Upcoming VR first-person shooter Warhammer 40,000: Battle Sister won’t be releasing this month, but it is aiming for December.
We had originally thought the Oculus Quest title would arrive on November 12th but, in an interview with UploadVR, James Horn, Creative Lead/Project Director at Pixel Toys explained that that date had actually been shared by accident and that the team is instead hoping to release in December.
Warhammer Battle Sister Release Date Nearing
In Battle Sister, you play as a member of the titular group and fight through a full single-player campaign pitted against iconic 40K creations. We’ve played the first level (see gameplay above) and came away impressed with the game’s scope, though did note some technical hitches. Waiting a little longer for the game gives us hope that those flaws will be ironed out in time for release.
Still, December isn’t far away now and it means Battle Sister should be arriving quite far in front of the other Warhammer VR game on the horizon, the recently-announced Tempestfall.
But what about other platforms? Horn says there are plans for that too. The company is aiming to release on the Oculus Rift next and is looking into other devices beyond that. “So Rift will be next year,” he said. “And then beyond that, we are investigating other options as well. That’s one thing which I think took us back a little bit is how much people wanted to play on other platforms.”
Horn didn’t specify exactly when and where we might see the game, but hopefully SteamVR and PSVR releases are on the table.
We’ll have more from our talk with Pixel Toys later in the week so keep your eyes peeled. Will you be checking out Battle Sister? Let us know in the comments below!
Warhammer’s unmistakable brand of beefy, burley warfare has had brushes with VR before, but the newly-announced Warhammer 40K: Battle Sister is the first headset-exclusive shooter set in the franchise.
Developer Pixel Toys – best known in VR for Drop Dead but also behind some non-VR Warhammer titles – seems to be shouldering that weighty responsibility pretty well. Battle Sister is a single-player campaign shooter, the likes of which Quest fans have been clamoring for over the past few years. You play as a member of the titular group and wage war against people in big red shiny armor and lunatics in gas masks. You may at this point realize I’m not up on my 40K lore.
Warhammer 40K: Battle Sister Gameplay
But you’ve never needed much knowledge about Warhammer to appreciate its universe; gritty, muddy battlefields and impractically proportioned soldiers, with rifles and blades that could have been constructed from Duplo. Battle Sister’s early demo is rough around the edges, but it captures the misery of that slug-fest well. You find yourself on in the midst of combat, accompanied by another Battle Sister that you slog through the trenches with.
It’s a very linear affair, in some ways nostalgic for an older era of first-person shooters; you can hold two weapons at a time and there’s even a section where you take control of a turret. Weapons are a bit of a handful, with chunky machine guns best held with both controllers, though you can dual-wield with each of the first three guns (including a short-range bolter and flamethrower) too. I wish aiming carried a bit more of the heft of, say, The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners, in which it’s almost impossible to aim without a firm grasp, but aiming down the over-grown sights still feels uniquely Warhammer.
In a sense some of the clunky jitters the game has in its current state speak to that chaos. Visually, the game’s ambitious with an impressive opening shot seeing two mechs trading blows at the front of a grim backdrop. But the sheer scope also muddies the textures in places. Tonally, the sea of brownish greys is quite fitting, I just wish it appeared at least a little sharper.
Broadly speaking, though, the first level does feel like it’s definitely a few passes short of being finished. Walking through the trenches, I see some stutters, either in enemy animations or the framerate entirely. The smooth locomotion – switched on by default – can also collide with the cracks and bumps in the floor for sudden slips and divets while walking forward. Reloading is glitchy and sometimes unclear – I’d even see weapons just disappearing from my hands while I was trying to get them working again.
But those are the kind of issues I’d expect to see smoothed out before launch later this year. More importantly, I’ll be looking to see how Battle Sisters’s level and encounter design evolves going forward. The first level is a staunch showcase of trench warfare, but as a result it’s funneled through a series of corridors with fairly simple shootouts.
There is more to see, though. The demo’s second level starts off with a lengthy walk through your home base, which hints at some deeper narrative elements to come, and the game’s control scheme points to some new abilities. For now, Warhammer 40K: Battle Sister does a good job of rooting you in a lovably clunky universe, and that’s a decent start.
Will you be picking up Warhammer 40K: Battle Sister later this year on Quest or Quest 2? Let us know in the comments below and make sure to follow our YouTube channel for more coverage on the game.
Announced at Facebook Connect, Warhammer 40,000: Battle Sister is an upcoming single player first-person shooter for VR. It will be available for Oculus Quest, Oculus Quest 2 and Oculus Rift later this year.
The game is set in the universe of Warhammer 40,000, one of the most popular miniature tabletop war games, which has since spun off into a few related video games. You’ll play a veteran Sister of Battle called Sister Orphelia in a campaign where she “searches for her lost twin sister and fights for the future of humanity itself.” Here’s a description of the weapons and gameplay mechanics you’ll have access to:
Battle Sister features a range of iconic wargear from the Warhammer 40,000 universe for players to actually wield, for the first time, in their own hands, legendary weapons including Bolters, Plasma Pistols, Flamers, Las Rifles, Power Swords and Chainswords. As well as these devastating weapons the player has access to Acts of Faith. These powerful abilities can turn the tide of battle by allowing players to slow time, create a resilient force field, and push back enemies and objects.
The game is being developed by Pixel Toys, the studio that previously developed Oculus Quest launch title Drop Dead: Dual Strike. Not only does the studio have experience developing for VR, but they’ve also worked with the Warhammer 40,000 IP before, developing mobile games like Warhammer 40,000: Freeblade.
There’s no word on pricing or a specific release date for Battle Sister just yet, except that it will launch before the end of the year for Rift and Quest platforms.
