An Incredible Cinematic VR Action-Adventure

Reach is an exemplary hit that excels in its VR-focused design, and it’s out today on most major platforms. Read on for our full review.

There’s a mid-game incident that’ll stick with me for a while. I’m frantically climbing to safety, physically pulling myself higher and higher as an enormous, terrifying foe attacks from a distance. High-energy blasts keep damaging the structure I’m on, nearly scorching my hands with a narrow miss. There’s a fierce tension, I’m nervous, and I can’t linger without risking being vaporized. It’s one of many moments where Reach delivers incredible embodiment.

Its strong VR-focused design is undeniably the star of the show, though Reach’s compelling cinematic fantasy story keeps me invested as you explore a lost underground civilization. Reluctant hero Rosa proves relatable in her personal struggles, there’s welcome character development on this journey across Ferra, and her back-and-forth with your companion, Atlas, shows chemistry. Plenty of VR games use nameless protagonists to self-insert yourself into that role, but using a specific character benefits this considerably.

I previously said Reach aims to tackle a decade’s worth of VR design challenges, and the full game doesn’t disappoint. nDreams Elevation avoids a lot of flatscreen-adjacent design for enhanced immersion. Stats like your HP, shield strength, inventory of specialized arrows, and health boosts are all helpfully displayed through your gauntlets. No floating health bars affixed to your screen here.

Reach doesn’t hit the other extreme where going too all-in on immersion compromises my enjoyment, either. You’ve still got a 2D options menu, though pausing places you in an explorable environment showcasing your upgrades, found collectibles, and more. HUD elements appear briefly when there’s a mission update or you find an upgrade, but it’s always quick.

There’s great physicality as you explore this beautifully realized world, usually through climbing. When some ledges are unreachable (no pun intended), thrusting your arms down or sideways launches you to make those gaps. Sprinting requires pressing down the left thumbstick, though jumping mixes pressing a face button with swinging your arm upwards. Everything quickly becomes second nature; no convoluted gesture-based inputs to worry about.

Tools like the bow or your health injector are found through a useful on-body inventory system, and some items are storable in your gauntlets. Rosa’s shield remains a favorite, where you summon this by holding the trigger button and moving your hand down. Placing your hand near your mouth and hitting the trigger mimics whistling. Doing that near a sign translates it, providing some minor but appreciated contextual lore about Ferran culture.

Reach’s fast-paced gameplay quickly gets intense. Anyone prone to motion sickness may have a difficult time, though there’s a strong selection of comfort settings to assist. Jumping from pillar to pillar for light platforming as you navigate bottomless pits, grappling across chasms, sprinting for longer jumps, or using a jump pad for longer distances is a real thrill. Using the left thumbstick allows for more precise landings that aren’t too floaty.

This action-focused approach naturally extends into combat, giving you enough space to spread out while fighting and pull off sick moves. Grappling between different beams with one hand while lobbing my shield into my foes, the Living Statues, makes me feel like an action hero. As does launching from a jump pad while sending a barrage of arrows into a nearby enemy.

Enemy variety isn’t huge, but there’s enough to keep fights well varied. You can sneak up on Living Statues and rip out their robotic spines, though I prefer a head-on assault. Beyond your standard rank and file, other Living Statues include a drone-like foe that shields its allies if you’re discovered. This creates some welcome strategy, as I carefully crouch behind cover and pick the right moment to shoot. Shielded enemies aren’t invincible; those fights just get harder.

Combat’s frantic nature means this is better suited to being an action game than a simulator, so you don’t manually nock your bow. Pulling back the string spawns an arrow, while holding the trigger lets you swap in specialized elemental arrows obtained by, uh, squishing bugs. Stun arrows let you steal an enemy gun, or you could also freeze them. For the aspiring demolition experts out there, setting off explosive arrows makes for some entertaining crowd control.

Manually nocking arrows in your bow would feel like an inessential addition; I’d prefer to keep the action running smoothly than fiddle with this during heavy combat segments. When you’re exploring a forgotten society filled with advanced tech beyond our understanding, arrows spawning automatically in a magic bow seems reasonable enough. Guns have some interactivity, like charging the shot, though I rarely bother stealing them.

On PS VR2 via PS5 Pro, Reach maintains steady performance even when Living Statues start swarming me, and I didn’t spot any framerate drops. This review is based off the PS VR2 version, and PC VR performance is largely comparable. However, myself and several others struggled playing it pre-release on SteamVR when using a Quest 3, though testing it with a native PC VR headset was fine. nDreams is working on a fix, and you can find more on this below.

Reach generally shines with its strong presentation, well-designed environments, and fine character designs, boosted further by a fitting soundtrack and great voice acting. On PS VR2, the visuals could use some slightly extra polish; visual pop-in is noticeable in quieter moments, as is my hand sometimes gripping an invisible wall when squeezing through gaps. Small gripes that do little to detract from my enjoyment.

Clearing the campaign takes roughly nine hours, and the pacing is solid. It’s left me wanting more for all the right reasons. You could finish this sooner if you mainline the campaign, while hidden collectibles and Rosa’s optional upgrades – like increased ammo for specialized arrows or improved health – will help extend this. It’s worth exploring as the extra upgrades are helpful on harder difficulties. I haven’t found everything, but I secured more than half of them.

Beyond chasing the extras, there’s not much else to do once you finish the campaign. Reach doesn’t have a New Game+ mode, which isn’t a major loss for me personally, though I would love to see nDreams Elevation add a chapter select option after clearing levels for the first time. I’d love to replay some levels without having to do the entire thing all over again.

Reach – Final Verdict

Reach is an outstanding effort from nDreams Elevation that wows with its cinematic thrills, compelling narrative, high production values, and deeply satisfying combat. This is an unapologetically high-intensity action game, using as few flatscreen-inspired elements as possible to create a highly immersive, refreshingly high-budget game that’s learned from the best VR design practices of the last decade.

nDreams Elevation was founded with the intent of creating AAA VR experiences, and Reach sends a strong message that its mission statement wasn’t all talk. Some extra visual polish would boost this even further on PlayStation VR2, and I hope the Steam Link issues get resolved soon. It’s my favorite VR game so far this year, and I cannot wait to see what the studio does next.

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