star Trek: Bridge Crew from Ubisoft and Red Storm Entertainment, one of the most impatiently anticipated VR games yet.
In the most basic sense playing Star Trek: Bridge Crew is a lot like playing a button pressing and loading bar watching simulator in VR. The entire game is designed to simulate the experience of sitting on the bridge of a ship ripped right out of the Star Trek mythos as you work together as a crew to complete missions. The developers did an admirable job of wrapping it all up in a glossy package that looks and feels like something more, but ultimately the game can be boiled down to flipping switches, twisting knobs, and pushing buttons.
You’re not gonna beam down from the ship on the Away Team to explore foreign worlds. You won’t venture into the Holodeck to push the boundaries of your imagination. You won’t have deep, philosophical conversations about the vastness of space or the intricacies of humanity. In this way, Star Trek: Bridge Crew is a very singularly focused, specialized, and limited experience. It simulates the moment-to-moment interactions of a bridge crew, as the title suggests, and that’s really it. But thankfully that can still be a ton of fun.
Your ship is split into four roles: Helm, Tactical, Engineer, and Captain. Each role functions independently but also relies on the other roles in order to perform at maximum capability. The best crew will communicate constantly and work as a team to achieve a shared objective. A single chair disobeying orders or not pulling their own weight can tank an entire operation.
The Helmsman is in control of steering the ship, the Tactical chair handles the ship’s combat munitions such as phasers and torpedoes, the Engineer manages the ship’s power allotment, and finally the Captain is the conductor of it all, issuing orders, monitoring systems, and plotting the ship’s journey.
When you’ve got a full complement of crew members aboard the ship (that means you and three other live human players) it’s one of the most collaborative and engaging things you can do in VR. If you don’t have three friends with VR then you can always jump into a quick match to meet and find new people online. When playing with friends your banter will feed directly into the team’s degree of entertainment and it rarely feels like you’re following orders or flying a virtual spaceship — it’s just like you’re hanging out with your buddies in space.
That being said the game is still entirely playable either on your own or with a smaller crew size. If you’re alone then you take the role as captain and issue orders to your A.I. teammates instructing them to do things like pursue a target, engage, raise shields, or anything else you’d need to do. There’s a lot of actions, objectives, and orders to juggle so playing solo can be an incredibly stressful and overwhelming way of experiencing the game. You can take over any role you want at any time for more nuanced moments. So if you can handle everything at once successfully, it’s immensely rewarding.
The best way to play is with four people total, but playing with three is fine as well. Leaving the Captain’s chair empty (or just taking over that spot as needed) is very easy to do and frankly isn’t missed very much in most cases. But you’re gonna usually want someone at the Helm and Tactical spots pretty much at all times if possible.
In terms of content Star Trek: Bridge Crew has a lot on offer. There’s the base campaign which consists of about six total missions that each take about 30-45 minutes to complete, give or take. The whole structured campaign will take most people around 3-4 hours to complete with a full crew.
After that you’ve got the Ongoing Voyages mode which has a handful of different mission types to choose from such as Defend, Rescue, and otheres. When you select a mission the details such as number and type of enemies, locations, and objectives will all be randomly generated to help avoid repetition. In this mode you can also opt to pilot the Original Enterprise from the very first Star Trek series. It’s an incredibly authentic recreation of the iconic 60s-style sci-fi ship, but is far from being the most intuitive of the bunch.
Star Trek: Bridge Crew also presents a wealth of options when it come to how you’d like to play the game. Each platform features full cross-platform multiplayer so regardless of whether you have a PlayStation VR, Oculus Rift, or HTC Vive, you can play with any and everyone that has the game. Furthermore, you can play either with a gamepad or with you chosen platform’s motion controllers. In essentially all cases I recommend playing with motion controllers if at all possible.
Using the DualShock 4 on PSVR or an Xbox One Controller (or any other PC gamepad) for Rift and Vive is certainly playable, but it’s far from ideal. Since you can’t control each hand’s movement independently you instead cycle through selection options using the two analog sticks and press either L2 or R2 to make selections. It takes a lot of practice to get used to and just never feels like a capable replacement for the Vive wands or Touch controllers. I had a lot of tracking issues with the PS Move controllers, but this was mostly a hardware issue and not a knock on the game itself.
