The most immersive VR game of the year?

Image: Skydance Interactive

After two successful The Walking Dead VR games, Skydance is back with the dark action-adventure Behemoth. Find out if it lives up to the hype on PSVR 2 in our review.

An eerily beautiful fantasy world, a cruel curse, and towering monsters that oppress an entire country — these are the ingredients of Skydance’s Behemoth, by far the most interesting VR game this December.

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Skydance’s Behemoth: Review in a nutshell

• Tested on: PSVR 2, connected to a PS5 Pro
• Available on: Playstation VR 2, PC-VR via Steam, Meta Quest

In Skydance’s Behemoth, you play as Wren, fighting your way through a medieval fantasy world to defeat giant creatures known as Behemoths. In terms of game mechanics, the title combines bloody, physics-based combat with a dynamic movement system, exciting exploration, and beautiful puzzles. The presentation is one of the best the VR market has to offer. However, there is still room for improvement in some areas, as our review shows.

Stunning fantasy world with Skyrim flair

With The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners (2020) and The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners — Chapter 2: Retribution (2022), the Californian developer has twice proven that Skydance Interactive knows a thing or two about VR games. Now the studio has released its latest effort: Behemoth. The result is a visually stunning first-person action adventure.

Boss number two is an oversized bat whose screeching literally knocks everyone off their feet. | Image: Skydance Interactive

The first few minutes of the game literally suck me into the Forsaken Lands, a dark yet beautiful medieval world that brings back memories of Skyrim. Unlike Bethesda’s role-playing epic, however, I’m not making my way through a vast open world, but through a comparatively linear but no less appealing fantasy scenario.

David versus Goliath

I take on the role of the protagonist, Wren, who can be either male or female. Once my voice, arm design, and skin tone have been determined, an old man speaking off-screen tells me that my homeland has been struck by a terrible curse that has claimed countless victims. Soon after, I see some of them by the wayside — some buried in graves, others in the form of badly mangled corpses.

Wren is also afflicted with the so-called “Black Rott”, as a nasty wound on my right forearm reveals. After mastering the first tutorials and battles, which are well integrated into the gameplay, I meet a burly knight in silver armor. In conversation, I learn that my alter ego has set out to break the curse that has turned almost everyone here into soulless marauders and threatens to consume Wren sooner or later.

But that’s easier said than done because the curse can only be lifted if I slay four so-called Behemoths. These are monstrous creatures that have been terrorizing the Forsaken Lands for a long time, and their sheer size makes most bosses from other VR games look old.

Climb, puzzle, fight

The boss fights are definitely the highlight of Behemoth. But getting there is also a lot of fun, with a design reminiscent of Horizon Call of the Mountain. Climbing steep ledges or dangling ropes, swinging over gaping chasms with grappling hooks, searching for hidden collectibles, solving easy-to-digest environmental puzzles — variety is guaranteed.

Using the grappling hook device on your left arm, you can pull yourself up to appropriately marked points in the environment in no time at all. | Image: Skydance Interactive

The whole thing is spiced up with regular combat challenges. These make my pulse race with their high intensity and require quick reactions. For example, if a looter with a helmet and shield is charging at me, I don’t stand much of a chance with a dagger.

On the other hand, if I pull out my two-handed battleaxe, a few well-aimed blows will shatter both shield and helmet. Then it is usually easy to inflict devastating damage with stabs, slashes, or arrows to the head.

Blocking well is half the battle

Parries also play an important role. Ideally, I draw my sword and position it at the right moment to block the opponent’s strikes. The attacker is then temporarily stunned and at the mercy of my follow-up attacks.

Wren doesn’t block as effectively with the axe in Behemoth as she does with the sword, but the axe makes short work of armor. | Image: Skydance Interactive

Another factor I have to keep an eye on while fighting and exploring the game world is my stamina. When it drops to zero, I need to take a breather before I can continue to attack, parry, dash, and perform other energy-sapping actions.

The stamina mechanics are actually well suited to this type of game, but they still don’t seem perfectly balanced. In particular, throwing a flaming torch was configured in the PSVR 2 version we tested so that the run energy bar declined by almost 70 percent after each throw. Conversely, sprinting through the level does not consume any stamina, which feels a bit illogical.

Suddenly blessed with Superpowers

After about 45 minutes of playing, I also gain supernatural powers that greatly expand my range of actions. I can now switch to a kind of rage mode by holding down the trigger.

