Suddenly thrust into a conspiracy that could shake the foundations of perception itself, Cold VR is a first-person shooter with a twist. Time only moves when you don’t. Levels are white featureless arenas to fight against blue opponents who shatter upon defeat.
Ultra-minimalistic shooters are a rare breed, and Cold VR wears its inspirations on its sleeve. Still, I will be fair and unbiased as always and judge Cold VR on its own merits and try not to mention its obvious inspiration.
Played on Meta Quest, Cold VR (as the title suggests) is VR exclusive and the version I played was the Steam version via Airlink. Presented via in-game models as well as a real-life filmed sequence, the plot involves you the player using the program “Cold VR” to infiltrate the “Allware OS”’s AI. Our “man in the chair”, a former Allware employee, believes we are all in a simulation and we must get to source code to free everyone.
Ending the simulation won’t be that easy though as the AI has security programs, that are represented by blue humanoids, and destroying them is the only way to progress through the layers of the code. Luckily your helper has altered your code so you can move faster than everyone else but only while you are in motion. Stay still, and time moves normally.
Right off the bat you’re given a knife and taught close-quarters combat. The enemies can be taken down with one hit, but you are soon upgraded to firearms. Cold VR starts hitting its stride as you realise this is a fast twitch shooter as you must keep moving, dodging attacks and adapting on the fly, making you feel a little like Neo from The Matrix.
However, that feeling is too soon interrupted as some of the more frustrating design choices rear their ugly head. The narrative is non-interactive and sometimes you are literally stuck to the spot watching a video screen. Enemies can spawn without warning behind you, making you wonder “What hit me?”. The AI can track you through walls and can target you in real time no matter if you’re slowing time down. There were many times I was serpentining towards someone and I could see the gun moving with pinpoint accuracy meaning I was just going to get shot regardless. Also, I discovered a few bugs. Enemy weapons fired towards you regardless of their orientation so I could be shot with holstered weapons and many times I swear I saw two bullets fired simultaneously out of single-shot pistols.
Other design choices were puzzling as well. Enemies appeared with multiple weapons but they would disappear upon death so you couldn’t loot them and the AI never needed to reload so they couldn’t run out and switch weapons. You are introduced to holographic weapons and these can’t deflect bullets, which is never explained, so you find that out the hard way. Finally, at certain points, Cold VR decides it wants to be a horror game and throws a smattering of “Back Rooms” inspired levels where you are defenceless and have to escape.
Thankfully though Cold VR does give you the option to bypass these levels which I’m not ashamed to say I did after the first couple of times. I found the genre switch a bit too jarring. In fact, I can say the whole experience was disjointed as Cold VR felt like it was trying to do a bit of everything and could have done with a bit more focus on what really worked: the gunplay.
A prime example was the sniper rifle mission, outside of this mission it’s never used again but it has a bunch of unique mechanics. The gun can be mounted on any flat surface for a steady aim, the scope has to be looked through and is accurate, you have to use the bolt to feed in every shot. I enjoyed this and was excited to see how Cold VR would incorporate this into “must keep moving” gameplay but alas the rifle was never seen again (apart from the main menu shooting range).
Despite all these hurdles though, I was having fun. Yes, I was screaming at certain levels, calling shenanigans at what seemed unfair deaths but when the gameplay hit, it hit just right. The combat felt good. I was ducking and weaving, taking breaks in cover, popping my head out to see where I could run next and feeling like an action movie star.
Cold VR looks fantastic in its stylized world. Weapons have a sheen to them that makes them look encased in ice, and the blue and purple contrast against the white backgrounds make everything pop. The music is fast and gripping perfectly accompanying the action on screen. The acting is well presented even though it is just a guy in a room.
Being a VR title, I did have to look at the comfort as well. Unfortunately, there was no sitting option, although this was probably a design choice due to the nature of Cold VR as full movement is often required. Items had a large grab radius so you didn’t need to bend all the way to the floor to pick stuff up, your hands are always visible and can display ammo count if required. Despite my knees screaming at me after extended sessions, Cold VR was relatively comfortable to play.
My total time before completion was just over two hours and I did go back to try some of the horror levels I skipped. But aside from speedrunning, I can’t see much to entice me back into Cold VR, which is a shame as I would have liked to see more.
Cold VR doesn’t reinvent the wheel, it just expands upon it, and this isn’t a bad thing. Without imitation, we don’t get experimentation, which leads to stagnation. And they do say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
If you can get over some of the frustration and like similar games, there is a decent title in Cold VR. If Allware/Perp games continue to support after release and remove some of the more frustrating issues you can easily add another point to this score.
Developer: ALLWARE LLC
Publishers: Perp Games, Perpetual Europe
Platforms: PlayStation 5, Microsoft Windows
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