And if you’re looking for the absolute best way to play Star Trek: Bridge Crew then that is undoubtedly with the Oculus Rift and Touch. Since the game takes advantage of the controllers’ capacitive touch features it recognizes when you are pointing with your fingers so you can simply reach out with your finger and press buttons naturally as opposed to having to pull the Vive or PSVR triggers to make selections. The added variety of digit movement makes gameplay feel smoother and dramatically improves the sense of presence. Since the game is a seated, front-facing experience only you don’t even miss out on the Vive’s roomscale features in the first place.
In a lot of ways Star Trek: Bridge Crew absolutely nails what it means to be part of the Star Trek universe. Never before has a game been able to believably put players on the bridge in such a directly immersive way. From hailing other ships, battling Klingons, and graduating from the Starfleet Academy, to helming the Original Enterprise as captain, it’s like a dream come true for many fans.
But with that being said, it misses the mark in a lot of areas as well. Star Trek, at least as a TV show, has never really been about the action scenes or intense set piece moments. It’s a brand that represents the good in humanity and focuses on a future of growth and prosperity. Rather than establishing a clear line between good and evil (such as the Jedi and Sith in Star Wars) Star Trek is instead full of moral grey areas posing hard questions and impossible scenarios.
In that regard, Star Trek: Bridge Crew feels entirely hollow. The campaign’s narrative is less compelling than even the most juvenile fan fiction and none of the characters are worth remembering. Even though you won’t find yourself pondering your existence in the world as a human, Star Trek: Bridge Crew will still have you building memories and embarking on amazing adventures, you just have to supply the crew and personality yourself.
Final Score: 8/10 – Great
Star Trek: Bridge Crew is a triumphant recreation of what it means to be on the bridge of an Enterprise-caliber ship from the classic sci-fi universe. If you play with friends then you’re bound to have an amazing time full of laughs, stress, and action. Playing alone is tough, but doable The bulk of your time will likely be spent with the randomized Ongoing Voyages mode since the campaign is brief and shallow. If you’re searching for a game that captures the esoteric and cerebral nature of Star Trek, though, then you’ll be a bit disappointed. Otherwise, live long and prosper with Star Trek: Bridge Crew!
Star Trek: Bridge Crew is set to release for Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and PSVR on May 30th. Read our Content Review Guidelines for more information on how we arrived at this score.
Back in February, Ubisoft announced that its upcoming virtual reality (VR) title Star Trek: Bridge Crew would feature not one but two starships, one of them being the iconic U.S.S. Enterprise. At the time only a couple of images were released, today the studio has unveiled a teaser trailer.
Star Trek: Bridge Crew has been developed by Red Storm Entertainment, which is part of Ubisoft, with David Votypka, Senior Creative Director at Red Storm previously stating about the U.S.S. Enterprise’s inclusion: “We felt it was important to include a part of classic Star Trek with this game, especially during Star Trek’s 50th anniversary.The original U.S.S. Enterprise is such an iconic part of the franchise – it’s the ship that started it all.”
Team work is the name of the game, with players able to take on the roles of Captain, Engineer, Tactical Officer, or Helm Officer. As officers of the Federation every action and decision they make together will determine the fate of the ship and crew. But there is a solo campaign as well.
The title was originally due to be released on 29th November 2016, before being moved to 14th March, 2017. Then Ubisoft confirmed a further delay, putting the new launch for 30th May on PlayStation VR, Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.
Checkout the new trailer below, and for any further updates on Star Trek: Bridge Crew, VRFocuskeep reading.
Ubisoft’s upcoming VR multiplayer game Star Trek: Bridge Crew is delayed again, this time to May 30th. The good news? Ubisoft is letting you choose the good ol’ NCC-1701 from ‘The Original Series’ (TOS) so you can play solo as captain, or as an officer in a crew of up to four online players.
Star Trek: Bridge Crew was originally slated for a November 29th, 2016 launch date, and then later pushed back to March 14th, 2017, with Ubisoft studio Red Storm Entertainment citing that the delay was necessary to bring “the best game experience possible at launch.” The game is now slated to release on PlayStation VR, HTC Vive, and Oculus Rift on May 30th. No reason was given for the delay.
Also announced today on Ubisoft’s blog, the Enterprise is going to be available in the game’s ‘Ongoing Voyages’ mode, which features procedurally generated solo and co-op missions.
