Asgard's Wrath 2, Meta's biggest bet yet on AAA gaming for standalone VR, is out now for Quest headsets.
However, the game does not include any graphical enhancements for Quest 3 headsets at launch.
Harry Baker
Developed by Sanzaru Games, Asgard's Wrath 2 is a follow-up to the studio's 2019 original for PC VR. The sequel brings an open world fantasy RPG to Quest players with claims of a 60-hour long campaign and up to 134 hours total content for 'completionists'.
The sequel is Sanzaru's first release post-acquisition, which sees the game standing as Meta's first truly high profile, AAA gaming release for Quest. As such, the game is being marketed heavily for Quest 3, which launched in October, and is included free with any purchase of the headset from launch until the end of January. The game also runs on Quest 2 and Quest Pro.
Quest 3 includes significantly more performance headroom over previous headsets, with the Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 chip offering more than double the GPU performance than its predecessor. This has led many developers to include significant visual upgrades for their experiences on Quest 3.
However, despite the big marketing push and the inclusion of Asgard's Wrath 2 free with any Quest 3 purchase, the version of the game playable at launch will be near identical across all three Quest headsets.
The main difference, though not graphical, will be framerate – on Quest 3, the game runs at a fixed resolution with a 90Hz refresh rate. We noted in our review-in-progress that we found performance to be solid overall. On Quest 2 (and therefore also Quest Pro), the game will run at 72Hz with dynamic fixed foveated rendering during GPU-heavy areas. I'm also told that the Quest 3 version can dynamically throttle down to 72Hz and employ dynamic FFR during intense sequences if needed – though so far, I've noticed very little of either in my playthrough.
However, visually there are no enhancements or specific upgrades for Quest 3. More importantly, there are no concrete plans or a confirm timeline for adding upgrades either. Meta has merely said it will "explore the feasibility of potential visual enhancements" for Asgard's Wrath 2 on Quest 3 in the future.
It's a major disappointment that such a flagship game – and one being included free with the headset across the holiday period – includes no graphicals upgrade that take advantage of the current generation headset it launches on.
As we noted in our review-in-progress, though Asgard's Wrath 2 has an epic scale of action and structure unmatched by any other VR game, it is also noticeably designed for Quest 2 headsets. There's evident cutbacks reminiscent of those common in other Quest 2 titles, such as low texture quality, pop-in and simplified object geometry. It doesn't look terrible by any means, but there's clear room for an enhanced visual presentation on Quest 3.
We'll be finalizing our verdict and overall thoughts on Asgard's Wrath 2 over the next few days – keep an eye out on for our final review of the game soon.
