At first glance, you could write off Blasters of the Universe by The Secret Location as ‘just another’ VR wave shooter, but that would be missing the point a bit. While it’s in Early Access, features waves of enemies, and asks you to shoot them, there is enough unique flare here to earn its spot in your library of addictive VR games.
For starters, it’s not a survival horror experience featuring zombies — so that automatically differentiates it from about half of the VR games on Steam right now. The bright, neon visuals evoke a very specific retro-futurism that’s always appreciated in VR content and the overall high-production values of the aesthetics really make it stand out. Plus, it’s just a whole lot more intense than most VR shooters you’ve played, especially after Update 3, which launched earlier this month.
“The game was updated extensively because we’re in Early Access and wanted to give players a better vision of what the final game will look and play like,” said Michael Sandercock, Game Designer at The Secret Location. “The latest update represents the visual bar we will hit for the full release as well as the intense gameplay that they can expect.”
For starters, the update adds 531.4% more bullets — a very precise, staggering, and hilarious amount, which single-handedly positions Blasters of the Universe as a bullet hell shooter simply due to the torrential downpour of enemy fire. Graphics are improved across the board as well.
“We’ve worked hard to differentiate the game from other shooters on the market as well, pushing the visual style and heavily optimizing to give us more overhead for the shear amount of bullets we’re firing,” said Sandercock. “We’re doubling down on the bullet hell gameplay and really pushing people to move and dodge during play. But by far, the biggest feature of the update is a new score system. The system rewards skillful play, encouraging players to build their multiplier and make skill shots to set high scores. We’re striving to get that ‘one more try’ arcade experience. All of the updates to the game have been focused on finding what our community finds fun about a first person bullet hell game and trying to give them the best experience possible.”
You can play Blasters of the Universe right now on Steam for HTC Vive with tracked motion controllers and room-scale support for $14.99.
