‘Star Wars: Beyond Victory’ Review – Podracing Comes to Quest, But Loses Speed in Mixed Reality

Star Wars: Past Victory – A Combined Actuality Playset looks like a fairly clear directive to make a top quality MR sport that showcases Quest 3’s passthrough capabilities. In that respect, it’s a partial success, because the MR/VR hybrid serves up some neat diorama-style racing motion blended with a surprisingly heartfelt narrative, all of the whereas packing in a wholesome dose of the identical excessive manufacturing worth and visible surprise that made Vader Immortal so successful. Nonetheless, it was troublesome to shirk the sensation midway via that I’d a lot fairly be enjoying this in VR.

Star Wars: Past Victory Particulars:

Developer: Industrial Gentle & Magic
Writer: Disney Digital Content material
Out there On: Quest 3 & 3S
Reviewed On: Quest 3
Launch Date: October seventh, 2025
Worth: $20

Gameplay

Star Wars: Past Victory affords up three single-player gameplay modes: a story-driven marketing campaign, an arcade racing mode with 4 obtainable tracks, and an additional little MR mode that permits you to select, resize and articulate sport fashions and place them round your room.

Whereas it does serve up a two-hour marketing campaign, I can see why the “playset” naming was added right here. Past Victory is extra of an MR mini-game grafted to a way more partaking VR narrative, brief as it might be.

It does this by periodically dropping you out and in of MR and VR modes when the sport decides it’s time, like coming into a constructing to repair your podracer (VR), really podracing (MR), fetching an element in your pal (MR), or having a type of essential narrative beats that actually offers ILM an opportunity to flex its animation abilities—that are completely second to none. These narrative chunks occur each in MR and VR, with MR narratives enjoying out like multi-shot 3D cutscenes.

Placing you within the boots of the up-and-coming podracer Volo Bolus, you end up blended up with the artful and cruel podracing legend Sebulba, who has plans that can assist you get again in your ft after a nasty crash. Underneath Sebulba’s tutelage, you start racing once more—however at a worth. No spoilers right here, however let’s simply say it entails crime.

Lengthy after the credit rolled, I used to be nonetheless fascinated by Volo’s struggles to steadiness his love for racing whereas making an attempt to be true to his pals. It’s not in regards to the grander rise up in opposition to the Empire, or a Luke Skywalker analogue who’s ‘The Chosen One’ with all the requisite plot armor. You’re only a podracer who doesn’t wish to get into hassle. However hassle finds you.

Throughout the marketing campaign’s eight chapters, which characteristic among the medium’s greatest animation, you’re handled to a handful of Mario Kart-model races. And the blended actuality 3D sport board undoubtedly faucets into the LEGO portion of my mind, letting you resize it to suit your room. You may get it as small as a chess board, or as large as I received it right here.

Within the sport’s 4 races (or race-adjacent getaway scenes), you’ll decide up well being, boosters, and secondary capacity recharges, which for Volo is a boosted bounce that can assist you get forward of nasty obstacles like jutting rocks and sticky orb-things. Every racer has their very own loadout, which you’ll discover within the Arcade part of the sport. There, you’ll discover different racers and all 4 tracks. In marketing campaign mode although, you’re locked into Volo’s racer, which isn’t upgradable.

Racing is a enjoyable little expertise, nevertheless it’s admittedly one with out a ton of depth—extra of a neat sideshow to the narrative. I don’t wish to name it dinky, as a result of it’s a fairly fast-paced expertise, however I feel the ‘wow issue’ of it being on my front room ground is actually doing the heavy lifting. I’d be ‘wowing’ much more in VR, I can inform you that.

Okay, so this isn’t the VR podracing sport of my goals. And whereas racing micromachines may be mildly cool, the remainder of the sport’s MR implementation is a particular sore spot. Extra on that within the Immersion part under.

Moments in VR are sometimes stuffed with expressive narrative beats and moments to go hands-on with contraptions and objects that actually promote the entire Star Wars universe vibe. However then there’s an MR overworld to navigate (seen above), which was one thing so painfully boring compared. Piloting my little two-inch Volo backwards and forwards across the map is a questionable design alternative—perhaps one born from the need of justifying extra blended actuality the place it may be higher changed with first-person VR.

Fortunately, there’s a good slice of totally immersive zones, which principally sign a return to really enjoyable interactions and extra immersive narrative beats. Briefly, MR racing: alright. Anything MR: no thanks.

In VR, you’ll be handled to fascinating one-off duties to restore your ship, which embrace a bevy of instruments and contraptions, like welders, computerized screw drivers, and ship elements galore—all of that are cleverly given to you by your second set of arms. Want a wrench? Your hand simply presents it to you on the peak of a holster.

Ultimately, I feel ILM did an okay job of integrating MR into Past Victory given the present {hardware}, which isn’t actually saying a lot.

It’s nonetheless early days, and Quest 3 can’t actually perceive your room, which suggests builders don’t have the power to create programs that may dynamically use it to good impact—one such exception being Starship Residence (2024)—making the type of 3D gameboards you see in Past Victory a type of low-hanging fruit. It’s admittedly only a playset, in spite of everything, and I feel setting participant expectations was an unlucky necessity.

Immersion

For all its MR uninteresting spots, Star Wars: Past Victory tries its degree greatest to make up for it with a sequence of expertly realized VR set items and character design, the latter of which shines on the subject of movement seize, animation, voice performing—the lot.

In VR, it’s simply as spectacular as Vader Immortal, which is one in all my favorites to point out off within the Venn diagram of my Star Wars nerd-friends who don’t personal a VR headset.

That mentioned, by counting on MR, the studio basically unlocked the power to incorporate a ton of cutscenes, which do among the heavy narrative lifting—making it really feel like I used to be watching a 3D TV in my front room—okay, perhaps extra of a volumetric TV.

From a sport mechanics perspective, I’m not in opposition to having any of that when it really is sensible throughout the context of the world. As it’s, Past Victory shifts you between MR and VR not as a result of it’s good to pilot a podracer like a drone, or transfer a two-inch droid across the map as a result of your actual physique is partially imprisoned in carbonite, or for another motive that may droop disbelief for the complete two hours.

You’re simply in your front room one second, and unceremoniously in a podracer storage with Sebulba the subsequent. Easy narrative explanations, and perhaps a little bit of magic to decorate my room up in MR to make it really feel extra like a galaxy far distant (and fewer like the place I’m penning this overview), may have bridged that inexplicable hole from being so jarring.

Okay, I do have one gripe in regards to the sport’s VR bit. Oftentimes there are invisible partitions in bigger areas, which drive you to remain inside a set zone, normally for narrative causes. Since Past Victory isn’t basically a big format VR sport although, I discovered it largely forgivable, though nonetheless much less immersive than it may need been.

Consolation

For all my gripes, the MR mode may be very snug, permitting you to reposition and resize the board to suit your enjoying model, whether or not that be on the ground or in your lap. Podracing is frenetic, so your bodily room anchoring you in place needs to be snug for many everybody.

As for the VR, there aren’t any wild rides or moments of pressured locomotion exterior of the non-obligatory head shake, which you’ll flip off within the settings. Locomotion choices embrace your normal set of consolation modes, together with teleport and clean motion, clean and variable snap-turning, and in addition standing and seated modes.