The original Moss released just over four years ago and back then the PSVR’s landscape was a very different place. At that point its community was alive and vibrant. Multiple new releases were popping up each week offering a wide variety of experiences and it felt like an exciting new era of gaming was being born (quite literally) right in front of our eyes.
Nowadays, the hustle and bustle of the PSVR storefront is long gone and decent new releases, hell, even bad to medium releases, are few and far between. Due to the minimal longevity of VR games in general and this drip-feeding of new experiences, it’s a safe bet to say that a lot of people’s PSVR headsets have been gathering dust for a while. I know mine certainly has.
Moss: Book 2 reviewPublisher: PolyarcDeveloper: PolyarcPlatform: Played on PSVRAvailability: Out now on PSVR
Chances are this drought of games is due to the impending release of the PSVR 2. With its new controllers and camera-free tracking promising a much better experience overall, it makes sense to think that developers would be prepping games to launch with that, rather than catering to a headset that’s about to become obsolete. And that’s why Moss: Book 2 feels like it launched with more of a squeak than the bang it deserves. It’s the sequel to one of my favourite VR games of all time – yet news of its arrival barely caused a ripple of excitement, even from within the VR sphere.
After a brief recap from the narrator in the same cavernous library from the first game, the story picks up where the original left off. Quill, our heroic warrior mouse, is itching to continue her fight to free the land of Moss from the clutches of the evil Arcane and you, the Reader, are once again right by her side. This re-introduction to Quill serves not only as an excellent reminder of the attention to detail that was present throughout the original but also as a tantalising sign of what to expect in terms of presentation going forward.
This first area is set in the confines of a crumbling castle courtyard. God rays shine through cracks in the ramparts, illuminating tiny dust motes that gently dance down towards the gigantic corpse of Quill’s adversary from the first game. The grey walls that surround you are littered with small features like jutting bricks and fine carvings, the paving slabs are covered in moss and weeds and they lay higgledy-piggledy on the floor as Quill appears from the shadows. It’s a lovingly constructed diorama that feels both lived in and alive and most importantly, believable. I’ve played so many VR games that just feel bare – where rooms are empty and textures are flat and the immersion is sucked out of the experience like oxygen out of a leaking space station. But here? Here everything just bursts with life and energy and when a virtual world is this meticulously designed, the real world is quickly forgotten and everything outside of your headset just melts away.