5089: The Action RPG (Steam VR)

System: Valve Index, HTC Vive & Oculus Rift
Price at Time Of Review: £5.59
Comfort Rating: Green (No Movement
Genre: Action, RPG
Input: Tracked Motion Controllers, Keyboard & Mouse
Best Playing Position: Sitting
Multi-Player: Yes
Age Rating: 15+

Description: 5089 expands upon 3089, bringing you back to planet Xax 2000 years later. After the mysterious events in the year 4089, the Overlord hasn’t been heard from for the last millennium, and so the experimental robots have continued to wage war according to their program. Without the Overlord to repair the damage, Xax has fallen into a state of chaos and dereliction. However, a shadowy new power has risen… how will your presence turn its fate?

Shoot, sneak, build, talk, slash, buy, sell, fly, swing, hover, scavenge, teleport & conquer your way through an endlessly generated planet. You can do it all with a friend, too. 5089 includes a rework of 3089 & does not require the original to play.

Review: 5089: The Action RPG is an indy game from Phr00t Software. Following on from 3079, 3089 and the shooter 4089: Ghost Within, so quite a good history behind them then. The good news is you don’t have to have played any of these previous games to understand what is going on with this one. It goes without saying that it is an action RPG that sees you exploring a procedurally generated (a method of creating data algorithmically as opposed to manually) world, so everything is pretty randomised. While graphically it won’t be winning any awards, it does have an odd sense of wonder about it and you will often find yourself simply exploring these basic looking lands, always wondering what is around the corner.

This is a game that pretty much allows you to play it any way you wish. Sure it gives you a basic tutorial at the start, but it certainly doesn’t hold your hand in any way. It is up to you to work out how to do certain things and get to various locations.

After a while, I did find myself enjoying this game once I had got into it a bit, but I couldn’t help but feel Phr00t Software had done better. Sure, it wasn’t mind-blowing but I really enjoyed 4089: Ghost Within more than this and found myself hoping for more here, but it simply wasn’t to be. But it does have a sandbox-style that brings joy around every corner, with every new discovery. Little niggles put aside about the lack of diversity in the game world I found it still lot of fun to explore and very comfortable in VR thanks to the VR friendly teleport system.