An Ambitious VR Epic That Refuses To Compromise

More than two decades ago, Shadow of the Colossus arrived on the PlayStation 2 and set a standard for sophisticated, immersive storytelling that still feels wholly unique today. Very few games since have been able to replicate the sense of scale and mystery that made Fumito Ueda and Team Ico’s masterpiece so unforgettable. Among Giants comes remarkably close.

It also understands something many modern games studiously ignore: that mystery works best when players are allowed to feel lost. Among Giants is difficult, opaque, occasionally frustrating and sometimes mechanically abrasive. It is also one of the best, most atmospheric, and most immersive VR games I’ve played in years.

Rare Atmosphere

From its opening moments, Among Giants drops you unguided into a strange and wondrous world. You awaken in a forest clearing beside the wreckage of a smoldering ship, its hollow hull split and splayed like a cracked egg. Nearby, an inscrutable alphabet flickers on derelict tech, ancient gateways hint at a lost civilization. Now, you must explore the world, discover its secrets, and survive by any means necessary.

While this premise may not be unique in the truest sense of the word (the previously mentioned Shadow of the Colossus [2005] and Another World [1991] are just two examples of games that blazed a similar trail many years ago), in the context of modern gaming, Among Giants is a rare thing indeed.

That’s because there’s virtually no signposting, no overt exposition, no yellow paint or waypoints on a map. While your robot companion does guide you generally in the direction that will advance you through the game, the overall experience of Among Giants is one of self-directed discovery. The game does not care if you live or die, if you understand its world or not. Like the planet you’ve awoken upon, it is indifferent to you.

It’s also hostile. Your combat abilities are limited, your weaponry only just powerful enough. Hitting your target requires deft marksmanship, continuous multitasking, and a high degree of coordination and practice. What the game asks of you is daunting, and the world is unforgiving and indifferent. You will die a lot, and you’ll only have yourself to blame.

Furthermore, the game doesn’t care if you learn its story or not. The mysteries of the planet are unapologetically inscrutable. As you explore on foot, on horseback, and via grapple hooks, you continually encounter unknowns: totems of a forgotten civilization, the hulking wrecks of massive robots, or ancient portals linking the fractured lands.

Many of these call up an indecipherable language which, at the start, is totally foreign. As you explore and interface with the planet’s technology through your robotic companion, individual letters slowly become decipherable. Eventually, the game’s mysterious and surprisingly dense lore is translated into something readable.

This story is drip-fed to you in minuscule doses. For some players, this will be a tantalizing experience. You’ll be driven to explore every nook and cranny of the vast landscape, brave its hazards to find just one more letter. For others, it will be frustrating and obtuse.

Built for VR

Like so many of the best VR experiences, every action in Among Giants feels intentionally physical. The world is tactile in a way that flat-screen games can’t replicate. You smash pottery searching for supplies, rip the covers from storage bins, and manipulate ancient machinery directly with your hands (using controllers).

Summoning your horse involves pulling a horn from your hip and raising it to your lips. When the faithful steed arrives, you physically pull yourself onto the saddle and take the reins in hand, yanking left and right to steer and leaning forward or pulling back to control speed.

Combat benefits enormously from VR’s physicality as well. Your main weapon is a bow and arrow, and the archery mechanic in Among Giants is among the best I’ve experienced. It feels natural and precise, requiring a steady hand and genuine skill to hit distant targets. The game’s firearms are also satisfying, and their intentional scarcity and limited ammunition make them an emergency resource to be carefully deployed.

Traversal fares slightly less well. Grappling hooks are undeniably fun, particularly when swinging across gaps or scrambling up ancient structures, but they occasionally feel clumsy and their use is tied to a stamina system, a controversial mechanic in the best of games.

Whether running from a giant on foot, or ducking under cover in a shootout with robots, or scrambling up a cliff with your grappling hooks, there’s a constant feeling of mechanical friction. From a design perspective, I understand it, and it points clearly to Among Giants’ most obvious influence, Shadow of the Colossus. But just as this friction rubbed many of that game’s players the wrong way, I suspect the same will happen in Among Giants.

