I’m honestly not sure why more games like oVRshot haven’t made their way to market yet. Multiplayer shooters have been one of the most popular genres in the early stages of VR and most people agree that the sensation of pulling back an arrow and shooting a bow is amazing inside a VR headset. But despite that, we have woefully few competitive multiplayer bow and arrow games.
The likes of Longbow from The Lab, Twisted Arrow, QuiVR, HoloPoint, and a bunch of others — including Skyrim VR — all prove that shooting a bow is awesome, but none of those let you shoot at each other. That’s where oVRshot comes in.
Due to hit Early Access in a matter of just a few weeks, oVRshot from Window Licker Games pits two teams of futuristic sci-fi archers against one another in a variety of game modes. In the video above you can see me playing two matches of a point-control type mode that was basically King of the Hill.
There was only the one map to try for right now and two classes: Offense and Defense. I preferred the Defense class, which could shoot smoke arrows, pop up a shield to block enemy shots, and even fire off a spread arrow that launched several across a wide arc in front of me. Offense had the multi-shot as well, plus a stun arrow and a big bomb that hit a huge area all at once.
Since it’s all team-based, active communication was important, as was keeping enemies occupied with constant shots. If I turned my left wrist around a shield appeared at the end of bow, which was useful for blocking arrows, but it was still tough to not get hit because of how fast the arrows fly.
Movement was a little more abbreviated than I would have liked with a stutter-step style dash/teleport movement system, however it does help enforce a certain degree of pacing. The map we played on had two levels and an announcer would let us know which control point was “active” and available for a team to claim. You only earned points while you controlled one of those beacons.
Shooting felt great. It took a few minutes for me to get used to the velocity and arc of the arrows, but once I did I had a lot of success. I’m taking full credit for why my team won both games during my demo.
I’m looking forward to see how it evolves in Early Access. This is a good foundation, but it needs more game modes, more maps, and more classes to really stand out. Character customization would be a great addition as well.
oVRshot is slated to hit Steam Early Access next month on March 9th. Let us know if you plan on picking it up down in the comments below!
