Firmament Review

May 18, 2023

Cyan Worlds have entered the Virtual Reality gaming space with their latest release Firmament on PCVR. After seeing how well and old favourite Myst worked in Virtual Reality, I was excited to see what the team could do with a new game with the medium. I have now tested my brains with their latest puzzles, is it worth playing?

STORY

At the beginning of Firmament you are greeted by a mysterious apparition, who not only introduces to your Adjunct, but has a story of her own she wants to tell you. In no time at all you are informed of three realms you will need to explore. The question are what secrets do each realm hold? What purpose do they have? And finally can this mysterious apparition really be trusted?

GAMEPLAY

The gameplay is going to take you back to the days of Myst, with the puzzles really taking some thinking to work out, and the lack of hand-holding. All the puzzles resolve around the Adjunct, which basically is a device used for interfacing with nodes you will come across in the three-realms.

Despite the puzzles being built around interfacing with nodes, they are not all easy to figure out, and some of them really had me scratching my head at times. You will get some upgrades for the Adjunct as you progress in the game, and these add some new elements into the interfacing – allowing for more cleverly designed solutions. Which introduces things like more than one node needing to be connected at the same time – but as with any other Cyan Worlds game it is difficult to go into much detail without ruining the puzzle design, so this is all I will divulge.

Outside of the puzzles there is really not much else to the gameplay, I never found any sort of collectables and you can not die in the game, as there is no enemies or hazards. But, do not let this put you off exploring the world of Firmament because some the sighs you will see are truly beautiful.

PRESENTATION

One thing you will notice straight away in Firmament is how nice the game looks, especially when you step out in the outside world for the first time. It really did look great inside of the headset, with my only issue coming from some of the metal grid textures looking odd when moving – but this is normally the case. Other than this everything looked super detailed and sharp and each realm being different in looks kept it all looking fresh. All allowing for the Steampunk aesthetic taken by Cyan to come to life.

Audio-wise the mysterious apparition voice acting was good, which was needed as she does speak to you quite often throughout the game. Each realm you visit is brought together with great use of environmental sounds to keep you immersed in the worlds they have created.

COMFORT/CONTROLS

The game comes with most of the comfort options required and can be played seated of standing – due to the teams use of vertical height quantisation. The review build did not have teleport as a movement option, but this is due to be available on release of the game, it does include free locomotion and smooth and snap turning. Outside of the standard settings it does allow for quick travel upstairs and ladders as well.

When it comes to the controls, you will get your standard locomotion from the analogues. However at first the Adjunct can be a big tricky to get used to using, but after completing the first few puzzles you will start to get used it and not face too many issues moving forward. This is due to the need of holding your trigger when its connected and selecting actions with the analogue, it’s quite easy at first to forget and just turn yourself.

LONGEVITY

The game took me around nine-hours to complete, and as aforementioned the does not really hold you hand on the puzzles – so I was stumped for a little while at times. However, I did really enjoy my nine-hours in the game and was a fan of more difficult puzzles, as these days this is something that has seemed to disappear – especially in VR.

REVIEWED USING DPVR E4

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

Firmament has brought another fantastic puzzle game to VR, and what is great about it is, it feels like an old school Cyan Worlds game. Bringing with it puzzles that will leave you scratching your head, and the lack of hand-holding really cementing that feeling. The whole overall design of the game will take you back to playing games like Myst, and this a good thing. If you are looking for a new puzzle game in Virtual Reality this is certainly worth taking into consideration.