Wednesday, 17 September, 2025 UTC
Summary
I've played Reach a few times now, and it continues to impress on every occasion.
Given how many showcases Reach has appeared at since its reveal, it's clear that nDreams Elevation has considerable faith in its upcoming game. Founded over three years ago with the intent of creating AAA VR games, Elevation's debut title promises a cinematic VR adventure where you play as a reluctant hero, Rosa, while unearthing the secrets of an underground civilization. So far, it's a strong start.
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Combat clip
I've played Reach twice in the last month alone. While I didn't handle our Summer Game Fest preview, that same demo later appeared during Gamescom 2025. During the first 'VR Games Showcase Live' in London two weeks ago, I went hands-on with a different PC VR demo across three out-of-sequence levels.
What's immediately clear is that nDreams Elevation aims to tackle the last decade of VR design challenges head-on; you can see the evolution from Fracked and Phantom: Covert Ops. Reach is an unapologetically high-intensity action game, one that mostly avoids flatscreen-adjacent design to deliver strong player embodiment. Beyond a 2D options menu when pausing the game, which also puts you into an explorable environment, inventory and other options use the fully immersive approach.
Essential tools like the bow or your health injector are grabbed through the on-body inventory system, and I particularly like how your shield functions. Holding the trigger button forms a circle with your fingers, and moving your hand down in this position summons the shield at will, becoming second nature almost immediately. Throwing this into set places for climbing turns this into a versatile tool, too.
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Summoning your shield
Reach cleverly signposts what to do while carefully blending this with the environmental art, using methods like slightly protruding bricks without making them too overt and it's well designed. Climbable objects are usually noticeable enough, though perhaps a little too subtle sometimes. I inadvertently missed two climbing spots on my first go, but I quickly realized my error.
Guns are available at times, though these last two demos mostly focus on your bow. Reach's fast-paced gameplay benefits from a more action-focused approach instead of simulation, meaning you don't manually nock your bow. Pulling back the string spawns an arrow, while limited but specialized ammo for stunning foes, freezing them, or explosive ones can be set by pressing the trigger. A straightforward approach that keeps the action running smoothly without becoming cumbersome.
Combat seems promising too, offering decent variety between these encounters so far. One section has a drone-like foe that can shield its allies if alerted to your presence, forcing me to carefully crouch and hide behind cover until it starts looking another way. My first attempt with an explosive arrow missed, making the following fight notably more challenging.
Following the event, nDreams later provided me with preview build access at home. Unsurprisingly for a high-end desktop, performance runs smoothly so far even in the more action-heavy sequences, and Reach's presentation shines on PC VR with impressive visuals. It's looking polished, though one moment where you obtain your gauntlets causes my digital arms to clip through the device giving them to me.
PC Specs Used
My desktop uses an Intel i9 16-Core Processor i9-12900 (Up to 5.1GHz), 32GB RAM - Corsair VENGEANCE DDR5 5200MHz, and a 16GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super. Part of this preview was conducted using this desktop with a Meta Quest 3 via the Virtual Desktop app.
I encountered no performance issues while using the highest settings, 'Epic,' during my home testing. However, it's worth noting nDreams has yet to list the minimum and recommended specs on the Steam page.
I've not played on PlayStation VR2 yet, though I'm encouraged by what I've seen elsewhere. The native Quest 3 version holds up against the Steam edition pretty well with the expected visual trade-offs, though pop-in is considerably more noticeable. My only major gripe is some performance issues during the “White Rabbit” section, something our regular contributor Pete Austin also experienced, though neither of us encountered issues elsewhere on Quest 3. Otherwise, this compares pretty well.
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Quest 3 footage captured by UploadVR
I've come away from these two previews highly encouraged by the strong gameplay design. If Reach can maintain this momentum throughout the full campaign, nDreams Elevation has a potential VR Game of the Year contender on its hands, up there with Arken Age and Ghost Town. I'm impressed so far, and I'll be diving into the full game as soon as I can.
Reach arrives on October 16 on PS VR2, SteamVR, and Quest 3.