We had a chance to pilot the Aegis at E3 last year, and while it was a fun co-op experience that requires mastery of your individual station and the ability to communicate, the thought of being able to settle into TOS captain’s chair and melodramatically order Spock to clean up the scotch you spilled is nearly as intoxicating as scotch you just spilled. Role-playing communities, like those that play the unofficial live-action game Artemis, are going to relish in the chance to play in what appears to be a faithful reconstruction of the NCC-1701’s bridge in VR.
Star Trek: Bridge Crew’s Enterprise was developed in close cooperation with CBS Corporation’s worldwide licensing and merchandising unit CBS Consumer Products, the rights holders of the Star Trek franchise.
“The original U.S.S. Enterprise is such an iconic part of the franchise,” says David Votypka, senior creative director at Red Storm Entertainment. “The adventures and relationships that took place on the ship are a special part of Star Trek history, so we were determined to give players the opportunity to create their own adventures and stories on this classic ship.”
Today Ubisoft and developer Red Storm Entertainment announced that the upcoming virtual reality (VR) experience Star Trek: Bridge Crew will feature the original U.S.S. Enterprise bridge from the 60’s TV as well as the U.S.S Aegis.
“We felt it was important to include a part of classic Star Trek with this game, especially during Star Trek’s 50th anniversary,” said David Votypka, Senior Creative Director at Red Storm Entertainment. “The original U.S.S. Enterprise is such an iconic part of the franchise – it’s the ship that started it all. The adventures and relationships that took place on the ship are a special part of Star Trek history, so we were determined to give players the opportunity to create their own adventures and stories on this classic ship. We’re very excited to see player reactions when they step onto the U.S.S. Enterprise original bridge for the first time, and experience Star Trek: Bridge Crew in a whole new way. We’re also appreciative of players’ patience as we finalise work on the game to bring the Star Trek experience we envisioned to life.”
When embarking on missions players will be able to choose between U.S.S Aegis and U.S.S Enterprise. Very much like all the films and TV shows, Star Trek: Bridge Crew is about team work with players able to take on the roles of Captain, Engineer, Tactical Officer, or Helm Officer. As officers of the Federation every action and decision they make together will determine the fate of the ship and crew. The videogame will also feature a solo mode with players in the Captain seat. Both the U.S.S Aegis and U.S.S Enterprise will be usable in the Ongoing Voyages mode, which generates randomised missions for hours of solo and co-op adventure.
In October Ubisoft announced it would be delaying the launch of Star Trek: Bridge Crew from 29th November 2016 until 14th March, 2017. Now the publisher has confirmed a further delay, putting the new launch for 30th May on PlayStation VR, Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.
For any further updates on Star Trek: Bridge Crew, keep reading VRFocus.
Based on the popular party game Mafia (also known as Werewolf),Werewolves Within represents Ubisoft’s first dive into the world of social VR games. I first got my hands on the game at GDC earlier this year, and while it remains basically the same since I last played, really settling into the gameplay provided me with some amount of insight into myself, including just how comfortable I am lying to complete strangers. The answer: I’m surprisingly comfortable.
Werewolves Within Details:
Developer: Red Storm Entertainment Publisher: Ubisoft Available On: Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, PSVR Reviewed on: HTC Vive Release Date: December 6th, 2016
Gameplay
If you’ve ever played the party game Mafia, which is designed around the idea of assuming a number of assigned ‘innocent’ roles in effort to root out the bad guys, you’ll be right at home with Werewolves Within. When starting a match (requiring at least 6 people), you’re automatically assigned 1 of 11 different roles, each with their own abilities. Your job, providing you’re neither a Werewolf, Turncloak, or Deviant, is to sniff out and correctly guess who among you is a shape shifting fiend.
Thankfully the game provides a handy in-game reference guide to see what role is what, so first-timers can jump in without too much fuss. That same guide can also be used to vote for the suspected Werewolf, use your unique abilities, and mute/kick fellow players.
Because everyone was functionally a newcomer to the game, the playsessions I participated in were casual and pretty forgiving, but I can imagine savvier players picking it up and dominating once they get an instinctual handle on how each role functions.
It took a few matches until I was assigned the Werewolf, and I was surprised to see another Werewolf sitting across from me. We exchanged a furtive glance, and taking his lead we started to gang up on what was revealed to be a the Drifter sitting next to me, a British guy playing on PSVR.
