When Homeworld 3 was first introduced, I saved hoping for a VR mode announcement that by no means got here. Wouldn’t it’s great to see all of the iconic ships flying round, dogfighting and exploding throughout your head? It’s a no-brainer! It seems that the lack of VR assist wasn’t as a result of Homeworld 3’s builders at Blackbird didn’t see the potential; it was as a result of there was one other studio, FarBridge, engaged on a parallel Homeworld game that’s constructed for VR – particularly the Meta Quest 2 and three – from the ground up. It’s known as Homeworld: Vast Reaches (see what they did there?) and, as coincidence would have it, after Homeworld 3’s delay to this coming May, each will launch very close collectively.
When I first put on the headset, the feel and appear was instantly very, very Homeworld. It’s not fairly up to the constancy of Homeworld 3, naturally, nevertheless it’s a good illustration of how these memorable ships had been initially designed, and it’s a journey to have the old-school animatic cutscenes fill my whole discipline of view. The cherry on prime, of course, is new music by Paul Ruskay, the composer of Homeworld 1, 2, Deserts of Kharak, and the upcoming Homeworld 3. So it’s actually bought authenticity on its aspect.
The 11-mission, single-player-only story marketing campaign of Homeworld VR is about between the occasions of Homeworld and Homeworld 2 (versus the further-future Homeworld 3) as Karen Sjet comes out of retirement to educate a new individual studying to pilot the Mothership (you) and mop up the remnants of the Taiidan Empire. A brand new race reveals up and, whereas initially promising to help the Hiigarans with new superior tech, shortly activates you. This sudden however inevitable betrayal is available in the center of a coaching train the place their ships had been already conveniently labeled in pink.
The controls actually take a little getting used to (although I’m informed they’re nonetheless being tuned) however issues have been simplified a bit so it’s not arduous to get up to hurry for those who’ve performed a Homeworld game earlier than. It’s actually simpler to guage distance and depth in VR, which is important in a game the place ships can freely transfer up and down (to a level) in space, so there’s no need to control the digital camera as a lot as in 2D to find out one thing’s location. The pointer-based controls are a little finicky whenever you’re attempting to goal a useful resource harvester at a distant asteroid cluster when there’s the rest round it, except you’ve gotten a surgeon’s regular hand, however of course the apparent answer there’s to pause the action with a faucet of the Quest’s Y button, fly over to the asteroid, and difficulty instructions up close earlier than resuming time.
The radar and control group menus pop up on both aspect of your left wrist whenever you raise your arm and flip your hand to swap between them, which I shortly bought the hold of for choosing and leaping to my ships (however I by no means did study to stop attempting to click on on the Mothership to carry up a menu). The trickiest half to study was the digital camera controls, which let you float or teleport via space as soon as you determine that transferring up and down is managed by which approach you’re tilting the proper controller as you progress.
My early-game fleet was composed of the similar Hiigaran scouts, fighters, bombers, corvettes, and useful resource harvesters that we performed with in the unique Homeworld. However, even more so than Homeworld 2 and three, the approach you work together with ships is control group-based, to the level the place you’ll be able to’t individually order a ship and even a squadron round – you need to build ships into one of the teams (during these early ranges you’re restricted to 3, however that can increase as your tech upgrades) and provides orders that apply to all the ships inside it. There aren’t any pre-set formations, however you’ll be able to actually decide up ships and place them in the formation you need inside the group, or transfer them to a completely different group. There additionally aren’t any passive, impartial, or aggressive stances to inform the AI how you need the ships to behave in fight, however you’ll be able to activate a increase to their firepower for a short time.
It could also be simplified, however fight makes use of the similar rock-paper-scissors model balancing we’re used to, the place fighters kill bombers, bombers kill larger ships, and larger ships kill fighters. These early missions had been principally about defending the Mothership from waves of attackers whereas harvesting all of the accessible sources close by earlier than leaping away, which may be very acquainted for this sequence. Since that is the unique Mothership it’s unarmed and stationary, however I seen that right here you don’t actually work together with it a lot. Because ships are constructed straight into the control teams they don’t fly out of the hangar, and repairs are completed with a assist ship moderately than by docking. But as ever, it’s there to function your avatar on the map, and it have to be protected in any respect prices.
Homeworld VR’s weirdest trick, although, is the option on the Quest 3 to play in augmented actuality mode. When you flip on this option in the menu, the backdrop of space is changed by the actual world round you, and your ships are simply flying round the room. It’s weird, particularly if there are different people close by, and it may be a little tough to identify ships in a cluttered space, however I used to be stunned at how shortly I bought used to it and was back to taking part in as regular. I might see myself taking part in this fashion if my children or cats had been in the room and I wished to have the ability to hold an eye on them with out leaving my game, however all issues thought of I anticipate I’ll want to expertise the full immersion in the Homeworld universe when Homeworld VR launches on Quest “soon.”