Raw Data - Co-op Impressions

{Raw Data} is a first-person sci-fi VR game for the HTC Vive made by Survios, and we recently had the chance to play the game's new co-op mode in London, where we were tackled wave-based combat with a friend (or, in this case, a stranger who was also demoing the game with us). Since this was the first VR game to be an outright bestseller on Steam, it's something of a landmark title as far as virtual reality goes, and so we were certainly excited to give it a try.

The premise is that you play as a member of the resistance movement SyndiK8 who have unearthed the sinister operations of the Eden Corp and, through 12 story levels, you have to infiltrate Eden Tower, resist defences, steal {Raw Data} and take down Eden Corp. However, as with many VR games, this isn't really important and it takes a back seat to give gameplay the focus. All you need to know is that you kill robots.

As we stepped into the loading area before taking an elevator down to the room where the enemies were we noticed that, graphically, the game is very impressive, creating a world that is immersive, a word that is so important when talking about VR. The detail applied to everything from the scenery to the panelling was great, and really made us feel like we were in the sinister Eden Tower, with its sterile white aesthetic making it feel like your typical villainous sci-fi lair.

The menu we used to choose our loadout before we got into the experience, however, was less impressive. For a start, it wasn't clear where we needed to face or what we needed to do, and when we did find the menu, our co-op partner was in the way of it, making selecting the various options even harder. Even when we got to see the options menu it was a bit fiddly, but eventually we selected our class (we chose the dual pistols) and down we went into the unknown. There were only two classes available to us at the preview event, those being the classes with the pistol and the sword, but we hope there's more in the main game.

We were grateful that we weren't bogged down with a lot of objectives and that the focus was mainly on the action that players will no doubt come to {Raw Data} for; that is blasting robots with virtual guns. All we had to do was interact with some panels and then the enemies started coming in to kill us, stepping out of the walls where they were hibernating.

The basis of the game was straightforward in that there were three waves, the first having a few enemies of the same kind, the second having more and introducing new variants, and the third continuing that trend. We only got to play three waves in this demo, and even though this wasn't a huge amount of time there were plenty of enemies to kill, including many robots and drones. More enemies are in the game than we saw, though and there are 10 enemy types altogether, ranging from crawlers to cloaked enemies and armoured types too.

The guns themselves felt satisfying to fire, and that plays on the joy of VR, that being the feeling that you're firing a gun and being badass as you do so. Controls were intuitive, too, and we found ourselves swivelling to face enemies behind us and spraying bullets in all different directions. When enemies are right up in your face the aiming didn't matter and sparks just fly off all the robots as you unload lead into them.

One thing we would have liked to see was a weapon with more accuracy, because when firing across the arena or at the flying drones overhead, shooting posed an issue, and we were unloading clip after clip at the drones to try to hit them. A gun suited for longer range, then, would have provided the precision we needed, and we hope that the third announced hero, Boss, will provide that, as it appears he has an assault rifle. A fourth hero has yet to be announced, but considering the silhouette on the game's website, it appears he has a bow and arrow, which may also be a bit more accurate.

While we didn't play with the sword class ourselves, we watched many other journalists at the same event play it, and it seemed to work as expected, gripping behind your back and unsheathing it before activating it like a lightsaber and going to town on robots. There is even an ability to throw your sword like a boomerang too. What we played of {Raw Data} wasn't hugely varied, although admittedly we didn't see all of the weapons and abilities. However, for this to end up a great wave-based mode we'd want to see more of everything, like shotguns, turrets and telekinesis as we've seen in trailers.

We had a lot of fun playing around with dual pistols and playing co-op through the three waves on offer in the demo, however, the arena was quite small (there are more on offer, but none of them seem significantly bigger than the one we played), and we got the gist of our class in less than ten minutes. It's been out since July in Early Access and, since Survios has not specified when it will be launched properly, we hope that they keep adding to it and build upon the potential that we saw, because with a bit more variety this could end up being a standout VR title by the time that it's finished.