The road to UploadVR’s Best of 2019 awards starts here! Every weekday for the next fortnight, we’ll be revealing one of the ten nominees for our Overall VR Game/Experience of the Year, counting down to the reveal of our full list of categories and nominees later in December. Today we’re looking at Blood & Truth, the follow-up to London Heist that delivered a true PSVR-exclusive blockbuster action romp.
Back when the PSVR first launched it released alongside a game collection that delivered handful of demo experiences that served as a gateway to what was possible with a new medium like VR. The most popular of the bunch, London Heist, was a brief first-person shooter about a robbery gone wrong full of amazing facial capture animations and thrilling shoot outs. That demo package’s developer, Sony’s London Studio, then expanded on the concept into a full game, which became Blood & Truth.
When I reviewed Blood & Truth earlier this year I honestly approached it with a bit of trepidation. It’s not so much that I wasn’t looking forward to the game, but demo events I had attended left me concerned about the movement system, the lack of analog sticks on the PSVR controllers, and how linear it all seemed.
Luckily, once I got my hands on it and actually played the finished game for myself, I was able to appreciate how well everything came together.
I still think Blood & Truth would have been better on more advanced hardware, but it was still one of the best VR games this entire year. The action is relentless and the slower moments were a welcome respite that allowed for a surprising amount of character progression and narrative depth. It’s also gotten a steady stream of updates since launch to continue increasing its value offering even further.
Perhaps more so than any other VR game we’ve played this or any other year, Blood & Truth really emulates what it would feel like to be in an action movie like a James Bond film or The Getaway. Everything from intense car chases, casino shoot-outs, and tense interrogation scenes are here on full display.
Notably, it came out right around the same time as Defector, an Oculus Studios spy-action title from Twisted Pixel, but delivered on its promises far more robustly and is easily the better game. There are lots of different experiences that put a gun in your hand and ask you to shoot scores of virtual people in VR, but few of them make you feel like an action hero as acutely as Blood & Truth.
Blood & Truth is a PSVR exclusive available now. Read our full review for more details!
