I own a couple of VR headsets, but I’d be lying if I said I played many VR games. There are only a few that I’ve ever really enjoyed, and all of them have been single-player games. The only person who plays multiplayer VR in my house is my son, who spends countless hours playing Gorilla Tag. But that’s all changed, as I&rsꦓ🌄quo;ve finally found a multiplayer VR game that has captured my attention.
When we heard that Polyarc Games was debuting a new VR game at Gamescom last week, it was a no-brainer that I’d be the one to check it out because I’m a massive fan of the Moss games. Last week, I sat down with the Polyarc team at the event, speaking with publishing director Lincoln Davis, designer and co-founder Danny Bulla, and designer Barton Slade about their latest game, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Glassbreakers: Champions of Moss.
Although set in the same world as Moss, Glassbreakers is unlike its predecessors. Rather than being a single-player narrative adventure, it offers a 🍨1v1 real-time battler experience. Each player has a squad of three champions that fall into different roles, for example, one is better at tanking, while another is better at healing, and each with unique special abilities. Naturally, you’ll want to round out your team with different characters as a result.
It’s familiar territory for fans of MOBAs and PvP modes. You’re at one end of the board, your opponent is at the other, and you each have one main glass—which is shielded—and two smaller glasses that have to be destroyed to remove the shield. Each match lasts nine minutes, and the objective is to break your opponent’s main glass. If neither player mana𓄧ges to destroy the main glass, the winner is based on whoever has the most glass left. In the event of a draw, you’ll get thrown into sudden death for two minutes, and whoever is the first to destroy any glass piece wins. Simple enough for even me to understand.
I am truly terrible at competitive games, and despite my love for Moss, I was worried I wouldn’t gel with Glassbreakers because I just don’t do well at anything that requires skill. I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it is to get to grips with, and how accessible it is for players of all skill levels. “We've designed this game to be intuitive and approachable upfront,” Bulla explains. “You don't need to dive into these high strategic layers, but the depth is there.”
One thing I especially loved about the game is that it’s not turn-based. Because it’s all real-time and you can see your opponent active🌟 across the board at all times, you can fake out your adversary. I could move my hand up to my shoulder so my opponent thinks I’m recalling my troops, but really, it’s al🎉l just a ruse to keep them on their toes.
There are also special tiles you can claim to get bonuses that increase your health or attacks, while Waystones can be des⛎troyed to cause your opponent to suffer from a debuff for a short time.
Although it’s a ty✤pical multiplayer game at its core, Glassbreakers puts its own very Polyarc twist on things. It features similar UI mechanics to Moss, where you’ll find yourself at a desk, rotating spindles and selecting items as if they were physical objects in a 3D space, rather than navigating through boring pop-up menus. It just makes everything feel utterly charming.
“The ultimate player fantasy that we're going for is bringing your action figures to life,” Bulla tells me. “With Quill, you were protecting her, and you were on a journey, and it was you and her against the world and other worlds, apparently. In Glassbreakers, it's you and your squad. You have three champions, they look at you when you capture stuff, they'll give each other thumbs up, and you can form that bond with your team by customising them [and] creating your team colours.”
Glassbreakers will be free to play but falls under a live service model in that it has a season pass wiꦿth daily quests that refresh, weekly chests tওo earn rewards, and three different currencies, one of which is premium.
“For us, as gamers and developers, it was really important that it's not pay to win, it's not pay for power,” Bulla says. Premium currency is used for the season pass, but when it comes to everything else you can buy, you generally have the option of using more than one currency and most items are cosmetic only.
Glassbreakers is set after the events of Moss: Book 2, and while most of the characters are new, the game🧸 does feature a few familiar faces and races, such as Barnard. There will be seven champions available at launch, and the team is keen to use Glassbreakers to give players a deeper insi𒁃ght into the world of Moss and the creatures that live there.
“We're gonna get an opportunity with these champions to talk about their backstories and tell more about the world outside of Quill's adventure,” Bulla says. “She mostly stayed in the forest and the castle, but we've got champions from the desert region of Moss. You remember Aderyn? There is Mira [in Glassbreakers], and she's also a Starthing, so we'll get to meet a couple more of those. We'll bring in some Sprites. It's gonna be really exciting.”
I couldn’t resist the opportunity to ask the team about Moss: Book 3, and they were quick to con🐷firm that Quill’s story is not over. However, as a small team, they have to balance their work, and Glassbreakers i🎃s how they’re currently exploring more of Moss.
As Glassbreakers is such a change in pace from the rest of the series, I asked if there was any conc♚ern of alienating fans. “We think of them as we’re offering two different experiences within the world of Moss,” Bulla tells me. “The way we look at it is it’s an opportunity to bring more players into the world of Moss. Quill’s adventure is Quill’s adventure, and we have more stories to tell. If players are diehard platformers and they don’t want to play [Glassbreakers], it might not be that for them in gameplay, but we’re going to be telling a lot of lore inside of there, and for those who like that, and customising, and looking around, we’ll have that element for them.”
Glassbreakers: Champions of Moss is available for download now for Meta Quest 2 players via the Meta Quest store, while players who use St💖eam for their Meta Quest 2, Rift, Valve Index, and HTC Vive can wishlist the game ahead of its launch later in the year.