FATED: THE SILENT OATH

Look who’s (not) talking

Let me reel off some scenarios and see if any appeal. Dashing through a mountain pass as an ogre lurches out to smash your horse-and-cart. Crawling through a tunnel full of spiders (my inner arachnophobe is still furious with me). Walking at the pace of a sloth for an hour. You’re on board with Choice Three, right?

Fated: The Silent Oath is an inoffensive VR adventure that becomes pretty darn offensive by being infuriatingly slow. Evolution moves faster than mute lead Ulfer. Said Viking has lost his gift of the gab due to mystical reasons, 1 and over the course of 60 minutes this ponderous tale does its best to engage you with heartfelt interactions.

Screw the earnest chatty bits, though. Ulfer’s tribe may be starving, yet you won’t care a jot. Most characters are overly stern archetypes. Ooh, what’s this? A disapproving father-in-law? I never! The trite plot2 centring around faith and the occasional 100-foot monster leaves me cold, but the action interludes are a little better.

Hunting deer with accurate aim – Fated’s head-tracking is on-point. Tiptoeing over a log as massive axes try to shish-kebab Ulfer. Squinting at symbols as you push through a floor puzzle ripped straight out of Uncharted 3… and a heck of a lot of other games where the devs watched Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade. Set-pieces are well choreographed, and the chunky cartoon aesthetic feels wholly believable in VR.

Do these set-pieces justify it? Not quite. Fated is well-meaning but hollow. The VR is convincing – shame you can’t say the same for the paint-by-numbers Norse nonsense.

FOOTNOTES1 Nod or shake your head with PS VR, and you can give yes or no responses to questions. 2 More episodes of Fated are promised. Let’s hope the story improves.