The screen then darkens slightly, and I can cut up smaller enemies with a single sword stroke. Almost as if they were a piece of fruit from Fruit Ninja! There’s a lot of blood splattering, so the squeamish should try Behemoth first.

Later in the game, you can also use the grappling hook to pull enemies towards you. | Image: Skydance Interactive

If I swing my charged fist at a looter, he’ll go several feet through the air — and usually never get back up. If you want to play it safe, you can calculate the trajectory so that the target ends up in an abyss or a spike trap. Another advantage: Stone walls crumble like a house of cards with Super Power attacks.

In many places, I can also incorporate the grappling hook into my strategy, using it to throw environmental objects such as tree trunks or rocks at my opponents. If I have the right grappling hook upgrade, I can also pull healing items, weapons, and keys that are lying around. Especially cool: Even flying arrows can be fished out of the air with your hand. By the way, if you pull off one of these lucky grabs, you will be rewarded with a trophy!

Fickle AI

While experimenting with the combat system is a lot of fun, the enemy AI is a double-edged sword. Enemies attack quite aggressively and look for specific ways through the level to get closer to me. However, if I am standing on a platform that can only be reached by climbing or using a grappling hook, melee enemies will generally stay in the area below instead of taking cover where they would be safe from my arrows.

Whether it’s a campfire or a snowstorm, the effects on PSVR2 are great. | Image: Skydance Interactive

Or let’s take enemy ranged fighters. When they realize I’m getting dangerously close to them, they don’t change position or try to flee. No, they stay put and continue to cover me with arrows.

Such quirks aside, the combat still feels very satisfying. This is also due to the many new weapons that are added throughout the campaign. Just before the first Behemoth, for example, I unlock the Krag Hunter sword, which returns to my hand at the push of a button, no matter where it is.

Later, the special bow Dodstreng and the axe Lognbryter are added. While the former automatically regenerates arrows, the latter is particularly good at breaking through armor. If I have special Behemoth alloys, I can also improve these weapons in the forge.

The associated crafting mini-game is nicely done, but not particularly complex. However, we are not allowed to brew healing potions here. That’s a shame because it would have made the activities in Wren’s Lair a bit more interesting. Speaking of the lair, this is also where the game displays all the collectibles you have found — including the bones of previously slain behemoths.

Bombastically staged boss battles

Which brings us to the highlight of this eight to ten hour VR adventure: the boss battles. We don’t want to give too much away, but this is where Behemoth really shines. It starts with the immense size differences between Wren and the individual monsters, which really come into their own in VR. Iron Bellows, for example, Behemoth number one, is estimated to be about the size of a ten-story building. And not even the largest monster in the game!

You have to work your way up to this elk-like boss piece by piece. | Image: Skydance Interactive

Similar to Shadow of the Colossus, each boss can only be defeated with a very specific strategy. The voice of a creature that appears at Wren’s side early on in the adventure, and also provides many other valuable hints, tells me roughly what this strategy looks like. The battles themselves, however, remain quite challenging.

In the duel with Iron Bellows, for example, I have to be careful not to get crushed by his feet or his iron ball. If I do get caught, I usually don’t have to do too much replay, especially since Behemoth also creates checkpoints between the various stages of the boss battle. Good climbing skills are at least as important as dodging. I often have to climb on the bodies of the creatures. Often even while they are moving through the level or flying through the air.

It is moments like these that give the game something epic. Not least because Skydance delivers a really slick presentation with a pretty convincing frame rate performance. The character models are bursting with detail — at least in the PSVR2 version we tested —, the visuals are fantastic and there’s nothing to complain about in terms of effects.

However, we found the plant models, which often consist of flat textures, annoying. In addition, daggers and other weapons can only be thrown imprecisely. It would also be nice to have an on-screen indicator that would show me at a glance which two weapons I currently have shouldered. But this is complaining on a high level.

Our verdict on Behemoth

Few VR games in recent time have captivated me as much as Behemoth. Skydance succeeds in creating a compelling mix of charming exploration, nicely interwoven puzzles, and sweat-inducing combat that rewards thoughtful progression. The Behemoth duels are all show-stopping and stay with me long after I turn off the console.

On top of that, the performance on PSVR 2 is consistently strong, the voice acting is great, and there are plenty of convenience features that allow me to customize the experience to my liking. It’s just a shame that only four bosses made it into the game, and that the story, while exciting in itself, is comparatively predictable. There is also room for improvement in the AI of the smaller enemies, which sometimes doesn’t care enough about its own survival.

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