I owned one of the first Oculus headsets released, and was astonished by even the simplest games. Vader Immortal was barely a game, more of an interactive experience akin to a theme park ride, and yet I lapped up every second. The immersion of VR is second to none, but many developers use that immersion as a crutch, and fail to innovate beyond it.
There are classics of the medium, like Beat Saber, Tetris Effect, and Superhot VR. These games all use the immersion of the headset in combination with clever mechanics or twists on their genres in order to eschew expectations and create experiences that simply can’t be replicated outside of virtual reality.
Other Genres Make The Most Of Virtual Reality
Beat Saber takes Guitar Hero mechanics to another level, forcing you to utilise your entire body as a controller in order to master every song. Tetris Effect uses the vast depth of field that VR offers to create one of the most visually astonishing games I’ve ever had the pleasure to experience. And the music… the music! Superhot VR innovates on the shooter genre in a similar way that Beat Saber does, using your physical movements to control time. It’s brilliant, it’s unique, it’s something that can only work in VR. So why can’t RPGs do the same?
I’ve played my fair share of VRPGs. Yes, the ‘R’ stands for reality and role simultaneously. None of them have wowed me. The closest any VR game has come to iterating on the genre in a truly meaningful way is Half-Life: Alyx, and that’s not even an RPG. But it made some great steps forward that the medium as a whole has benefitted from. Think about how nearly every object could be interacted with. The hand tracking technology that allowed you to actually play the piano in-game. And Jeff. I will never forget Jeff.
Behemoth, the latest VRPG to vie for the crown of pushing the boundaries of VR gaming, takes that Jeff mechanic and runs with it. A gargantuan bat boss screams at you and forces you to cover your ears like Alyx must cover her mouth to stop Jeff from hearing her breathing. But few other VRPGs use Alyx’s clever mechanics, and fewer still iterate of their own accord.
Virtual Reality Needs An RPG That Changes Things
This is what I mean by the medium’s Breath of the Wild moment. Breath of the Wild was an awe-inspiring RPG, but its biggest impact was the influence it had on everything that followed it. You’ve got your blatant rip-offs like Immortals: Fenyx Rising and Genshin Impact. You’ve got the games that didn’t understand what made Breath of the Wild great and learned the wrong lessons, like modern Assassin’s Creed. But we wouldn’t have indie classics like Sable without the iconic RPG. We wouldn’t have Elden Ring, or at least not the same Elden Ring we ended up playing.
What is VR’s Breath of the Wild? What game will capture the imagination of both players and developers alike, and leave a lasting impact for this generation of VR headsets? Alyx has had the biggest impact to date, but few developers seem to have the resources to take inspiration from its mechanics.
Behemoth is my latest VRPG disappointment. I mentioned earlier that it borrows some mechanics from Alyx, but I was let down in how it innovated itself. The eponymous Behemoths are impressive to fight, but – as with many VR titles – lean too heavily on the immersion of VR, and lack mechanical invention. What’s more, the game lacks any sense of atmosphere that predecessors like Shadow of the Colossus ooze from every pixel.
I’m still waiting for a VRPG to blow me away in the same sense that Breath of the Wild did. And, more importantly, I’m waiting for a VRPG to inspire other developers to take inspiration from a game, for a game to be so clever and so iterative that everyone else wants to ape it. I’m waiting for a game to grab the VR medium by the headset and aggressively pull it forward, so it not only rivals the best games regular consoles have to offer, but does something entirely unique to virtual reality.
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