Homeworld: Vast Reaches Has the Homeworld Vibe Down Pat
When Homeworld 3 was first announced, I kept hoping for a VR mode announcement that never came. Wouldn’t it be great to see all of the iconic ships flying around, dogfighting and exploding all around your head? It’s a no-brainer! It turns out that the lack of VR support wasn’t because Homeworld 3’s developers at Blackbird didn’t see the potential; it was because there was another studio, FarBridge, working on a parallel Homeworld game that’s built for VR – specifically the Meta Quest 2 and 3 – from the ground up. It’s called Homeworld: Vast Reaches (see what they did there?) and, as coincidence would have it, after Homeworld 3’s delay to this coming May, both will launch very close together.
When I first put on the headset, the look and feel was immediately very, very Homeworld. It’s not quite up to the fidelity of Homeworld 3, naturally, but it’s a good representation of how these memorable ships were originally designed, and it’s a trip to have the old-school animatic cutscenes fill my entire field of view. The cherry on top, of course, is new music by Paul Ruskay, the composer of Homeworld 1, 2, Deserts of Kharak, and the upcoming Homeworld 3. So it’s certainly got authenticity on its side.
The 11-mission, single-player-only story campaign of Homeworld VR is set between the events of Homeworld and Homeworld 2 (as opposed to the further-future Homeworld 3) as Karen Sjet comes out of retirement to coach a new person learning to pilot the Mothership (you) and mop up the remnants of the Taiidan Empire. A new race shows up and, while initially promising to help the Hiigarans with new advanced tech, quickly turns on you. This sudden but inevitable betrayal comes in the middle of a training exercise where their ships were already conveniently labeled in red.
The controls certainly take a little getting used to (though I’m told they’re still being tuned) but things have been simplified a bit so it’s not hard to get up to speed if you’ve played a Homeworld game before. It’s
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