Monday, 22 July, 2024 UTC
Summary
Attack on Titan VR: Unbreakable brings the acclaimed series to Quest, offering enjoyable combat but a repetitive campaign in early access. Read on for our full review-in-progress.
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Attack on Titan VR: Unbreakable - Quest 3 gameplay captured by UploadVR
I'm hardly a "mega fan" but as someone familiar with the anime series, Attack on Titan VR: Unbreakable initially intrigued me. Considering the VR fan game's notability, I was curious how an official game would adapt this premise. UNIVRS has taken the early access approach, releasing the first two chapters before Version 1.0's winter launch. You won't need long to "beat" Unbreakable right now and while the game has its moments, several flaws hold it back.
The Facts
What is it?: An official VR game based on the Attack on Titan anime and manga series.
Platforms: Quest (reviewed on Quest 3)
Release Date: July 23 (early access), Winter 2024 (full release)
Developer: UNIVRS, Inc.
Price: $5 in early access (first two chapters only), full release price TBC
What is it?: An official VR game based on the Attack on Titan anime and manga series.
Platforms: Quest (reviewed on Quest 3)
Release Date: July 23 (early access), Winter 2024 (full release)
Developer: UNIVRS, Inc.
Price: $5 in early access (first two chapters only), full release price TBC
Unbreakable, thankfully, doesn't require prior knowledge of the source material; all the context you need is helpfully explained during a brief opening segment. With the Titans continuing to decimate humanity, you play as the newest recruit for the Survey Corps, and familiar faces like Eren, Mikasa, Armin, and Levi accompany you. Other Survey Corps members appear during missions but they never assist you in combat.
Unbreakable begins with a tutorial, easing you into a straightforward control scheme. Your Omni-Directional Mobility (ODM) gear lets you grapple nicely across the city using anchors, and a limited gas supply helps control your mid-air direction. It's well suited for VR's motion controls; pulling yourself into these anchors to move offers some good physicality as you swing around Titans.
Attack on Titan VR: Unbreakable - Quest 3 screenshotYour ODM doubles up as a weapon, letting you slice these grotesque nude giants with blades that gradually deteriorate before breaking, requiring you to find ammo boxes across the city. Landing the kill after carefully targeting the back of their necks initially feels good, as does slowing them down by slicing off limbs despite the fact those arms and legs gradually regenerate.
Completing missions earns points that unlock a good range of ODM blades that are equippable at your base, though it's worth noting that some are currently unavailable in this early access build. Different stats for wire length, durability, attack power, and more add welcome variety to fit your style better. Equipping those without returning to the hub every time would be helpful, but this isn't a significant concern.
Despite these entertaining moments, Unbreakable's campaign currently feels underwhelming. Both chapters contain five individual stages, each awarding up to five stars based on your performance, and I wasn't initially compelled to replay them. Missions usually involve killing a set number of Titans within a time limit, and that gets repetitive fast, even when throwing in a slightly trickier Abnormal Titan. Despite the latter's change in behavioral patterns, I rarely feel challenged.
Attack on Titan VR: Unbreakable - Quest 3 screenshotThe only other campaign mission types involve some straightforward supply gathering as you avoid these giant foes, or defending a strategic location from enemy waves for a set period of time. Defending locations adds some welcome strategy since Titans emerge from different angles and you can't realistically kill them all, making you consider who to distract and who to destroy. I wouldn't consider this particularly well-balanced as Titans quickly refocus, though these stages were likely designed with the upcoming co-op mode in mind.
Comfort
On-foot movement uses artificial stick-based locomotion with no option for teleportation, and movement direction is based on either your headset position or left controller. You can also sprint by swinging your arms or holding them behind you while running in a "ninja" style chosen in the options menu.
There isn't a specific 'left-handed mode' to select, but the inputs are mirrored across both controllers. You can choose either Japanese or English for both voice acting and text languages. Your avatar's skin tone can also be selected. Player height is manually adjusted using a slider. Seated and standing modes for gameplay are both available, too.
You can also adjust the UI elements for the ODM gear display, Titan HP, and subtitles. Camera turning is snap turning only and you can turn off wind line effects and camera vibration. Otherwise, it's quite a physical game that may get you sweating, and, unfortunately, you can't pause mid-mission. I'm also surprised that there aren't any vignettes in a motion intense game.
Unbreakable's presentation also needs further work, though I appreciate games designed for standalone VR will have limitations. Character models for notable characters like Levi, Mikasa, and Armin look fine on Quest 3, whereas Titan designs are fittingly hard to look at. Performance issues in a few missions also caused some noticeable framerate drops.
Some poor environmental art makes me believe UNIVRS is banking on you being too preoccupied with Titans not to check your surroundings. A flat fruit stall at the beginning reminded me of Fire Emblem: Three Houses, building damage could have been pulled from an N64 game, and grass often looks painted to the floor. It's not all bad but that's disappointing when we've previously seen great use of cel-shaded visuals on Quest.
Attack on Titan VR: Unbreakable - Quest 3 screenshotUnsurprisingly for an early access release, I didn't need long to see everything Attack on Titan VR has to offer; each chapter took roughly an hour to complete. It's unclear how many more missions we can expect right now - the early access roadmap only specifies that "later chapters" and the co-op mode are coming with version 1.0. I'm keen to see how co-op plays out, and I can see where Unbreakable would be considerably more enjoyable with friends.
Attack On Titan VR: Unbreakable Review-In-Progress - Current Final VerdictAttack on Titan VR: Unbreakable in early access offers some thrills, though a few flaws mean I can't enthusiastically recommend it just yet. Unbreakable's current highlights are easily the entertaining combat and well-considered aerial controls, though the campaign is let down by repetitive missions, easy difficulty, and occasionally poor environmental visuals. There's work to be done before Version 1.0 lands but in early access, I still enjoyed taking down Titans.
UploadVR uses a 5-Star rating system for our game reviews – you can read a breakdown of each star rating in our review guidelines. As a review-in-progress, this is currently unscored to reflect our approach on covering post-launch updates. We'll revisit this review once Attack on Titan VR: Unbreakable enters full release.