Your roguelike fatigue will only grow stronger after playing this messy title.
Sometimes a virtual reality (VR) game just shouldn’t be made.
This is especially true in the case of Zix, another entry in the roguelike genre, which released into early access on Sept. 18, by Hidden IO Inc.
You are what’s referred to early on as an ‘acolyte.’ Your purpose – which is not explained very well – seems to be to collect chaos as you progress through procedurally generated worlds. The gimmick that aims to set the game apart – besides the movement mechanics which we’ll get to later – is that you can use different elements to change up the world each run.
Since this isn’t actually that great of a ploy, we’ll just jump right into it.
The game is made up of numerous small missions, after which you return to your HQ before moving on. After completing more missions, you’ll bring back elements which can be mixed to change up your next run in a new way.
It’s a nice idea that, in theory, is meant to set the game apart from the rest. Instead, the gameplay feels stagnant as you work towards what feels like no real goal.
Add to that a movement system which while engaging, is at this time severely flawed; and you’ll see why the game just doesn’t click.
Descriptions boast about never having to use face buttons of your controllers to interact with the world, and certainly this is the case. It may, however, not be the best thing to advertise as the current system isn’t the best.
Want to jump, well you should hold down the grip button and pull down – or the side if you wanna dodge. You can even do this twice to double jump. You can combine this with wall climbing, to traverse around and feel like a superhero – though you can only move between three walls – or grab three times – before you fall.
Weapons are summoned in much the same way – grab over the shoulder with triggers for a sword, just point forward and shoot for guns, or hold your hands one in front of the other and use the triggers to get the bow and arrows. You can also hold your hand palm up or forward to get grenades and shields respectively.
Sure, it’s fun when it works well, but playing early into the game’s lifecycle, there were times when certain actions would fail and that resulted in a game over – thanks terrible dodging.
Also, never try using a bow and then dashing to the side, it ends with the bow spinning wildly in your hands before the game freezes and crashes. This happened every time these sets of actions were done together. Every single time…
Also, like any regular roguelike you’ll get the chance to boost your character both in between runs and during. Grab upgrades that give your weapons and character a bit of a boost – and trust that you’ll need these as you’ll find out later – or use tokens you collect during successful missions to give permanent boosts.
Like any roguelike these help to a degree, but if you’re not learning how to work with the movement set before you there’s really no way you’re going to do well as you work your way through Zix.
Graphically this game is low quality, on par with what you might expect from a title released on the early Quest or original PlayStation VR headsets. In some games when the world is made of low textures and blocky structures, your character at least looks better. Here this is not the case. Add on top of that the fact that each world is ablaze with colours that are so in your face, you might think you’re on a psychedelic hippie trip.
Seriously, it’s as if someone moved the saturation slider all the way up and never realized it was a bad idea.
Combine this with how flat the enemies you’ll face look – not flat in the roadkill sense, but more in the devoid of any real distinction and personality way – and you’ll come to the point where you’ll just need to take the headset off.
Whether you’re facing jumping mushrooms, spitting frogs, or a flying bug thing with a sword, there certainly are an abundance of enemies; all of which act differently. Variety, however, doesn’t make this game fun, nor does it make a run more engaging. Instead, enemies all feel about the same, except of course for their attacks.
It also doesn’t help that your weapons all feel about as powerful as the next; that is to say not at all. Enemies are basically damage sponges with most weapons taking ages to bring down the smallest of flying bat things.
Even the swing of a sword can feel like wasted effort as you’ll need to basically stand over a mushroom and repeatedly whack it into submission.
This only adds onto the lacklustre feeling that the game leaves in your mouth as you keep on playing.
Overall Zix is a game that is trying way too hard, boasting mechanics that just don’t make this an enjoyable experience. Besides the unique way you get your weapons, there’s just not enough here to make this fun. A nice idea but severely flawed, the movement mechanics just aren’t quite there. Hellsweeper, though ugly and broken upon release, at least did a decent job of finding a way to make movement in VR more exciting. It’s almost as if Zix was trying to do everything that game did but ended up failing worse.
Perhaps removing the face buttons wasn’t the best idea.
Add onto all this the overdosing on acid graphical choice, and enemies that look like goofy cartoon characters, and the list just keeps growing for why this isn’t at all fun.
Because the game released – and as of November 2025 is still – in early access, the developers at Hidden IO get to hide their poor game design and buggy mess behind the banner of “work in progress.”
It’s unfortunate that Meta has opened the floodgates with this early access gimmick, which allows for developers to put out a broken mess such as Zix – while charging full price – all under the guise of “listening to the community feedback.”
It would be one thing if gamers were offered a steep discount as they play a clearly buggy game that’s still being developed, except that’s not the case here.
With all the issues this game has, it’s certainly best to avoid – unless you’re really into broken and not that fun roguelikes.
Zix, was reviewed on the Quest 3 after purchasing and then refunding the game from the Quest store at full price.
