There aren’t a lot of VR games that push the scope of a standard game. For most VR games, they’re shorter experiences that are boosted by the fun interactable side. Yes, there have been VR mods or versions of full length games like Skyrim VR, but there aren’t many games, especially ground up VR ARPGs, that feel like fully expansive titles. In comes Asgard’s Wrath 2, the follow up to the hit VR ARPG. Sanzaru Games promised that the title would be a full length RPG with up to 100+ hours of gameplay, and well, they were not lying.

Asgard’s Wrath 2 starts after the event of the first game, which I will admit I did not end up playing, so I apologize for not having any references to the previous title. Luckily, you can choose to watch a very cool and stylistic recap of the main points of the first game, but I will admit I could have gotten along just fine without it. I say that because you don’t have any interaction with Loki at all for a large portion of the game.

Essentially, you were Loki’s pupil, helping him guide several preordained mortal heroes to fulfill their destinies. Loki betrays and locks you in prison while he goes and sows chaos around the realms, ripping holes in the fabric of reality. You’re then dramatically set free and taken to the realm of The Inbetween, where the Weavers of Fate set you on your quest to defeat Loki, save the realms, and redeem yourself as a Cosmic Guardian.

Asgard’s Wrath 2 is an epic RPG filled to the brim with content. It features seven sagas to play through, all filled with an epic main quest and side content. There are seven realms to explore, and they’re set up with a wide linear structure with branching levels. In each realm you will have plenty to do and come back for, since there is a bit of a metroidvania element to it. As you unlock new moves and companions, certain paths and secrets open up to you. Sanzaru Games really put in the effort to make sure Asgard’s Wrath 2 feels as big and involved as any other traditional ARPG, and it really makes a difference. It never felt like they had to make design or scope cut backs to fit into a VR experience, like so many other titles out there currently.

Being a Cosmic Guardian allows you to connect yourself to a Mortal Hero, which you will use to set upon your quest. There a total of four Mortal Heroes you play as, each on a quest to destroy their realms power hungry god who has joined Loki. The first Mortal Hero you join is Abraxas, who is already on a quest to kill the blood thirsty lioness goddess Sakhmet for killing his father. While you’re observing Abraxas fighting Sakhmet, you see him fail to defeat her. As he lays their defeated and dying, you offer to bind with him to keep him alive, promising that you will help defeat Sakhmet.

This is is how a lot of the setup goes for our other Mortal Heroes as well: Cyrene, Alvilda, and Djehuty. You join these heroes to empower them further with the common goal of stopping Loki’s destructive plans. Each hero has their specific set of weapons, armor, and skills to upgrade as well. Abraxas is more melee focused so he has a sword, an axe, and a shield. As he upgrades his sword, it unlocks the ability to use it like a whip. Imagine the sword whip Ivy uses in Soulcalibur. The whip is used as a platforming tool, used for puzzles, and of course combat. 

Each hero has a similar set loadout, but all with their own unique twist on it. For example, Cyrene has a sword, shield, and whip, but they have different functions as well. Her sword is actually an Eel that wraps around her hand and has a large barbed tongue you use as a sword. You can’t use the tongue as a combat whip, but you do use it for platforming and puzzles. You can also throw the Eel at enemies and it will stay stationary and shoot projectiles, unlike Abraxas’ sword and axe. She also has a squid that fans out to a shield, but it doubles as a magical harp that shoots projectiles when you strum it.

While there is a variety of weapons to use with longer range, Asgard’s Wrath 2 is definitely more up close and melee based, at least for the first couple characters. Dodging and parrying with either your shield or sword is extremely important. You can use either your shield or sword to perfect parry attacks, and send projectiles back at enemies. However, your shield is the best to parry with because it will have skill upgrades that can increase stun time and other effects. Enemies will have varied attacks you’ll either want to parry or just dodge. An enemy’s blue attack means a perfect parry leaves them in a stun state, and your follow up attack will be a critical. Landing these parries is extremely important. However, red attacks mean get the hell away with a dodge.

