Its time to start paying attention to Arken Age
Let’s be frank, PSVR 2 players have had it a bit rough this year, oftentimes it has felt like the headset has been abandoned by Sony and the release of games worthy of your time was sparse. But thankfully that is changing in the second half of 2024, well not the Sony part), but lots of good games are coming for the system.
One of those games everyone is hyped for is Arken Age. But why is everyone so excited for this game? Well check out the trailer, which will help you understand the hype.
In Arken Age, you will explore the Bio-Chasm, a terraformed fantasy world created by a divine being called the Grand Arborist. There is a story about how contact has been lost with the Grand Aborist, and a usurper is attempting to take control of the Bio-Chasm with his armies. But the story isn’t the reason people want to play this game.
The campaign promises to be around 10-15 hours long, and 20 hours to platinum. However it will also offer endless replayability with its built in “Hyperion Reinforcements Console”, which translated into English means you can deploy an infinite amount of enemies and fight against them to top the worldwide leaderboards and complete challenges.
PSVR’s Blade and Sorcery?
The reason people want to play this game is because of the combat, simply put it looks incredible. Arken Age’s combat uses a blend of gunplay and melee combat, but all realised with a full physics system (blade and sorcery style).
If you have played Blade and Sorcery, or one of its clones, you will understand just how satisfying this kind of gameplay can be. Weapons have weight and enemies react realistically depending on how you hit them. And it does not look like developer VitruviusVR is shying away from the violence either, with the trailer showing heads, arms and legs coming off left right and centre.
The gunplay looks great too, with a wide variety of weapons available, ranging from pistols, to SMG’s to shotguns. Taking out enemies with guns looks satisfyingly violent. You can make the guns your own too, as you will be able to customize each weapon to look however you like. There is also a large collection of weapon mods hidden throughout the world that you will need to collect so you can improve your armory.
Taking advantage of the PS5, Arken Age will also take advantage of the PSVR 2’s eye tracking letting you use it to target when using grenades or the games Leviathan Axe type axe. The PSVR 2 version will also be taking advantage of the haptic systems found on Sony’s hardware.
You won’t just be fighting the entire time though, the trailer shows off a lot of platforming elements. Climbing will play a large role in this game and you will need to use your climbing picks to scale the enormous vertical playgrounds on display.
This is a game that takes advantage of the PS5’s power
Graphically this game looks like it is taking full advantage of the power the PS5 offers. The environments all look vibrant, colorful and detailed. However I do have some concerns about the variety of the environments as there only seems to be one type shown in the trailer.
There is however a decent variety in the enemies you will fight, with the trailer showing multiple different types of enemies. The enemies are going to come at you from all angles, using swords or guns to take you out, meaning you are going to have to adapt your tactics on the fly in order to survive. The trailer also reminded me a little bit of Dark Souls with its over sized boss fights, these fights seem to have been done incredibly well.
Performance wise it sounds very promising, with the game offering a variety of performance options. You can opt for 90fps native, or 60/120 using reprojection”. If you are OK with reprojection that means the game should run silky smooth. The game will also take advantage of dynamic foveated rendering, so wherever you are looking is rendered in high resolution.
All reports from the people who have played the game only have good things to say
Arken Age seems to offer it all, great combat, good platforming, impressive graphics and a complexity that is forgotten in a lot of VR games.
It doesn’t have an exact release date yet but it is expected for 2024. It will be released on PSVR 2 and PC.
