Test: Blood and Truth (PSVR)

Mafia families can also be popular characters. In Sony's VR shooter, as a criminal offspring you show even nastier guys the ropes. But how good is the story of the quasi-sequel to "London: The Heist"? How varied is the gameplay and, above all, is the PSVR exclusive title fun? Find out the answers in our test and review video from our colleagues at Games.ch.

Ryan Marks never really wanted to get into the business of his mafia clan. Instead, he enlisted as a soldier for his native England. However, after the sudden death of his father, businessman Anthony Sharpe wants to take over his family's empire - by force if necessary! But where weapons are needed above all else, an ex-elite soldier is just the man to thwart the plans of the unruly unsympathetic man. But "Blood and Truth" is not just about mowing down enemies with blue beans. It's also about defusing or planting bombs, picking locks and, of course, Ryan's family. Is the title from SIE London Studio just part of a new wave to somehow provide new material for Sony's PSVR headset or perhaps one that, like "Astro Bot" even provides an irresistible reason to buy?

Mafia story of a different kind

When films are about mafia clans, even the criminal protagonists do not necessarily lack a certain level of sympathy. On the contrary: good mafia stories allow us to understand the motives of the protagonists, even if people die in the process. "Blood and Truth" also manages to do this when our main hero Ryan, his siblings and their mother join forces to protect the family empire from outside influences. No, it's not a mafia story along the lines of "The Godfather" or "GoodFellas". On a gaming scale, however, the story is certainly not to be despised and its style is often reminiscent of heist films such as The Score or Ocean's 13.

The story is also exciting, as it is initially told in flashbacks. Our hero sits in the interrogation room of a secret service agent. Nobody simply wants to sweep his crimes under the carpet, but the state needs Ryan's help to put Anthony Sharpe in his place and Ryan needs the secret service so that at least his family members can go unpunished. This quickly creates a close bond between Ryan and the agent, which is ultimately - how could it be otherwise - crowned with success.

From time to time, the pure story sequences are perhaps a little too lengthy or contain errors. For example, you and your brother break into an art museum at night. When you splatter the portraits of your adversary with a colour gun, both of them continue to make fun of the action, even after you have long since taken your hands off the oversized colour gun. However, the main plot never gets boring and there is a real connection to the characters. However, the gameplay in "Blood and Truth" is still at the forefront and doesn't just consist of pure shooting orgies.

Shooting and much more

The main storyline takes you through a total of 19 missions of varying lengths - the story will keep you entertained for roughly four to six hours in total. The use of weapons clearly takes centre stage, with everything from pistols, revolvers, machine guns and assault rifles to grenade launchers being used against your enemies. In principle, you can use almost all of these weapons with just one hand. With the long guns, however, you use your second hand for stabilisation or, in the case of a shotgun, you have to move the repetition mechanism manually. You also use your free hand to load a new magazine into your shotgun, which requires a manual grip on your chest pouch. However, this only applies if you play "Blood and Truth" with Move controllers. Alternatively, you can also use the DualShock 4, but we do not recommend this due to the significantly lower immersion. The advantage of being able to reload simply by clicking on the bumper is more than discreetly torpedoed by the weaknesses in other game mechanics such as climbing.

In "Blood and Truth", you don't always have your finger on the trigger, but also clamber up ladders or scaffolding, which only feels good with the Move controllers. There are also a series of mini-games where you can pick locks, insert new fuses in switch boxes or use analogue sticks to move a satellite dish in the game world in order to disable enemy radio communications. This adds a lot of variety to the action and fits in very well with the overall concept, which is predominantly focussed on action and story.

Linear with extras

The course of the story is strictly linear, with only one alternative path here and there in the levels, which ultimately does not differ significantly in terms of gameplay or atmosphere. You cannot move freely in the levels, which take you through casinos, to an art museum, to building sites or even to the roof of a skyscraper at great heights. Instead, the game gives you fixed waypoints, which you aim at using head tracking and control by pressing a button. The enemies usually attack you in the areas in finite waves and can only attack you from behind in exceptional cases. This makes sense, as you can almost always switch between waypoints on your left and right to find better cover, but you cannot return to points in front of you. You can only turn by looking in the right direction, and you can only seek cover behind cover by actually moving slightly downwards or to the side.

Despite the linear progression, which also means that the replay value is very limited, there is still plenty to find along the way. For example, there are a number of collectibles in the levels that are added to your stash. If you shoot target crosses in the environment, some of which are easily hidden, you collect points that you can invest in weapon mods in the hideout. However, these elements do not really contribute to long-term motivation. The point challenges, which you can tackle later independently of the solo campaign, will hardly keep you playing "Blood and Truth" for more than a few hours.