As you progress through the game you’ll find elemental runes that you can imbue into your weapons and armor. You will need to have at least the first upgrade for a weapon and piece of armor to unlock its slots, but you’ll get those fairly quickly. Elements include Fire, Wind, Water, Earth, Life, and Death. With the playable character the elements will do different things for your armor or your weapon. It’s simple with your armor, your defense to that element is increased. For your weapon, there are a couple different aspects. For example, fire can be fire damage or it can inflict burn. Water will be water damage or can slow down enemies. Wind can apply wind or can use Blowback which can push enemies away.

Of course as an RPG should, these elements all have weaknesses and strengths to other elements. Unless this is your first RPG, I’m sure you can already guess the order of strength and weakness these will go into. While you can’t setup quick swaps of elements, you can go into your inventory and swap relics at any time with no repercussions. So if a particular fight is kicking your butt, observe what elements your enemies are using. This is done by looking at a glowing armband or an area of effect around them for their armor, and for the weapon you will see what color it is glowing. So go into your inventory and set your relics on your armor to protect against their weapon elements and set your sword for their armor weakness.

After defeating enemies they will drop valuable materials. Some materials will be for selling, others for crafting. Crafting plays a big part in Asgard’s Wrath 2 and while it isn’t very complicated, you will find yourself farming some materials. Materials are found all over the levels from enemy drops to chests to foraging plants and mining ore. For the most part, enemy body parts like bones, claws, carapaces etc. will be used alongside varies refinements of ore to upgrade armor and weapons. While other materials like aloe, mushrooms, fire powder, berries etc. will be used to craft health items and various traps.

Not only will you be able to upgrade all of your gear, you will also be able to upgrade the gear and stats of your followers. Yes, you will not be on these quests alone. During the campaign you will come across some divine beasts, that you will help out and tame to become your follower. Once you tame your followers they can change from a more humanoid form to their beast form at will. Followers play a huge part in Asgard’s Wrath 2 from combat to puzzles to exploration.

Their humanoid forms are used for combat, each follower has their own skill tree as well as combat abilities that can enhance the player as well. Their beast forms allows the player to either ride them as a mount or for Pa’akhet (the bird follower) you can whip onto him and glide across areas. The mountable followers usually are needed to get through specific level areas like using Mereret the hippo to get through the swamps or Subira the panther to run across quicksand. Each follower has multiple uses and as the game goes on you’ll need to use them all to get through puzzles and areas.

There are two ways to level up your followers with one being cosmetic and the other their skill tree. They don’t gain experience points like the player does, so you’ll need to use your own upgrade orbs to level up their skills. Skills vary from buffing only the follower to supporting the player as well. Each Follower has special moves that can be activated using the Inspiration feature. As you fight heroically, it inspires your follower to unleash a special move that effects them and the player. Followers also have a friendship meter that you can fill by being nice to the follower. This can be done by giving them thumbs up, high fives, fist bumps, petting their beast form, and giving them their favorite food. Increasing their friendship meter unlocks additional cosmetic skins for the followers to equip.

All of your moves and your followers abilities come together in what I think is one of Asgard’s Wrath 2‘s unique gameplay segments. As you uncover these godly areas that are larger than life, your mortal hero’s will need some help from you in your godly form. These are set pieces setup where you pull away from your mortal hero and assess the puzzle from high above in your godly form. You will need to then manipulate the area, or move items to get your mortal hero through the puzzle. This will require you swapping back and forth between god and mortal and even using your followers all at once. These puzzle areas are a key pillar in the gameplay and I’ve loved every one of them.

