STARBLOOD ARENA

A virtual reality Descent into multiplayer madness

“SLICK PHYSICS AND SMARTALECKY APLOMB COULD THREATEN RIGS’S REIGN.”

Here are six words that might not sit well with you: six degrees of freedom in VR. *passes you a sick bag* Chances are, you can’t even read that without turning green about the gills. But here are six more words that’ll probably surprise you: pitching, yawing, rolling mechs feel fine. The devs at WhiteMoon Dreams must be warlocks. After selecting our pilot – smack-talking, pistoltoting all-rounder Alice, who reminds us of Overwatch’s D.Va – we tentatively float into the battleground, a sort of metal sphere filled with alien architecture and cheesed-off NPCs. Our weaponised robo-giant glides from side to side in mid-air. We blast our twin cannons at an enemy, then instinctively flip out of the way of incoming fire and… nothing. Our lunch remains inside us. Magic.

Of course, there is a sensible explanation. As we strafe around in the air in our tooled-up robot, the wizardry’s subtle but noticeable: the crisp graphical quality of the cartoony art style; the fluid framerate; centralised focal points. “The two things we spent the most amount of time on were user comfort and gameplay control,” WhiteMoon co-founder and CEO Jay Koottarappallil reveals. “Easily one year solid of just doing those two things.” Aiming at enemy ships using head tracking is soon second nature (our first being mouth-foaming mecha-aggression, natch). Once we suddenly realise we’ve been merrily sinking homing missiles into other mechs without knowing or caring which way is up, we’re sold.

HIGH VAULTAGE

“[During testing] we started to hit this beautiful nirvana where people weren’t thinking about getting from point A to point B anymore, they were only thinking about who to attack next,” says Koottarappallil, full of pride.

We believe him. Our hands-on reveals the slick physics of PS1 3D shooter Descent plus Borderlandses que, smart-alecky aplomb – an intuitive VR title that could threaten RIGS’s FPS reign. Campaigns for each character, a co-op horde mode, up to eight-player Deathmatches and ship customisation? We’re positively giddy. Figuratively speaking.

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The final roster will feature nine pilots – but the devs are raring to add more if Starblood Arena’s community flourishes.

The timed arena challenge mode entertains, but it’s hard to beat Deathmatch’s ’splodey schadenfreude.