Hands-on: In Death

Armed with a bow and shield, we fight our way through "In Death" from Sólfar Studios through randomly generated dungeons. The makers of "Everest VR" have already scaled the summit in terms of graphics. But now the Icelandic simulation veterans also want to take their game mechanics skills to the extreme in a gloomy medieval arcade game. Inspired by classic dungeon crawlers, the developers claim that "In Death" pays homage to the "Dark Souls" genre. The appealing thing is that without save points, every procedurally generated game in "In Death" is different. The achievement system scales the course of the game according to your fighting skills, and these need to be tested first. So get your weapons ready.

Forces from a godless afterlife

The signature of the professional developer studio is already present from the first immersion: the sensitive introduction to the medieval art of archery is not unnecessarily prolonged, even in the godless afterlife. The only question that remains is whether the Himalayan-savvy developers can also prepare a real game. The ingredients: a unique movement system with bow and arrow, different types of enemies and changing locations. What you get served up has a real bite to it. In the medieval setting, you move through various dungeons in a first-person perspective with a bow and magical powers. Very special: you can use the arrows both to kill enemies and to beam yourself to a specific movement point. Use the left controller button to swarm the enemy projectiles, which can come from pretty much any direction, with the shield drawn.

Although the arrow shooting mechanics are very precise and, to my astonishment, don't suffer any enormous loss of tracking even on Windows Mixed Reality, the lateral dodging quickly becomes a bit of a test of familiarisation or patience. Here you throw a magic ball (or feather?) into the area like a ninja so that you are teleported even more precisely to a point in your immediate vicinity. An additional free-locomotion system can already be activated under the experimental features, but so far it only seems to work with the left analogue stick of the Rift touch controller. In my opinion, a combination of beaming and free movement on all VR headsets would be desirable. The precise handling when aiming with a bow and arrow is impressive. However, I haven't quite found the adrenaline rush in the godly power of beaming around with magic arrows and throwing balls. Maybe I'll get used to it?

Something is still missing, but feedback is being listened to

Quite unique: with each new game you unlock parameters that influence the course of the game. You may suddenly encounter very large or multiple enemies and be surprised by large boss figures. Nevertheless, the artificial intelligence of the enemies doesn't quite impress me yet. Nevertheless, "In Death" is already one of the more polished VR games that brings a breath of fresh air to a genre. However, it still lacks a little depth. Where are the pillars or benches that you can hide behind? The graphical environments could also be a little more varied despite the smooth graphics.

"In Death" has been available since 1 February on Steam is available for Rift, Vive and Mixed Reality and has already been very well received by players on the Valve platform. However, the experience is still being continuously improved, while the developers are open to all suggestions. The full version is due to be released in 2018. A PSVR version seems to be as good as confirmed by the developers, as "Everest VR" has also been released for the console headset.

We love PSVR, working hard to be with you there.

- Sólfar Studios (@solfarstudios) February 3, 2018