‘Reach’ VR Review – Platforming Perfected, Better Pacing Preferred

Attain is a VR action-platformer from nDreams that goals to let gamers run, bounce, and slide in a manner that the majority VR video games deliberately keep away from. Does the sport’s motion gel effectively with fight and puzzles? Learn our full overview to search out out.

Attain Particulars:

Developer: nDreams
Obtainable On: Quest 3 & 3S, PC VR, PlayStation VR 2
Reviewed On: Quest 3
Launch Date: October sixteenth, 2025
Worth: $40

Gameplay

As an action-platformer, Attain is about two core issues: motion and fight.

On the motion facet, Attain feels nice. The sport combines tried-and-true VR climbing gameplay with a small tweak to leaping that makes an enormous distinction to how the sport feels.

Slightly than simply urgent ‘A’ to make your character leap into the air, you as an alternative must maintain the ‘A’ button and do an arm-raising gesture (as if you happen to’re swinging your arms up for some additional momentum earlier than a leap). It would look like a small tweak, but it surely feels extra pure and immersive. You may even do the movement with alternating arms to make jumps in fast succession, which I discovered enjoyable (though the sport didn’t appear to explicitly construct round it).

Between leaping, climbing on handholds, and utilizing a grapple instrument that you just get a bit later within the sport, I felt like I had a ton of freedom and management over my motion, all whereas feeling fairly snug all through. That’s… till the spinning platforms appeared. Extra on that within the Consolation part under.

Then after all there’s the opposite core a part of the sport: fight.

Whereas the motion feels well-executed, fight design feels considerably scattered. Maybe most sadly, it doesn’t synergize notably effectively with the motion.

Core to the fight problem is the participant’s weapon. It’s a bow which has a number of particular arrow varieties. It’s enjoyable to make use of, however as a two handed-weapon, the participant has no entry to any of their motion skills besides strolling or working on flat floor. A system of slow-motion—activated by drawing the bow whereas the participant is in mid-air—might have been an alluring mechanic to permit gamers to weave bow photographs into their motion.

However limiting the participant’s entry to motion throughout fight isn’t the one motive why a two-handed weapon is an odd alternative in Attain.

Along with enjoyable motion, the sport additionally permits gamers to seize onto partitions to tug themselves out and in of canopy (used to nice impact in two different nDreams video games: Fracked [2021] and Synapse [2023]). However… you may’t actually use the duvet system successfully whereas additionally utilizing a two-handed weapon like a bow.

After which there’s the protect which the participant can throw, Captain America model. It feels enjoyable to summon, throw, and recall… however as soon as once more: a protect takes one hand to make use of, that means you should utilize it at the side of a two-handed bow.

The saving grace to the two-handed problem might have been the weapons that you may often steal off of enemies. However doing so requires utilizing a uncommon useful resource and weapons solely have three (sure, three) photographs earlier than they break. Sure, that restricted ammo no less than permits the stolen weapons to be satisfying one-hit-kill powerhouses, but it surely additionally means you’re rapidly again to the bow in your arms which finally limits the remainder of the sport’s fight.

This seemingly small problem (a two-handed weapon as your major technique of fight) sadly retains the sport’s fight from actually shining by fragmenting the roster of instruments that gamers need to work with. I’m actually curious to see what the sport would really feel like if the participant’s foremost weapon was a one-handed crossbow as an alternative of a two-handed bow.

Between exploring, fixing puzzles, and preventing, there’s so much to love in Attain. However the expertise total felt hampered by weak pacing. The speed at which new ideas, mechanics, weapons, and enemies are revealed felt too sluggish, like the sport was being stretched out for the sake of size.

Attain took me about seven hours to beat, which included discovering many of the hidden upgrades and roughly half of the hidden collectibles. That size sounds fairly good for a $40 sport, however higher pacing would have made for a extra satisfying expertise even when it meant a shorter sport.

Immersion

Fight might not have reached its full potential in Attain, however the sport has undeniably robust VR fundamentals which assist considerably with immersion.

Virtually each a part of the sport (besides tutorial and goal pop-ups) feels natively designed for VR. Your map, as an illustration, might be projected into your hand by elevating your palm and holding the set off. Elevators aren’t activated with a button press however with an enormous floating dice that you just pull into place with a satisfying *clonk*. Weapons have ammo indicators constructed into their design (as an alternative of a quantity floating within the air). You are able to do stealth takedowns by sneaking behind an enemy and ripping out their ‘core’. As a substitute of doorways with hinges, each door within the sport is a sliding door (which is so significantly better for VR usability).

And your complete ‘interface’ is constructed into your gauntlets. Taking a look at your arms reveals your well being, what number of particular arrows you’re holding, and extra.

All the sport feels diegetic at its core—the way in which each VR sport should be.

Nevertheless, outdoors of key objects, there wasn’t a complete lot of interactivity with the world. There was the uncommon movable prop, whereas the overwhelming majority of objects within the sport world are static and non-interactive. And whereas the environmental artwork path was robust, working by so many fully static rooms and corridors made the world really feel considerably empty and uninteresting.

The one respite from the numerous static rooms was the occasional improve station you could find by in search of out much less apparent pathways and more difficult puzzles. These have been enjoyable to hunt, however the upgrades didn’t really feel notably significant.

Consolation

Attain was fully snug to me all the way in which as much as the final quarter of the sport, proper as much as the purpose that they launched platforming puzzles rotating pillars.

Clean rotation is maybe the commonest set off of movement illness in most individuals. Utilizing clean rotating pillars because the core of the sport’s most difficult platforming puzzles is… effectively, it’s simply not a wise alternative. When a puzzle is constructed round a mechanic that causes movement illness, falling again to the bottom and understanding that you must climb up throughout again looks like precise torture.

I didn’t must play with vignette for any of Attain till I acquired to the rotating pillar puzzles. After trying the primary rotating puzzle I used to be instantly uncomfortable sufficient that I wanted to take the headset off and are available again just a few hours later. Once I returned to the sport I turned on the vignette setting which saved me from quitting the sport outright, however nonetheless didn’t totally forestall some discomfort.

I anticipate that sufficient individuals who play the sport will get movement sick from the rotating puzzles that nDreams should have an accessibility possibility which merely removes them from the sport, or affords a method to skip them.

One different notable consolation problem with the sport was additionally a problem of clean rotation: the sport makes an attempt to auto-rotate the participant to face some specific path once they’re climbing sideways or round corners. Once more, compelled clean rotation is solely not snug for many individuals. After taking part in the sport for periods of an hour or so, I had a lingering sense of slight rotations in actual life that I’ve by no means felt after taking part in every other VR sport. I might have fortunately switched this auto-rotation possibility off, if the sport had bothered to supply a toggle.