PS5

Published on January 19th, 2025 | by Nay Clark

Arken Age Review (PSVR2)

Cut down machinery as you set out to find answers from a God in this extraordinary quest about discovery and control. Arken Age is a VR action-adventure game developed and published by VitruviusVR and released on Steam and PSVR2 on January 16th of 2025. Arken Age offers a lot of different entertaining features and fully utilizes the expressive components of VR. A fully immersive 10-15 hour long campaign, a multitude of weapon configurations, and an expansive world keeps this trek across foreign terrain engaging and fascinating all the way through. Prepare to swing your climbing axes to reach new heights in this new dynamic technological leap in the VR gaming space!

The world of Arken Age is set in the Bio-Chasm, a world nesting on stolen energy created by the Grand Arborist. After communication with the Grand Arborist completely stops, you are dubbed as the Untethered One and sent to find out what has happened to them so operations of the planet and its life sources can go back to normal. Exploring the tainted land won’t be easy though, as the despot Hyperion and their robotic droids are insistent on taking you down. Forming alliances with the Nara alien race, diminishing the land’s corruption, and restoring nature in general may be a big task for any ordinary hero, but with the wide range of equipment granted to you and your innate prowess, anything is possible. Become untethered and bring this realm to a more reasonable state while exploring, crafting, and fighting off the relentless force of the evil automatons.

The story in Arken Age starts off pretty interesting with the first lore dump of why you are actually participating in these events, but it slowly veers off into something a bit less appealing. The story isn’t bad, per se, but it takes a backseat for most of the game while the actual gameplay takes on a much larger role. There are smaller moments where the game will pause for a bit to explain some of its narrative, but even then, the information given still feels a bit too sparse. You can find data logs out in the world that builds upon the tale, but they are quick anecdotes that feel like a small layer within the overall chain of events. The world in the story seems a lot more interesting and the spool provides just enough thread to string you along to the finish line.

You can do a lot as the Untethered One and the lengthy, yet necessary, tutorial will do a good job explaining everything that you can do. Running and jumping are essential abilities that you will use often and you can also crouch to varying degrees to hide behind cover or crawl through ducts. Pressing one of the face buttons will allow you to dodge which is actually very useful in how the enemies can easily get the upper hand in any combat situation. You can swim underwater to find treasure chests, find hidden paths, or to just chill under the hot sun. Swinging your hands in an upward motion will equip your climbing axes which will let you dig into wooden surfaces to scale to another level.

Moving and using your skills are very important in traversing and surveying the landscape. The controls overall and pulling all of these moves off feels extremely natural and intuitive. In fact, it almost feels odd with how amazing the game feels. Hanging on to a wall with one climbing axe and pulling a bulbous fruit down with your other hand to eat the strange food to replenish your health is instinctively perfect. The precision and accuracy of the controls in general feels very tight and balanced which makes the game feel amazing to play which then keeps you in the game. I never wanted to stop playing Arken Age and a big part of that is because of how impressive it is to just run around in this world. There are also plenty of great options to soothe your time in this alternate reality if need be like adjusting the vignette or changing the pitch and roll of your weapons to suit your own personal preference.

There is a lot to find while scouting this mysterious domain like the triangular green relics that you can break to learn the world’s language and possibly help unlock glorious treasures. There are challenges to tackles and refineries to smelt down found scraps into credits that can then be used at the store. You have a data pad that gives you information about your objective, your relic count, and displays a map while you are at teleporters that help you fast travel around the vast terrain. The game is constantly rewarding you for exploring by giving you something useful that will help you in multiple ways throughout your quest.

There is a melee weapon attached to your left hip, a pistol-like weapon equipped to your right hip, and a secondary weapon attached to the back of your right shoulder. While playing, you will come across mod chips and you can equip these chips to your weapons at modding stations found throughout the game. These mods drastically change the particulars of a weapon as well as the way that you play. You can equip a laser sight onto your main side arm or you can equip it with spinning blades that boomerang back to you. While you may like stabbing things with your sword, you might want to attach the axe mod onto the hilt for more slicing action. Your weapons use a battery like resource as ammunition and besides attributes like firepower, something else that you need to take into account is how much of this battery power your weapon consumes when it is used. There is also an ample amount of options in customizing the color of your tools of destruction as well, adding some extra flair while you chop up the connective cabled innards of your bionic adversaries.

Besides your principal weapons, there are also other things to aid you in battle like shields, grenades, and mines that all provide their own unique form of usefulness. You can pull them out at any time with a push of a button, and while it may take a bit to get used to the quick decision making, the fast gameplay produces awesome action. Pulling out a syringe to stick into your arm to heal yourself is just as fast and really comes in handy in tight pinches. You can manually reload your weapon by pulling out a battery pack behind your left shoulder and attaching it to your weapon, or you can fling your weapon over your right shoulder to do a quick auto reload. 