With the rise of Augmented Reality (AR) popularity, Asgard’s Wrath 2 throws their hat in the ring offering a pretty cool use of it. Throughout the realms you will encounter Loki Rifts that will have you complete a battle in a couple of ways. Either you will fight in the Inbetween as your Cosmic God self and simply defeat the enemies in that arena. Or you will switch to AR mode and have to fight enemies entering your play area through rifts. This is a fun experience battling enemies jumping through rifts made in the middle of my house. The only draw back to this part is that you can’t move your character in this mode. You’re stationary and have to just let the enemies come to you, or use long range. This creates a bit of an annoyance when you want to use melee.

A VR game can be great, but if its performance, tracking, or stability is bad it can completely ruin an experience. Luckily, I can report that Asgard’s Wrath 2 is very smooth and never once gave me any sort of motion sickness. Offering a 90hz option with a drawback of a bit lower setting of graphics is worth it if you are a bit weak at the knees with VR still. However, even with this option, the game is still a looker so don’t worry. There are plenty of VR comfort options for you to play around with, but in my experience I didn’t need any and played with full locomotion.

The hand tracking is really great and has a quick response to your movement which is extremely important with a melee focused game. The only drawback I had with the hand tracking is with the weapon collision system. Clearly everything has a physical weight and space in the game so that way your weapons interact and impact surfaces accurately. However, that did result in some minor annoyances with my weapons getting stuck on certain things or even my own shield. The problem with that is if the weapon gets stuck and your hand moves away from where the weapon is, you’ll “drop” the weapon. There were times during intense fights when getting in close with an enemy got my sword gets stuck under his shield and as I move away I’d drop my weapon.

Visually, I’m very impressed by the overall presentation and visual level this game achieves off of mobile stand alone hardware. Now, don’t get me wrong, there are definitely some drawbacks because of it like texture draw distance and some LoD pop-ins. However, when you’re in the middle of these levels and playing, you really don’t care because the attention to details in the environments is awesome. The artwork on the stone in the Egyptian tombs or the shrub overgrowth on the rocks in the swamps is engrossing. Everything is extremely detailed, but there will be some instances of some bad texture work up close. I don’t think it lessens the experience at all considering the scope and stability the game provides.

Sound design for the most part is really well done when it comes to the soundtrack and general sound effects. The variety in music for each regions tone is nice, as well as the rousing music for boss fights. Each area feels fresh sonically from the music to ambient sounds, and even the unique weapons you can use. Clearly a steel sword will sound different than a barbed eels tongue when in use. I’d say the big downfall in the sound design department is the voice acting. Some of it is just fine, nothing great, but it works. However, there are some very stiff voice over work and some forced accents here that just don’t work very well.

Overall, Asgard’s Wrath 2 is the epic ARPG that I’ve always wanted in VR. It doesn’t hold back in scope and depth of gameplay in order to fit into the traditional bite sized nature of a VR experience. This is a full fledged ARPG that will absorb you for hours. It was constantly putting a smile on my face as it throws new and fun things at me around every turn. From the frantic fights, to the fun and involved followers, to the godly puzzles and epic bosses, this game has it all. It even has fishing, and what is an RPG without being able to fish?

 

Graphics: 9.0 Extremely impressive art design all around, and great attention to details despite some texture and draw distance downfalls due to standalone hardware.	Gameplay: 9.5 Fantastic VR combat with a good variety of weapons and upgrades. The wide linear level design is great and there is plenty to explore and collect.
Sound: 8.5 The sound track and sound effects are really well done with plenty of variety for the combat, bosses, and new areas. However, the voice acting can leave a lot to be desired.	Fun Factor: 9.5 I underestimated just how packed full of content Asgard’s Wrath 2 would be. The way it continues to throw amazing set pieces and gameplay elements at me kept putting a smile on my face.
Final Verdict: 9.5

Asgard’s Wrath 2 is available now on Meta Quest 2, Meta Quest Pro, and Meta Quest 3.

Reviewed on Meta Quest 3.

A copy of Asgard’s Wrath 2 was provided by the publisher.