Again in 1997, my Home windows 95-era PC was graced with the dignity of enjoying Bullfrog’s traditional technique sport, Dungeon Keeper, a sport that will shortly turn out to be one in every of my favourite technique titles of all time. Whereas the 1999 sequel was greater and badder, EA would later shut Bullfrog Productions, erasing my hopes for a brand new Dungeon Keeper entry sooner or later.
Fortunately, there are different individuals like me, and that is how Underworld Overseer was born. Deisim developer Myron Video games is one in every of them and has crafted an actual gem of a Dungeon Keeper religious successor with Underworld Overseer for the Meta Quest platform — one that will be good in your shiny new Meta Quest 3S when the sport releases this Halloween.
Like Dungeon Keeper, you may be constructing and sustaining a dungeon designed to draw underworld creatures of all kinds. From goblins to trolls, darkish wizards, and imps, your job is to make the perfect dungeon doable for them to dwell in.
After all, people do not care a lot for these kinds of creatures and can commonly invade your dungeons in an effort to stamp out all types of what they deem evil life and it is as much as you to handle issues in a approach that retains your denizens protected and affluent, all with the ability of your Meta Quest headset.
Traditional technique reborn
(Picture credit score: Myron Video games)
The second I fired up the primary early demo again in June, I used to be blown away by the visible high quality of Underworld Overseer. To say that is the sharpest Meta Quest 3 sport I’ve ever performed is not any exaggeration. Items come to life in crisp element that’ll blow your thoughts if you see them up shut, one thing that is significantly potent in VR when you should use your fingers to choose up any unit and examine it.
Not solely that, however Underworld Overseer builds upon Myron’s expertise with Deisim , one other glorious VR technique title that feels a bit bit just like the PC classics Civilization and Black & White, albeit with out the enormous digital pet roaming the lands.
Every of the sport’s 18 ranges follows the identical common gameplay loop. You may begin with a dungeon coronary heart and some imps. From right here, you may mark locations for the imps to dig, carving out areas for rooms and tunnels as you make your approach via every of the hand-crafted areas. Some blocks retailer gold and riches that shall be used to pay your dungeon’s denizens — hey, they need to work for a residing, too — whereas different treasures await discovery deeper in.
(Picture credit score: Myron Video games)
Underworld Overseer’s controls are easy to know with little to no studying curve, particularly when you’ve performed every other VR technique video games. You possibly can seize the world at any time with the grip buttons on the controller and transfer round, in addition to use each fingers to “pinch and zoom” with an inward or outward movement for higher micromanagement. This turns out to be useful, significantly within the bigger maps when you might want to transfer round lots to micromanage models, serving to to usher in specialist fight models to take care of human intruders or transfer imps round for quicker development.
As you may anticipate from a VR technique title, you possibly can seize any unit in your dungeon for any purpose. If anybody unit is making you mad, it is easy to completely get rid of them by choosing them up and flinging them out of existence. More often than not, although, you may be utilizing the seize tactic to maneuver models round your dungeon for handbook administration, regardless that unit AI is sort of sensible. Items can solely transfer so quick on their very own, so being the godly determine you might be, it makes a whole lot of sense to help them with some micromanagement.
(Picture credit score: Myron Video games)
Whenever you’re not choosing up models and transferring them across the map, you may be marking new areas for development, transferring gold round your storehouses, and digging deep to search out treasures galore hidden within the depths of every map.
The sport will take you round 12 hours to completely full, however there’s at all times the chance that issues might take longer relying on how a lot of a completionist you might be. Plus, enjoying the sport on each issue ranges presents distinctive challenges because the arduous mode primarily requires you to micromanage models, as battles are just too tough to permit models to maneuver at their very own tempo.
There’s even a velocity run achievement for gamers keen to “suppose exterior the field,” as Myron places it, which helps put the ability of VR interplay to full use.
(Picture credit score: Myron Video games)
Some technique video games I’ve performed on the Quest do a very good job of translating flat-screen mechanics to the VR medium, however Underworld Overseer appears like a wholly completely different breed of made-for-VR technique. What’s spectacular is that it does this whereas nonetheless evoking the highly effective sense of nostalgia that comes with traditional PC technique video games, all with out feeling too difficult or shoed-in to one way or the other really feel doable in VR.
What’s extra is that the sport is continually thrilling and I hardly ever ever discovered myself standing (or sitting) there simply beginning at my dungeon with out one thing to do. This retains the pacing proper on level, one thing that may be painful to take care of in VR if a sport is just too gradual.
When you’re a fan of technique video games, I would extremely suggest preordering Underworld Overseer on the Meta Horizon Retailer proper now. You may get a pleasant low cost for preordering and be able to dive in when it is scheduled to launch later this month.
Get the perfect of VR with the Meta Quest 3, that includes essentially the most highly effective cell SoC in any VR headset, the clearest lenses, and 1000’s of nice video games to play.
