Fight off hordes from the deep and keep the light burning.
Scavenge, explore and survive until dawn in the latest release from Spectral Games.
The Lightkeepers, released Sept. 10 for the Quest headsets, is a cooperative game where players can team up to protect a lighthouse from waves of monsters from the sea.
Though if you’re feeling lucky, you can take on these missions solo.
The gameplay loop is simple enough: you’ll sail to an island where the lighthouse must be protected. During the day your goal is to explore your surroundings – whether this means sailing to nearby isles, tackling puzzles and sifting through ruins or sticking close to the lighthouse and picking up resources to prepare for the battle ahead – the choice is yours.
At night, however, your true test begins.
Inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft, you’ll face terrors that immerge from the sea. Fish-like monsters are there to extinguish the light, and it’s up to your abilities to repel the attack until dawn breaks.
Enemies vary and will require you to think out your tactics. Survival is not guaranteed, but every run is a lesson and chance to improve.
Of course you’re given weapons here; there are nearly two dozen different melee and firearms you can unlock and use. You can also access items like grenades and mines which you can craft from the things you collect throughout the day.
The day and night cycle can be viewed on your watch. The days will seem very short; in fact, you could wander around just the initial island with the lighthouse and utilize most of your time just searching the small space for resources.
The game world, which is crafted and randomized to make runs feel unique, is full of places to explore and survival on the higher difficulties, requires a good amount of teamwork and planning.
Yes, players can survive alone, but there are innumerable experiences that will be missed if you choose to take things on alone.
As mentioned earlier, you unlock new weapons by completing various tasks. Taking down a certain number of enemies, catching fish and completing other side quests will allow you to expand your arsenal and skillset, helping you to survive.
Mechanically, the game is solid and gives players an excellent immersive experience.
You’ll move, grab and shoot the ways you would expect. Your triggers also activate the items you craft each mission.
Your weapons are both on your back, you get one gun and one melee weapon and each can be grabbed with your dominant hand over either shoulder. If you use your left hand over your left shoulder, this pulls out your backpack.
The bag stores your two weapons, resources and crafted items, as well as your ammo and a lantern which gets rid of corruption. Not sure what this is as it’s not really shown during the tutorial but it doesn’t sound good.
The one thing this game was lacking during the pre-release review phase was more detail when it comes to handling certain tasks.
For instance, learning to craft items is explained well. You’ll take out the requisite items shown on the projector, drop them onto a machine and pull the lever. Out will pop the grenades, bandages, or whatever else you’re able to craft.
Once the item is crafted once, you’ll be able to just highlight the item and pull the trigger to craft it again if you have the resources stowed away in your locker.
However, some of the items – including what they are and how they are used – is not explained.
There’s also a big generator looking thing in one part of the room that just has a warning light over it, no explanation what it is, but it looks important.
Oh, there’s a station where you can craft ammo. It looks like you just need gunpowder, but the instructions weren’t exactly clear on whether you need to craft that or even how you add it to the machine.
Though you can just walk up to the table and ammo will jump into your bag.
These are small issues that don’t necessarily detract from the experience of fighting creepy nightmare cousins of Cthulhu, but maybe that machine does something that makes the game even more exciting.
Graphically the game looks good. The esthetics are meant to make you feel like you’re in an old-timey setting – it is the 20s after all – and it works.
During the day you’ll experience these islands, shrouded in mist and overcast. It imparts a feeling that everything is not alright and that the worst is yet to come. The feeling of being in an overwhelming setting only intensifies when night falls and the creatures come out in droves.
It’s a well-crafted setting that plays well with what you see graphically in the game.
Overall, The Lightkeepers is a fun game that is built around teamwork. Yes, you can certainly play this game alone and have a great time leveling yourself up as you work to overcome what seems to be an unbeatable enemy.
But, this might be one of those games where you should attempt to break out of your lone wolf comfort zone and make some new friends.
Spectral Games has created something that can be enjoyed thanks to its deep progression and replayability, and it’s well worth the time of any virtual reality gamer looking for something new.
