Titanic VR

Review

RMS Titanic was the biggest ocean liner in service of its time. Unfortunately, in the fourth day of her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City, she hit an iceberg at 11:40 pm on the 14th April, 1912, in the North Atlantic Ocean, and sunk within three hours. It’s now over a century since that disaster occurred, and you and your associate have been commissioned by an unknown investor to explore the wreck of this famous ship. Equipped with the latest submersible and a Remotely Operating Vehicle, you goal is to retrieve artefacts and find answers that have lain over three thousand meters underwater for the last one hundred and five years. Welcome to the deep experience of Titanic VR! Titanic VR is an exploration / simulation game where you take on the character of Dr Ethan Lynch. At the time of writing this review, the game is an Early Access version. You can also play it on a standard monitor. However, to get the full experience it’s preferable to play Titanic VR with compatible VR system such as the HCT Vive.

There are three phases of play in Titanic VR. The first one is when you are on board your submersible. During this part, you’ll have a discussion with your partner and you’ll find out your objectives as you move towards the ship. From your second dive, you’ll also hear BBC recordings from survivors which will give you an idea of what it was like at the time of the disaster.  I really like the spectacle when the light clashes with the hull and the incredible structure appears in front of you. I was on my tippy toes on several occasions trying to see as much as I could from the small windows. I wanted to see it all!

The second stage is where you drive the ROV into the ocean liner. Here, you have to find and collect items and bring them to the surface. What you have to be careful of is the signal between the ROV and the submersible. If you go too far, you’ll respawn back to the submersible control view. Press the button “recall ROV’ and you’ll be able to restart that phase again. I found the inventory system during that stage a bit awkward, to be honest with you, and I think it needs to be improved.

The third stage is when you are back on the surface. There, you’ll have to clear your artefacts, find answers about them and report to your investor until your next dive.

I trie this game both with my HTC Vive, and on my standard PC. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed both of them, however, the VR experience was amazing! I was always on the lookout to discover more and more before the signal between the Sub and the ROV fade away! BUGGER!

There are a couple of updates which will be released soon. One is the Stern and the 14 of April, 2012 which I would imagine is the recap of what happened on that day.

Graphically, the game looks great and I really like the fact that the developers have included audio of real survivors during the submersible phase. The controls are ok but could be improved a bit; it’s not as smooth as I was expecting, especially with the inventory system. There are a few bugs here and there but you would expect that in its current version.