A Hostile Beauty

Technically, Among Giants is not a graphical showcase in the traditional sense. The game eschews photo realism for a more artful direction, using lower poly designs, striking lighting, scale, and color to create a world that feels beautiful, desolate, and deeply lonesome. I love the “Super FX Chip” art style, but it won’t appeal to all tastes.

The dynamic weather and day-night cycle sustain the game’s visual flair and keep things interesting. A familiar valley can feel serene during one play session only to become an ominous chasm during a thunderstorm the next. Rain, darkness, flashes of lightning, or a pastel sunrise radically alter the mood of the world.

Among Giants’ audio design is similarly evocative. In the wilderness, the beautiful soundtrack often feels contemplative, while inside hostile structures, ambient mechanical noise and oppressive musical cues transform the experience into something bordering on horror. When you encounter a giant, the music swells with tension, reinforcing the grandeur of battling creatures so impossibly massive.

Core Gameplay

Among Giants’ gameplay loop is deceptively simple: explore the world, decipher its mysteries, locate a giant, and bring it down.

These colossal battles are the undeniable highlight of the experience. Without spoiling too much, each creature is pocked with glowing crystalline weak points that must be destroyed. Accomplishing this is extraordinarily difficult. The giants are constantly moving, attacking, and repositioning while you struggle to maintain aim, manage stamina, navigate terrain, and avoid incoming attacks all at once.

These fights can be exhilarating, but also deeply frustrating. I died more than fifteen times fighting the first giant alone. Some of this difficulty feels intentional; Among Giants clearly wants players to feel overwhelmed and vulnerable. But other frustrations stem from technical roughness. At times, enemy attacks appeared to clip through environmental cover, and splash damage occasionally killed me despite being fully concealed behind rocks or walls.

And yet, when a giant finally falls, none of that frustration matters in the least. In VR, these creatures are truly enormous. Standing beneath them evokes a genuine sense of intimidation that simply would not translate the same way on a traditional screen. They are frightening in scale and overwhelming in presence. Approaching one feels dreadful. Defeating one feels unbelievable.

Between these encounters, the world is forever dangerous. Brutes hurl massive rocks from afar, ruthless droids patrol ruined facilities, and sand worms burst unexpectedly from beneath the terrain. The environment itself is just as threatening. Biomes crackle with lightning. Bitter cold and blistering heat drain your health or slow your movement. Certain tools or traversal techniques can mitigate these dangers, but you never feel wholly safe and secure.

What ultimately makes Among Giants worth discussing (and playing) is that it prioritizes emotion and experience over accessibility. Modern game design often treats friction as inherently negative. Any mechanic, any control quirk, any unusual whim inserted by the developer, any thing at all that risks confusing or frustrating players even for a moment, gets sanded away until the released game is as slick to hold as a cool river rock. Among Giants seems to reject that smoothing.

While I appreciate this deeply, it’s likely true that many players will not. Some will give up after their tenth death. Some will bounce off in an hour. Some might never escape the opening scene. But there will be others, like me, who fall completely under its spell. As happened to me with Shadow of the Colossus in the early 2000s, Among Giants may very well open someone’s mind to the unique possibility inherent to the medium. For some people, it might change everything.

Among Giants Review – Final Verdict

Among Giants is difficult, uncompromising, and occasionally frustrating. Its combat can feel brutal, and its refusal to guide the player will undoubtedly alienate some. But it’s also one of the most atmospheric, ambitious, and immersive VR games I’ve played in years.

Few modern games trust players as completely as Among Giants does. Fewer still are willing to let mystery remain mysterious. Among Giants demands patience, curiosity, and perseverance, but for players willing to meet it on its terms, it offers something increasingly rare: the feeling that you’ve stepped into a truly new world.

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