The dimensional flow of combat and realistic fluidity within your mobility and the act of taking down the enemies is enchanting. You can block and parry attacks, leaving these emotionless golems open for your barrage of strikes. You can trip and knock back enemies as well. At one point early on in the game, I knocked back an enemy and while they were tripping backwards, their sword got stuck in a tree, allowing me to unleash my fury into their hollow body. Stealth plays a role in the game if you want it to and you can do some pretty nasty sneak kills on unsuspecting enemies or you can even do a jumping downward strike to take one out from above. The pragmatic design can also come back to bite you in cool ways like your sword getting stuck in a robot during the heat of battle.

There is a nice assortment of enemies as well to test your mastery of the game and their dynamics in how they react, swarm you, and change up tactics is impressive. Enemies will shoot you from long distances and then switch to a melee weapon when they are next to you. Snipers will pick you off from afar and there are some enemies that will jump toward you and explode. Often, your opponents will find cover or pull up a shield to counter your gunfire or they may throw a grenade to switch up your footing in their favor. With how the game plays out universally in modding your weapons, buying things from the shop, and interacting with the environment, it in turn successfully makes combat more intricate and engrossing with all of the options at your disposal.

Being in this VR space that Arken Age bestows feels incredible. The haptic feedback of blades crossing, the slight rumble of the headset while teleporting, and the eye tracking features while fighting or grabbing objects are noticeably prominent in making your experience in this game as relaxing and as substantial as possible. Something I really appreciated is that you don’t need to hold the buttons down completely to hang on to your weapons. I would often find myself just walking around with objects in my hand and my fingers would get tired of fully pushing down onto the button. After releasing the tension a bit, I found out that my finger just needs to simply graze the surface of the trigger button to actually hold on to the item. This game might not be for newcomers though as it is pretty hardcore in how it plays out, like jumping from high heights, and that’s okay. This is the experience that VR veteran players have been waiting for and everything has accumulated to this.

Arken Age looks breathtaking and gives you two options you can play right off the bat. Performance Mode that runs at 90 frames per second and a resolution of 2,800 x 2,000 pixels and Quality Mode with 60/120 reprojected frames per second and a resolution at 3,300 x 2,400 pixels. Along with HDR and DFR, Arken Age does its best to give you a fantastic experience while playing. Even while playing in Performance Mode, the game’s graphics look astounding with its lush green environments and cold metallic underground hallways. The alloy luster of enemies’ heads is super memorable and the design of the alien race is creative.

The audio design is flawless and contributes an addictive quality that is refreshing for an otherworldly landscape. The woosh of swords swinging, the lower toned bass of energy surging through lasers, and the pulsating tick of an organic tree make the world feel alive. While the different sounds you hear through the game are great, I wasn’t a fan of the music. The game feels really epic and the music doesn’t fit the fast action and implorable exploration. The music usually sounds a bit too soft given the extreme circumstances, even in combat. While it is relaxing, it didn’t really fit my actions in gamboling through the sectors.

I had very few problems while playing Arken Age. I did get stuck in an elevator shaft during the tutorial which I was able to resolve after a quick reset. Items will often load a little bit slower than the environment so some pop in happened regularly and made me miss some resources at times. Objectives were confusing as the game doesn’t specifically tell you what to do. The game sort of pushes you in the right direction, but in an obtuse way. I would occasionally get stuck on myself while exploring or in combat. Sometimes the data pad will awkwardly hold you up or your sword might get stuck on the other side of your shield, but this boils down to typical VR shenanigans and even then, it doesn’t happen that often. I actually applaud VitruviusVR with their splendid techniques in how they handled certain situations like climbing in tight areas or hanging from particular points.

Final Thoughts?

Now is a good time to be a fan of VR. Arken Age has finally proved the point of why gamers should get into VR gaming. Phenomenal graphics, captivating combat, enthralling audio, and a passionately detailed world makes being involved in VR in this way a blast. A dull story and languorous music doesn’t stop Arken Age from being any less entrancing or gratifying due to its engrossing gameplay. Arken Age is the pinnacle VR experience and is easily one of the best VR games to date. Tether to your headset and become untethered in this remarkable VR showpiece!

About the Author

Nay Clark Gaming holds a special place in my heart and I never stop talking about video games. I really love all types of games and have an interest in games that have complicated stories and lore because I enjoy untangling the mystery of it all. When I'm not gaming, I unsuccessfully try to control three amazing and incredibly bright kids.

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