A Gritty Rogue In Need Of Polish

Crossings offers up incredibly visceral and engaging combat by keeping things simple while still offering a variety of choices for players. However, it has a lot of rough edges that show the more you play it.

Coincidentally or not, Crossings is one of two Norse mythology-based roguelites that released for Meta Quest in December. However, the similarities between it and Soul Assembly’s Street Gods end with the setting. Neat Corp, whose previous titles include the stealth thriller Budget Cuts series and cozy island farming sim Garden of the Sea, set a dark tone from the instant you load in. With the previously delayed co-op mode and Steam version now available, read on for our full review.

In Crossings, you awaken in the Norse afterlife, starting in a forest blanketed in fog with a choice of weapons to start your run with. Each weapon has a tier, damage stats, and special gesture-based combo attacks that offer a buff such as a damage multiplier or status ailment, if performed correctly. If you pick another weapon, it simply replaces the original. There is no full body avatar here, just hands and wrists, which are replaced with your weapon (primary hand) or item (secondary hand) when in use. The floating hands are nothing new to VR, but seeing them disappear in favor of an item was jarring and a bit immersion breaking.

You continuously come across weapons in treasure chests, so you’re not married to the same weapon until the run ends. Some of the perks you come across are tied to specific weapon types, like increasing the block damage when using a club, incentivizing you to backtrack for a weapon you passed on earlier because there’s an upgrade available.

The same goes for magic. Each run starts with the same three wind magic attacks, triggered by a simple, unarmed, dual-arm gesture: crush, lift, and push. As the run progresses, you come across podiums with three statues offering your choice of replacement spells for one of the gestures, bringing different more powerful elemental attacks. Every perk and spell replacement costs units of either health or mana. You will randomly get offered a choice of an extra unit of health or mana from translucent statues that pop up after defeating enemies, so you’re never forced to skip an upgrade because you can’t ‘afford’ it.

The combat is almost brilliant in its simplicity. It feels, for lack of a better term, chunky. Enemies visibly take damage and react accordingly when hit. Every hit registers thanks to terrific sound design and the standard fighters can quickly close the distance on you with far-ranging leaping attacks or throwing spears. A lone enemy is a threat to hurt you in Crossings which is a nice change of pace from the horde-like feeling in other roguelites.

This is still a roguelite though, so expect to see the same enemies quite often. Getting to the third boss fight only to find out it’s the same (or very similar) model as the first with a couple of new attacks was a bit of a letdown. Also, this is a slower-paced, more measured rogue, closer to something like In Death or Ancient Dungeon VR than the recent Roboquest. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I quite enjoyed it. Just a point of comparison.

You will spend just as much time exploring and looting as in combat. Successful runs can get quite lengthy, so if you are doing well and fully exploring an area, expect to be in headset for over an hour before you go down. A run save feature would be welcome in future updates.

Unfortunately, Crossings still shows signs of an early release. The options lack, well, options like turn speed/angles and vignettes. You can only run in a straight line. Trying to strafe or draw your weapon slows you back down. The magic gestures, specifically the crush spell, can be hit-or-miss at times. I used push more than anything else simply because it registered more consistently than crush or lift. At times, I triggered them accidentally and lost mana.

Then there’s the co-op gameplay. Crossings originally released in Early Access on Quest without the promised co-op mode. That was added later, shortly before the Steam release, and it still feels unfinished. There is no voice chat, which to my understanding was a deliberate move by the developers to force communication via body language and hand motions. A curious choice when Discord exists (and will soon have native Quest integration) and players on Quest can use the Horizon OS voice chat to communicate. I’m curious how many players will opt for the silent communication approach as intended.

Your friend joins with a full body, a curious choice given you yourself just have hands. Mercifully, you do not see your buddy’s arm transform into a club/sword/axe/mace when they pull their weapon, but the weapon floats awkwardly at their wrist instead of appearing to be actually held. Same with the bow and arrow and the lamp that keeps you on the right path forward. This doesn’t affect the gameplay, but it’s tough to unsee.

The aforementioned translucent statues randomly appear for each player while being unseen by the other. When you both arrive at the upgrade statues, if one player selects an upgrade, that statue shuts down, even if the other player wanted the upgrade in the other hand. Passing inventory items, like potions, to each other was quite cumbersome. It’s surprisingly clunky, especially coming from a seasoned developer like Neat Corp. Crossings in general feels better as a singleplayer experience than a co-op one.

From a technical standpoint, Crossings nails the atmosphere. Fog is used quite liberally, even in some interior areas, but that’s to be expected since you’re in the afterlife. This is paired with excellent music and sound design to create a dark, unnerving world. However, the world-building here is light. Ethereal voices make references to whatever quest you’re on and runs play out in a mostly linear fashion, despite the open maps to explore.

In terms of fidelity, there’s not a great deal of difference between the standalone and PC versions. Visually, it does feel like the Quest version was the priority. Both versions were performant with no major bugs or issues to speak of, other than occasional hitching in co-op.

Crossings – The Final Verdict

Crossings manages to mask its flaws with strong, well-designed combat and a moody atmospheric world to explore. The co-op experience comes up short and the game lacks several comfort features, but these are all fixable issues and with an attractive $10 price point, it’s a welcome addition to one of the most crowded genres in VR.

UploadVR uses a 5-Star rating system for our game reviews – you can read a breakdown of each star rating in our review guidelines.