Like most players, he would lean over to the left or right of him to initiate the ‘Whisper Mode’ and secretly talk to people next to him. Eventually I stood up, initiating a ‘Speech Mode’ that lets you mute all other players, and summarily accused him of conspiring against us, the peace-loving townsfolk. Hook. Line. And sinker.
Of course, once voting was over and we had falsely convicted the Drifter, my Werewolf-kin and I were ousted to reveal our true natures. Absolutely sure that no one would trust me from that point forward, I left the match for another group.
The game is cross-compatible with PSVR, HTC Vive and Oculus Rift, and also offers private matches so you can try out your new deception tactics on friends and family. And while the aim of the game is virtual deception, I really wouldn’t be surprised if I made real friends in the process during random quick matches.
Any which way you slice it, Werewolves Within proves to be cleverly balanced and frighteningly fun.
Immersion
Setting the right atmosphere for a game is important, and that goes doubly so for one that’s essentially static like Werewolves. Thankfully the game is absolutely dripping with cool outdoor set pieces, that because of a constant bustling of background wildlife, really makes the game feel alive. It’s actually a shame you can’t get up out of your seat and explore the Romani camp, or the little village’s various pubs, stores and churches. They’re just too expressive not to be curious.
Set in the fictional town of Gallowston, a cartoony Central European village filled with timber-framed houses seemingly pulled straight from classic monster movies like Frankenstein (1931) or The Wolf Man (1941), you’re supplied with a randomly assigned avatar. Around the campfire you’ll seeRomani fortunetellers, headscarf-clad spinsters, gruff tradesmen, hunters, and an assortment of dopey looking serfs. This is where the polished aesthetic of the game somewhat clashes with my idea of personal choice.
Firstly, you can’t choose your avatar, which isn’t the worst thing in the world I suppose. But regardless of whether you have hand controllers like PSVR Move, the Vive’s controllers or the recently released Oculus Touch, you are constricted to use automatic emotes, i.e. ‘press A for clap your hands’. This is by far my least favorite part of the game. I would much rather have the weirdness of imperfect inverse kinematics that you see in other games than downgrade my positionally-tracked hand controllers to that of a mere gamepad. Because of this I ended up not using the emotes, often times forgetting they were there and uselessly waving my controllers to no effect. The next time I play, I’ll probably use a gamepad, which is a damn shame.
Comfort
As a 100% static experience, you’ll either be sitting the whole time or standing very briefly to activate ‘Speech Mode’, so there’s no artificial locomotion to contend with. This makes Werewolves Within hands down one of the most comfortable VR games to play, which would be great for inexperienced users like curious moms and dads who just don’t quite see a point in VR just yet.
Although not specifically a point on comfort, getting out of your seat and walking around the environment proves to be a bit unsettling as your avatars head is stretched form its still seated body—so staying in your relative real-world position is a must.
We partnered with AVA Direct to create the Exemplar 2 Ultimate, our high-end VR hardware reference point against which we perform our tests and reviews. Exemplar 2 is designed to push virtual reality experiences above and beyond what’s possible with systems built to lesser recommended VR specifications.
Looking to play any of Ubisoft’s forthcoming virtual reality (VR) titles online? Your opponent, or partner might not be on the same head-mounted display (HMD). They might not even be on the same base system. Revealed today on the Ubisoft Blog, the games publisher has revealed that not only will Eagle Flight allow Oculus Rift and HTC Vive players to battle each other, but PlayStation VR users will also be able to join the fun. Taking the console VR vs PC VR argument to the battleground that is the skies above the ruins of Paris.
This itself is only a first step however, with cross-platform gameplay coming to Ubisoft’s other VR titles. Star Trek: Bridge Crew and Werewolves Within “from launch”.
Speaking on the Ubisoft Blog, David Votypka, the Senior Creative Director at Red Storm Entertainment (developers of Star Trek: Bridge Crew explained how it all came about.
“Making our VR titles cross-platform has been a goal of ours from the start and we’re happy to announce that Eagle Flight, Werewolves Within, and Star Trek: Bridge Crew will be playable cross-platform on PSVR, Oculus Rift, and HTC Vive. Our games feature a strong multiplayer experiences, so letting friends play together regardless of which headset they own will enhance the social nature of our games and let them be played the way we envisioned.”
VRFocus will bring you more information about Ubisoft’s VR line-up as the additional platforms and titles are released.
