Arktika.1 Critic Reviews

So is Arktika.1 that ground breaking VR experience all the promotion material would have you believe? On the one hand no not really, it’s a good looking single-player FPS that’s a VR version of Metro when being really cynical. However, should Oculus Rift owners buy Arktika.1, then that’s a definite yes. There’s a good eight hours of gameplay on the easiest setting, with the hard difficulty just making progress all that more brutal. 4A Games has created a highly refined, polished videogame that’s a joy to play from start to finish.

Arktika.1 falters somewhat with a thin story line that doesn't match up with the grandiosity of the game's impressive visuals. Shooting is a natural and genuinely fun experience and level design is immersive, although enemy types and puzzles can start to feel repetitive at times.

In some ways, ARKTIKA.1 feels like a step backward for 4A Games. Puzzles can be a chore to play through and the story doesn’t come close to matching the studio’s previous efforts. Despite these issues, there’s a ton of fun to be had in teleporting from cover to cover, blasting off bandits and monsters with cool guns. There’s little reason to revisit the campaign after one playthrough, but while it lasts, it’s a blast.

Arktika.1 does not revolutionize the kind of shooter on rails but adapts it in a perfectly successful way to Virtual Reality.

Arktika.1 is caught between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, it’s an extremely polished shooter with a longer-than-average campaign (for VR) and a structure closer to more traditional entries into the genre rather than the many wave-based alternatives available on headsets. On the other, its repetitive missions, unbalanced weapons and upgrade system and limited locomotion eventually took their toll, resulting in initially exciting levels with diminishing returns. The search for VR’s shooter king continues.

While Arktika relies heavily on familiar mechanics, it definitely uses the unique powers of VR to create a shooter with a tense atmosphere and exciting gunplay. The mix of excellent graphics and surprisingly intense battles makes this one of the more enjoyable action games available on Rift.

The highly entertaining gunplay is unfortunately undermined by a weak story, annoying puzzles and unnecessarily restricted gameplay. But fans of the genre will probably enjoy it anyway.

While the visuals of this postapocalyptic action are crisp and immersive, the AI as well as the unimaginative attack patterns make this a rather dull shooting gallery.