VR Gaming

50 Days Of PS VR #40: Golem

, & Jamie Feltham

3 September 2016

40 days to go! We’re counting down to the release of PlayStation VR on October 13th by highlighting one game a day for the anticipated headset. Today we’re looking at the hugely promising debut project from Highwire Games, Golem.

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So far in our PlayStation VR countdown we’ve had racing games, multiplayer mayhem and arcade revivals. What we haven’t seen much of, however, is true story-driven content. One game that looks like it might deliver that in spades is Golem, the debut project from Highwire Games. We really don’t know all that much about this intriguing fantasy adventure, which makes it one of the more exciting games coming to the platform.

In Golem you play as a critically injured young girl that discovers some amazing powers. While confined to her room, she finds herself able to posses stone golems. This first allows her to assume the role of a tiny creature and sneak out of her room, but before long she’ll also be put in charge of much larger behemoths.

Much of the game will be about exploring the world around you. Early on you’ll squeeze between floor boards and tiny tunnels will appear as huge caves. Later on you’ll discover ancient ruins and blazing deserts, suggesting that Golem‘s world is unlike anything else we’ve seen in VR yet.

While exploration is a crucial part of gameplay, there’s also an entire combat system to dive into. Golem will pit you against other stone monsters in intense sword battles using Move. You’ll have to act quick to block incoming attacks, correctly positioning your own blade, and then taking the chance to attack when your opponent becomes tired. Think of the sword combat in The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, just in first-person. That’s a tempting thought, though it’ll take hard work to get it absolutely perfect.

Golem is played using the PlayStation Move controller, but seemingly only one of them. That’s an interesting combo we haven’t seen before (unless you count Farpoint‘s singular gun controller that requires both hands). Just how that will work for locomotion and comfort remains to be seen, but there’s a good reason we’re hoping it will work out.

Highwire Games itself involves ex-members of Bungie, the developer of the legendary Halo series, which is largely attributed for popularizing the FPS genre on console. That developer prides itself on working out how the FPS could fit with a gamepad. We’re hoping Highwire brings that innovation to VR with a control scheme called ‘Incline Controls’ that rely on the players tilting and head movements. Highwire says it helps a lot of simulation sickness and we sincerely hope they’re right.

We’re not sure when Golem will launch yet, but hopefully it won’t be too far behind PlayStation VR’s October 13th release.