When people ask me if Half-Life: Alyx is the only ‘real’ game in VR, first I tell them how annoying that question is, and then I tell them about Asgard’s Wrath. The 2019 Norse adventure is exactly what you’d think of if you imagined a traditional triple-A action-RPG in VR, and though I’ve played all 60+ hours of it, I still find it hard to believe it exists. Among the big budget VR titles like Half-Life: Alyx, Horizon Call of the Mountain, and Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners, Asgard’s Wrath is easily the most ambitious and expansive. Hell, even among non-VR games, there are very few that attempt to do what Asgard’s Wrath does: a 60-hour linear narrative adventure that constantly reinvents itself and never once feels bogged down by filler or repetition.
With Asgard’s Wrath 2 coming to Quest 2, Quest 3, and Quest Pro this December, Sanzaru Games is going even bigger. The sequel brings large-scale maps - big enough to require mounts to explore - as well as a full crafting and gear system, nearly a dozen new followers with their own stories and personalities, live-service systems for challenges and rewards, and an entire roguelike combat mode to serve as an endless endgame. It’s a massive game, and unlike the original, run entirely on the Quest headset, no PC connection required. I spent a couple of hours with Asgard’s Wrath 2 at the Sanzaru Games office last week, and it was everything I hoped it would be and more.
If you played Asgard’s Wrath, the structure of the sequel will be familiar. Continuing directly after the events of the original, you once again play as the Cosmic Guardian, a god with the power to possess mortals and share your power with them. The fates spring you from the prison Loki locked you in at the end of the previous game and set you on a journey to find the trickster god and stop him from making a mess of reality. Like before, you’ll team up with four heroes separate but interconnected stories. This time, however, the journey takes you far beyond the boundaries of Midgard.
I spent my demo time with the first character, an Egyptian adventurer called Abraxas who wields an interesting weapon set. He has three items: a shield for blocking, bashing, and throwing like Captain America, an axe that can be thrown and instantly recalled, à la God of War’s Leviathan Axe, and a sword that transforms into a whip when you wind back and fling your wrist forward, useful for grabbing distant enemies and swinging across gaps Indiana Jones-style. He’s Captain Kratos Jones.
There’s nuance to all of these tools, which are just as useful in a fight as they are for solving puzzles. you may throw the axe, stop it mid air, then flick your wrist to redirect it and hit unsuspecting enemies. You can throw your shield on the ground and hit it with the tip of the whip sword, which will cause it to spin and bounce between enemies, hitting them multiple times. As I tried to get a handle on all these different weapons, head of design Mat Kraemer explained that among Asgard’s Wrath 2’s heroes, Abraxas is the most straightforward.
Like its predecessor, Asgard’s Wrath 2 is an extremely demanding game. Though it’s packed with all the usual comfort and accessibility tools to help players get their VR legs, there’s no denying this is hardcore experience that requires a lot of input, dexterity, and perhaps fortitude.
The sequel puts a strong emphasis on locomotion and fluid movement. Abraxas is able to wall run, climb, quick dodge, and whip himself to distant objects and characters. The followers - humanoid animals who would help you solve puzzles and fight in the original - now have transformations to aid you in traversal. Accessing some areas might require you to send a bird follower high in the air, then use your whip to grapple onto it, then hold its feet and glide across a gap. When you land, you can instantly transform the bird back into a warrior so it can help you bash some skulls.
Combat is far more involved this time too. Not only do your weapons have more utility, but you have more options for how you approach each fight. You’re no longer required to parry multiple attacks until the enemy opens itself up to a counter, in a rinse and repeat loop. Now enemies have weak points you’re able to target, you can incorporate ranged attacks and combos, your followers can create opportunities for attack, and you can mix and match your weapons to find a combat strategy that works best for you. I had a lot of fun throwing the axe and using the whip sword to pull enemies into the axe’s path as it returned to my hand.
It’s impossible to get a full sense of Asgard Wrath’s 2 in just the first few hours. My favorite parts of the first game were the most unexpected parts, like shrinking down to explore behind the tavern bar from the perspective of a worm. My favorite character in the original was Stikken, the dark elf who wielded the splitting staff connected by a chain of lightning, and you don’t even meet him until more than 40 hours into the game. I only got a small taste of the first saga of the sequel, and only a short time to explore its first of two open world areas (a big desert full of caves and offshoots to explore, similar to God of War Ragnarok’s Alfheim Barrens) but just this short demo was enough to convince me that Sanzaru hasn’t lost its ambition to make the biggest VR games possible.
Asgard’s Wrath 2 launches December 15 on Quest 2, Quest 3, and Quest Pro. If you order a Quest 3 between now and the end of January you’ll get Asgard’s Wrath 2 for free, which will definitely help a lot of new players discover this incredible series. You can use the money you save on the game to buy an extra long USB-C cable if you don’t fancy playing a 60-hour game in one hour increments while you wait for your headset to recharge.
