Stormland is an upcoming Oculus exclusive first-person shooter adventure game with open-world elements and full-fledged co-op. At Oculus Connect 6 we had the opportunity to try out a demo of the multiplayer feature ahead of the game’s November 14th release date.
Cas & Chary Present
Cas and Chary VR is a YouTube channel hosted by Netherland-based duo Casandra Vuong and Chary Keijzer who have been documenting their VR journeys since 2016. In partnership with the channel, Road to VR shares a curated selection of their content.
Previously, we’ve checked out the Stormland single-player mode, where we got a sneak peek of the game’s sci-fi world. In the game you are an android powered to do superhuman things. The demo featured a range of locomotion modes, like smooth movement, gliding, flying, and climbing, as well as some of the game’s exploration elements where you can loot many of the things around you. The stuff you collect is required to craft upgrades, weapons, and more. Upgrades to your android arm are done by detaching your arm, putting it on a crafting table, and then watching the machine print a new arm. When done, you can reattach your arm and then use your new or upgraded ability.
In the co-op multiplayer demo, we got to experience a mission with a friend. Both of us had full-body robot avatars; something about seeing your friend’s robot arms wave at you made for some hilarious interactions.
The mission was to find three keys to open a secret underground vault. At the start of the mission we were already equipped with guns and a force shield to block incoming fire.
One new thing we saw in the demo was the map feature. You can see a mini-map when you look at your left wrist. If you press a button, a large map spawns in front of you showing all the points of interest as red glowing spheres. This large map looks like a hologram that you can walk into which felt like an immersive design solution for a map.
For our mission, multiple points were marked but not all of them contained the keys we needed. At all points, there was a scanner that we could unlock which would either have a key inside or allow us to scan for the other keys. To reach each scanner we had to fight enemies first that were patrolling the area. Since ammunition can run out, this was challenging at times, though you can pick up weapons from fallen enemies.
After defeating everyone, we could unlock the scanner that would pop up a screen. This screen allowed us to choose a direction to scan (north, east, south, or west). By scanning, we were able to see if there was a key in that direction. We could only scan once, though, so if we picked the wrong direction, we had to find a new scanner.
We had to battle many robots and poisonous plants to progress. The enemy robots were varied, some were bigger and stronger while some were easier. We were able to use different weapons and even steal weapons from dead robots. At some point, we found upgrade tables that we could use to buy an arm upgrade, new weapons, or health canisters. We could also find grenades scattered around the map that you could use for explosive ambushes.
The multiplayer gameplay was fun and intuitive. It has made us excited for this game. Stormland features a two-player co-op mode for the entire story campaign, and Oculus has confirmed it’s ‘drop-in/drop-out’ which means friends and join or leave your session at any time without interrupting your play. You can of course play the whole campaign solo if you prefer.
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