Broken Spectre Review

June 19, 2023

When I first found out about Broken Spectre, and that the team at Games by Stitch have been working with the makers of The Blair Witch Project, I was instantly interested in the game. I have now visited Coldblood Mountain, but was the hike worth it?

STORY

In the game you play Casey, who receives a cryptic message from her father who climbed Coldblood Mountain twenty-five years ago and never returned. Casey decides to go and search the now abandoned trails of Coldblood Mountain to try and find her father. The question is can you unravel the mystery of the mountain and find him?

GAMEPLAY

Broken Spectre follows on from Games by Stitch other VR releases and is more about the narrative and storytelling. For me the game is like Firewatch, but in VR, with more of a dark tone and less exploration options.

The gameplay is based around the exploration of Coldblood Mountain, bit this is a bit limited, as you can only take the pre-determined points. The reason for this is you can only move between the set points the team have placed in the environment.

While exploring you will need to find items to help you on your hike and reach new areas to search for your father. These are usually easy to find and not too far of a trek back, meaning you are not backtracking too much. There are some sections where you need to run away from or escape set situations, but this is just handled the same as the usual movement – so I am not sure if you are able to fail these sections.

Finally, with this being made with the makers of The Blair Witch Project, there is some horror element to the story and game, but the game never really gave me that many scares – to what I was both hoping for and expecting.

PRESENTATION

When it comes to the visuals, I was very under-whelmed by what Broken Spectre brought to the table, and was one of the most disappointing aspects of the game. It all looks a little low-poly when it comes to the models and these are mixed with low resolution textures that look a little dull and flat. Although, it does suffer due to this, it does just enough to immerse you in the world and to tell the story of the game.

Where the game is visually under-whelming, the team have done a great job with the audio design, with the spacial audio making me look over my shoulder when rustling was heard behind me. Add to this great ambient sounds for the mountain trail, music that suits the current situations and great voice acting – making up a little for what it is missing visually.

COMFORT/CONTROLS

The game can be played seated or standing, but personally I found no reason to play it standing due to the only movement options. You can only click to move to the highlighted silhouettes within the area and this fade teleports you to that point. When it comes to turning you can either snap-turn or turn physically in your play-space. Having only these options did make the game feel a little dated in the modern VR space, but does make it accessible to anyone.

TRACKED CONTROLLERS

HAND TRACKING

Where hand tracking is supported, I found the game was much easier using the Quest controllers because it was all a bit finicky using the hand tracking. Where with controllers this only seemed to be the case when trying to pick up items.

LONGEVITY

It took me around one-hour to get through the game, and from what Broken Spectre does as a game, I don’t think it is something I would go back into again. It’s doesn’t really appeal to me enough to make me want to experience the story again. Would I use it to show off VR to others given the comfort? Unfortunately I don’t think I would, as it doesn’t sell the medium to it’s full potential for new users.

REVIEWED USING META QUEST 2

For the purposes of transparency, this review was created using a review code provided by the company or their respective PR company. The use of a press code does not affect my judgement of the product.

REVIEW OVERVIEW

Broken Spectre had a lot of potential, with the premise of the story and setting being let down by some design choices. The quality of the visual presentation and dated movement system, just took away from what could have been a fantastic experience. It’s the first Quest 2 game in a good while that I have thought to myself ‘I wish this was on PCVR‘ – the reason being I just feel a fully fleshed out forest and more details would have made it much more scary. It really is such a shame these issue distract from the story and experience of Broken Spectre.