Asgard’s Wrath 2 review – VR game of the year

Asgard’s Wrath 2 – the Rolls Royce of VR gaming (Picture: Oculus Studios)

The Meta Quest 3 has got its killer app, with what may be the best VR game ever made and one of the best action role-players of 2023.

The problem with game of the year lists, is that many outlets end up creating them before the year is actually finished, which is terribly unfair on games that come out in December. We’ve seen some sites including Mavel’s Midnight Suns in their 2023 end of the year features, because it came out on December 2 last year, which is a terrible shame considering what happened when the game proved a flopped.

Because Asgard’s Wrath 2 is published by Meta, we don’t think it has to worry about making its money back, especially as it’s almost impossible to buy a new Meta Quest 3 headset without getting a free copy, but it would certainly be a shame if it didn’t get its due as one of the best games of the year.

We don’t just mean that it’s good for a VR game or that it’s successfully added a VR mode to a pre-existing game, like Gran Turismo 7 or Resident Evil Village. No, this is a proper VR-only game that’s been designed to be nothing else and, thanks to an indulgently large budget, it gives an enticingly clear vision of the medium’s full potential.

The original Asgard’s Wrath was released back in 2019, before the pandemic and before the subsequent cost of living crisis made VR seem like a very unnecessary luxury. It’s a shame, because the new PlayStation VR2 and Meta Quest 3 headsets are both excellent and while Sony’s support for their format has been shamefully bad, Meta has been making a real effort to ensure their new hardware is furnished with plenty of new games.

Asgard’s Wrath 2 is definitely the centrepiece of the collection though, a sort of cross between Skyrim and God Of War, that prides itself on being a proper video game, with large open world areas and relatively complex combat and pseudo role-playing elements. Not only that but it’s a massive experience, with at least 100 hours of gameplay in total.

As before, you play as a god, who is capable of possessing mortals but who at the end of the last game was betrayed by Loki (obviously). If you haven’t played the original you may be lost at some of the references, although that doesn’t really matter as the story isn’t that strong anyway and, despite the name, most of the game takes place in Egypt, with its own pantheon of gods and related monsters.

There’re four playable mortals to choose between, each with very different abilities and their own storylines and associated open world areas. You start off as the more straightforward Abraxas, who is your generic sword and sandals fantasy hero. He gets more unusual abilities and equipment as you progress, while other characters, like an elf archer and a river nymph, are peculiar from the start, with their magical gun turrets and octopus harps.

The basics of combat are the same for each character but there’s now notably more variety than the original, with a lot more ranged attacks that include various whip type weapons that let you tackle aerial enemies or snag shields, as well as a range of energy projectiles and arrows.

Combat felt very regimented in the original game, but in the sequel you’re left to experiment and improvise a lot more, with some surprisingly capable AI that never makes things too easy. Enemies will catch on if you keep spamming the same move and are always mobile, rather than just being static targets for you to flail at – as is the case in so many VR games focusing on melee combat.

The only problem is that the motion controls aren’t entirely reliable. They are 90% of the time but occasionally the game doesn’t seem to properly register a block or attack, which is frustrating in some of the harder battles.

Each character has their own skill tree, plus there’s a significant crafting element, that relies on various rare resources – so there’s always a good reason to get involved in combat. That’s true even if the enemy variety isn’t all that it could be, with the game leaning a little too heavily on crocodile people and their variants.

In terms of the adventure elements of the game there’s a clear Zelda influence to the various dungeons and while the puzzles are, predictably, not as involved they are far more complex and varied than you’d expect – and certainly more interesting than God Of War. There’s an almost Metroidvania element to the game, as you have to learn to use each characters’ unique abilities and those of your animal companions.

Overall, there’s less companions than in the first game, but that’s because they now have a much more varied and useful range of abilities, from simply helping out in combat to making hidden objects appear. Not only can you ride each of them in animal form, but you can also treat them like pets, as you feed them nibbles and high five them after a victory.

Puzzles-solving is also where your giant god form is the most useful, as you manipulate the environment – frequently picking up and moving parts of the landscape to make platforms – before beaming back down back into your mortal shell and continuing on your way.

There can be quite a bit of platforming, which never works that well in first person, but while it’s certainly not the best part of Asgard’s Wrath 2 it still does a creditable job of mimicking Assassin’s Creed style wall running and leaping – and somehow without upending the contents of your stomach as soon as you start moving.

Asgard’s Wrath 2 – this all looks much more impressive in VR (Picture: Oculus Studios)

More unique are the various optional sections where you get pulled into the real world and end up using the Meta Quest 3’s AR features to fight off monsters in your own living room. This isn’t possible on older models of the headset but while It’s gimmicky it’s undeniably fun and a useful palette cleanser.

This is an astonishingly fully-featured experience, especially when you factor in the entirely separate roguelite mode, that could easily have been released on its own. Even if many people will be getting Asgard’s Wrath 2 free with the headset there’s never been a VR game that offered better value for money than this.

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Apart from the enemy variety and control foibles, the only other problem is the semi-frequent performance issues, including an uneven frame rate and quite a few bugs. Some of the textures and object detail are also decidedly low-tech, but since this is published by Meta themselves there seems little chance the game will be released on the more powerful PlayStation VR2 or the various PC headsets.

Exclusive games are meant to sell hardware though and you will never get a more compelling reason to buy a Meta Quest 3 than this game. It’s easily the most ambitious VR game we’ve ever played and while Meta is no doubt taking a loss on making it – which most other publishers can’t afford to do – the end result is not only highly compelling but an enticing glimpse at a future where VR titles have moved beyond technical gimmickry and have begun to focus on just being good games.

Formats: Meta Quest 3 (reviewed), Meta Quest Pro, and Meta Quest 2
Price: £44.99
Publisher: Oculus Studios
Developer: Sanzaru Games
Release Date: 15th December 2023
Age Rating: 18

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The Meta Quest 3 has got its killer app, with what may be the best VR game ever made and one of the best action role-players of 2023.