Ever wanted to be part of an action movie but you lack the action skills for it? Blood & Truth, the new game of London Studio which has been developed exclusively for PlayStation VR, might fill in that void. In this new immersive PSVR game, you take on the role of Ryan Marks, a character on a dangerous mission to save his family from a ruthless criminal overlord. Needless to say, Ryan lives a dangerous life.
Just like the movies
Blood & Truth kicks off just like some of the better action movies. You’re being interrogated by an unknown man in an unknown location. The first thing you’ll do is look around for clues that might give you an idea of why you are there. Besides the fact that this room looks a lot like an old office inside a hangar, there’s nothing to discover, besides that file that’s right in front of you. Since Blood & Truth is a VR game, this small scene felt extremely realistic. Everything about the location added up and in seconds you start searching for a way out. I played this with the PlayStation Move controllers, enabling my virtual me to mimic my hand gestures and thus making it very easy to read the file on the desk. Of course, you won’t get much time to read it, since this is clearly an interrogation, we immediately jump back to the actions of your past.
The first flashback goes back to Ryan’s military roots. Set in the desert, he’s set to infiltrate an enemy base to save a crucial hostage. This stage forms the perfect tutorial for this explosive new VR game. Unlike other games, this truly is an interactive action movie. It’s not giving you time to breathe or think, if you want to survive this first level, you’ll need to act fast and aim with precision. Luckily for the gamers, Blood & Truth is extremely intuitive, especially while playing with the Move controller. Aiming, changing weapons, and reloading all feels extremely natural since it mimics how a real trained soldier would do it. You can swap and holster weapons with a flick of your controller to your hip while you can reload your guns by grabbing some ammo of your chest pocket. Thanks to the tight controls, I immediately got fully immersed in the world of Blood & Truth, although it was even the mere start of the spectacle.
London baby
Starting in a sunny desert is a great way to open an action game but things get real when you arrive back in London. This prestige city forms the background for your main adventure, including iconic landscapes and dark clubs. It’s with your arrival in London that things get personal. Without spoiling too much of the story, Ryan is tasked to take back what belongs to his family. This quest will bring him to dangerous locations, including some of the most brutal killers in the city. Although this isn’t something new, the way it’s presented is rather impressive. Blood & Truth truly feels like your own personal action movie, combining spectacular scenes with some great acting and a stellar soundtrack. The moment you start playing the main adventure, you’ll be sucked into the dangerous world of Ryan.
This strong presentation is without a doubt one of the game’s many strengths. Since it’s developed exclusively for the PSVR, the team managed to create one of the most immersive experiences to date. It looks amazing and never did I suffer from any lag. Some of the textures could have been better and not everything is as sharp as it should be but those issues only arise in the more open levels. When you’re shooting in nightclubs or narrow dark alleys, the game truly comes to life, featuring some of the more realistic effects I’ve ever seen in a PSVR game. To make it even better, it also plays extremely satisfying.
Take matters into your own hands
As a PSVR game, Blood & Truth enables you to take matters into your own hands. It’s best played with both Move controllers since the game really relies on your hand gestures. Holstering guns, switching weapons by putting them on your back, reloading, and even climbing ladders, it’s all possible thanks to the Move controllers. Not only does this serve as the perfect immersion into the virtual world, but it also has some beneficial effects on gun action. At its core, Blood & Truth is a shooter set in an impressive VR environment. This also means you’ll have to aim and shoot at hundreds of enemies during your quest. The emphasis of the action is clearly on shooting rather than moving.
You move around by looking at a certain point and pushing the right button. Once moved to this location you can walk from left to right using the buttons while aiming and shooting with the motion controls. It’s here where Blood & Truth truly convinced me. Shooting is absurdly accurate, by aiming down the sights of my virtual gun, I could hit enemies with deadly precision. I even closed one of my eyes while aiming, mimicking how I would fire a gun in the real world. This is an absurd accomplishment for VR games and it’s something I haven’t seen in any other comparable game. If you have difficulty with your aim, you can play in Comfort Mode, which will take away some of the explosive effects and will add a laser to your guns to make the aiming easier. Needless to say, I didn’t go for this mode but went for full immersion and I didn’t regret it. When it comes to accuracy and realism, Blood & Truth is king of the VR scene.
You’re up for a challenge
As if the main adventure wasn’t already filled with enough epic gameplay and challenges, you can also compete in timed levels for the highest score. The inclusion of this challenge mode and later on a New Game + mode enables you to enjoy this title a bit longer than merely during the main campaign. Thanks to this, it’s one of the most lengthy and enjoyable VR experiences on the system and can perhaps even be considered as a good reason to jump into the VR madness. Just like during the main campaign, these extra challenges are visually stunning, featuring realistic effects and amazing slow-motion moments to keep you going. Blood & Truth isn’t an easy game to complete but once you get the hang out of it, you’ll blast through it rather fast, these challenges can form the answer to this minor issue.
Some technical issues
It’s not a public secret that the developers spend a lot of time in trying to create the perfect PSVR action game. At many points, they succeeded. If you see the strong facial expressions, intuitive gameplay, gorgeous scenery, and fluent controls, you’ll think this is the perfect VR game. Sadly, this isn’t entirely true. Like many other VR games, Blood & Truth suffers from typical ‘mistakes’. My hands weren’t always at the right place and the PlayStation Camera sometimes had trouble finding the right position of the Move controllers. You can recalibrate the controls in the menu but it takes you out of the moment a bit too much. A stranger bug I faced was a drop in audio. At certain points, the audio just dropped for a couple of seconds, which, of course, is a shame. Especially with a brilliant soundtrack and stellar voice acting. Perhaps it’s something that gets fixed in the day one patch but it took me out of the immersion while playing.
Conclusion:
Aside from some technical issues that are typical for VR games, Blood & Truth offers the perfect experience. No other VR game currently matches the crazy amount of action and immersion at this moment. It truly plays as an interactive action movie and from the first to the last second, you’ll be sucked into the madness. The accuracy of the guns is unparalleled and this alone offers plenty of reasons to try this game yourselves. PSVR is finally leaving the tech demos behind, Blood & Truth offers everything you can ask for in an action-orientated VR game.
8/10
A code was provided for this review, game teste in PSVR on PlayStation 4 Pro.
