Primordian wears its inspirations on its sleeves. Its thick jungles and dinosaur-like monsters hark back to classic shooters like Turok, only seasoned with a hint of Predator in its intimidating tribal enemies and sense of the hunt. We’ve spoken before about the other influences: Jason and the Argonauts, Clash of the Titans, and Apocalypto too. In the realm of traditional games and movies, then, we’ve seen this before. For VR, however, it’s totally unique.
Stonepunk Studios’ debut first-person shooter caught our eye back in October with its lush visuals and promise of a full campaign for the HTC Vive (and, in the future, Oculus Rift). After finally getting to dive into this strange world for ourselves we can see a lot of promise in the final product, though it’s got some way to go before it gets there.
If there’s one thing Stonepunk has nailed so far it’s setting. Primordian is set on a fictional planet that existed billions of years ago. It’s a prisoner to an endless jungle that surrounds you at every turn, the gaps in trees laying out a linear path for you to follow. It’s the unknown elements that are most impressive here; neon grass blades hang down from caves, while giant snakes coil and slither around thick tree trunks. In the distance hulking great monsters roll across the skyline. It’s all very weird, and it makes unearthing the mysteries of Primordian’s world simply fascinating.
Enemy design is similarly detailed. The first foes you’ll encounter bear more than a passing resemblance to the Predator, with dreadlocks that impressively sway with character movement, and nightmarish faces that you’ll uncover by beating through their armor. They’re frightful opponents that will make you jump as they unexpectedly creep up behind you. Best of all, you can cut off their arms and they’ll barely notice, as if dismembering them is no big deal. Cut off their sword arm and they’ll just try and kick you instead. Hardcore.
But their intimidating presence soon wears off when you get into combat. What I saw of Primordian was simply intended to be an early preview, so I’m hoping Stonepunk pours some significant time into battles in the near future. The basic foundation of a good system is here; you have to parry attacks to expose weak points in armor, but the initial sword play lacks impact and needs of the kind of restrictions we see in games like Vanishing Realms.
Your swords, for example, are deadly to the touch. You don’t need to swing them to do any damage; a simple connection with no force behind it will send an enemy’s arm flying off, or reduce their heads to a bloody pulp. The game is very gory, but it can feel like enemy’s limbs are attached by a few threads. Swords also sit at a strange 90 degree angle, as if you were holding a pair of hands that in turn were holding the blades, which feels odd.
The game would do well to bring a little more process to the proceedings. I could easily run up to an enemy and clip into them, my controllers vibrating like crazy as their very presence sent them into a frenzy of different reactive animations. Unless I showed restraint and stayed away from the enemy rather than barreling into them, combat was simply too messy. While you’re focused on fighting one enemy, others strangely sidestep around to the edges of the map, where they’ll continue to try and walk into walls and up steep inclines.
Gunplay fares a lot better, and I love that Primordian’s projectile weapons look as if they’d been grown in the forest itself, but they need work too. A simple handgun tears the enemies to pieces, giving you no reason to engage in sword combat once you acquire it, unless you run out of ammo. They could do with either toning down or offering precious few bullets to ensure that you only use them in times of need.
I also want to see the world become a little more interactive. As pretty as they are lot of the environmental decorations are just there for show; my swords simply phased through vines or low-hanging items growing on trees, but would annoy me as they reacted to tapping against the ground, which they would often do as I lowered my arms.
Problems aside, though, I enjoyed what I played of Primordian. It took me to a world unlike any other I’ve experienced in VR and left me wanting to see what comes next. All that and there’s the promise of multiplayer to come, too.
Still, this is one of those games that will need to grow with its audience and really expand some of its core systems if it is to be a worthwhile experience. What Primordian has right now is primitive. I want to see it evolve.
