In the weeks following the launch of Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond, Respawn has pushed three updates to the game to address some common gripes.

Update (January 5th, 2021): Added info on the latest patches (now three total) to Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond.

Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond hasn’t fared too well out of the gate, judging by critic and user reviews, but developer Respawn Entertainment has quickly moved to release three patches throughout December to address some common gripes.

Update v1.19 – December 14th

Among the biggest changes in v.1.19 is the addition of smooth-turning to the game, which can now be enabled in the VR Comfort section of the menu. Initially the game only supported snap-turning which is typically the default to ensure comfort, but some players prefer to turn smoothly. The new smooth-turn option also has adjustable rotation speed.

The pace-breaking “Victory!” screens, which would frequently interrupt action sequences, has been removed entirely, except at the very end of each mission.

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The ‘Gallery’ section of the game (featuring the impressively produced WWII mini-documentaries) is now fully unlocked by default rather than being unlocked based on campaign completion.

This patch includes a handful of other tweaks, check out the full v1.19 release notes here:

Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond v1.19 patch notes

New “Smooth Turning” Option
  • By popular demand, you can now choose Smooth Turning as an alternative to the default Flick Turning.
  • Try it out by going to the Options menu, clicking on the “VR Comfort” section, and setting “Turn Style” to “SMOOTH”.
  • You can further adjust the “Smooth Turn Speed” value here (default 50%) to find what works best for you. This only has an effect when smooth turning is enabled.
Streamlined Mission Progression
  • We removed all the “Victory!” screens from level progression.
  • You now only get a completion screen when you beat one of the six missions.
Quartermaster Area Changes
  • It is now much easier to pick up weapons from the tables and weapon racks.
  • Health Packs now respawn after a short duration.
All Videos in the Gallery are Unlocked from the Start
  • All of the Gallery content — every location, interview, and 360-degree panorama — is now unlocked from the very beginning.
  • Originally they would unlock as you played through the campaign, but now you can watch them in any order.​
Louder M1 Garand “Ping” Sound
  • Louder. We made it louder. You asked for it, we’re more than happy to oblige.
​Other Changes:
  • No longer need to choose “Equip” when selecting a multiplayer avatar.
  • In Multiplayer menus, fixed an issue with the party invite Accept and Decline buttons being difficult to press.
  • When launching the game for the first time, the initial Options menu now displays correct localized text.
  • Fixed a respawn issue with the landmines in the the Mission 2 Live Fire Gauntlet.
  • Fixed an issue with truck collision in the Avalanche level.
  • Various under the hood fixes and optimizations

Update v1.21 – December 17th

Update v1.21 to Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond adds some much needed video options to the game, allowing players to adjust Texture Streaming memory allocation, Texture Filtering levels, Anti-aliasing modes, and Anti-aliasing quality.

While smooth-turning was added in the prior patch, v1.21 now adds a controller-oriented movement option which directs the game to use the controller direction as the ‘forward’ direction for movement, rather than the player’s head direction.

To improve immersion, v.1.21 further reduces the clunky pacing between missions by removing the need to pull the trigger to start each mission. This comes in addition to the removal of the bothersome ‘Victory!’ screens which were removed in the prior patch.

By default, the game now disables the ‘Star Ranks’ setting which would draw star icons over higher level enemies to indicate their difficulty. This patch also automatically hides the player’s arms when they come close to the eyes, in order to avoid situations where the arms might block the player’s view.

This patch includes a handful of other tweaks, check out the full v1.21 release notes with additional details here:

Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond v1.21 patch notes

New Option for Controller-Oriented Movement
  • Added an option to base movement off of the controller’s direction instead of the player’s view direction.
  • In the Options menu, choose the “VR Comfort” section, and set “Movement Orientation” to “Controller.”
New Video Options
  • You’ll find these in the Options menu, in the “Audio/Video” section.
  • Texture Streaming: 400MB, 700MB, 1000MB, 2000MB, or Auto
  • Texture Filtering Level: Anisotropic 1x, 2x, 4x, or 8x
  • Anti-Aliasing Mode: MSAA 2x, MSAA 4x, Temporal AA, or Off
  • Anti-Aliasing Quality: Low, Medium, High, or Default
Even More Streamlined Gameflow
  • We removed the need to pull the trigger at the start of every campaign segment.
  • Levels now start playing as soon as the title card comes up.
Star Ranks Off by Default for New Players
  • The stars that draw over enemy heads in the Campaign are now Off by default for new players.
  • Existing players will keep whatever setting they last used.
  • As always, star ranks are in the Options menu. Choose the “Campaign” section, and setting “Enemy Rank” to “Disabled” or “Enabled.”
Arm Sleeves Now Hide When Close to Player Eyes
  • The sleeves on the player’s arms no longer show when brought close to the eyes.
  • This fixes the issue of looking down the sights with an eye opposite to the player’s dominant hand, e.g. aiming with the left eye when right-hand dominant.
Other Changes:
  • NPC eye logic improved.
  • Improved server performance in multiplayer matches.
  • Lowered grip sensitivity when using Valve Index controllers.
  • Fixed zoom controls on scoped weapons when launching the game through Steam.
  • Fixed a glitch when re-opening the Multiplayer in-game menu.
  • Fixed a rare crash that could trigger from switching party leaders in Multiplayer.
  • Fixed a “Connection to server timed out” issue when trying to play Mad Bomber.
  • Various updates and fixes for localized text.
  • Additional under the hood fixes and optimizations.

Update v1.24 – December 21st

Update v1.24 to Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond delivers a highly requested changed to sniper scopes—while sniper scopes in the game would originally take over the player’s entire view, a new option has been added to render the scope view directly into the gun’s scope. To enable this, go to Options → Gameplay → Scope Type → Realistic.

Given optimizations in the prior patch and expanded video options, with patch v1.24 Respawn has lowered the game’s minimum hardware specification to a GTX 1080 GPU, though the studio still suggests the RTX 2080 as the recommended spec.

For Oculus Rift and Quest users who bought the game through Steam, v1.24 now offers the option to launch the Oculus native version of Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond, which bypasses SteamVR and may lead to performance improvements. It’s worth noting that this approach would mean the player will no longer be able to join Steam friends in the game’s multiplayer modes because direct invites between Oculus and Steam are not supported.

This patch includes a handful of other tweaks, check out the full v1.24 release notes with additional details here:

Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond v1.24 patch notes

New Options to Hide Your Torso and Cuffs
  • You can now choose to hide the in-game representations of your torso, your sleeve cuffs, or both.
  • Under Options, choose the “Gameplay” section, and set “Body Visibility” or “Cuff Visibility” to “Disabled.”
New Full-View Sniper Scopes
  • Added an option to render the sniper view directly in the scope.
  • To enable, go to Options, choose the “Gameplay” section, and set “Scope Type” to “Realistic.”
  • Added a new “Scope Resolution” option. Bumping this down can improve performance on some systems.
Sniper Rifle Zoom Button
  • The button to adjust zoom levels on sniper rifles is now assigned to whichever hand is dominant, instead of always being set to the right hand. (Vive controllers keep the button on the right hand.)
  • Tip: this button also adjusts the firing rate on the M1918 automatic rifle when equipped.
Multiplayer “Quick Match” Playlist Now Cycles All Maps and Modes
  • Choosing “Quick Match” now cycles between maps AND modes.
  • Without leaving your session you could play Team Deathmatch in the Sub Pen, Domination in Streets of Dubuisson, then Mad Bomber in the Rockets of Peenemünde.
Oculus Native Mode Support On Steam
  • When launching the game through Steam, Oculus users now have the option to launch directly to the Oculus native environment.
Lower Min-Spec NVIDIA GTX 1080
  • The recommended spec stays the same.
  • However, with the expanded video options and optimizations from the last patch, plus feedback from the player community, the min spec has been lowered to an NVIDIA GTX 1080 or equivalent.
Other Changes and Additions:
  • Smoother fade-in when returning to the OSS hub from a level.
  • Objectives now show on the user’s left wrist when the left hand is set as dominant.
  • New floating label for the Live Fire Gauntlet doors in the Quartermaster area. (Check these play areas out for some classic Respawn gauntlet challenges.)
  • Fixed some grab issues with the MG42 and M1918 mounted weapons.
  • Fixed issue where enabling Seated Mode in certain conditions could leave the player’s view high off the ground.
  • Fixed grab guide visuals being offset for the right hand when using HTC Vive wand controllers.
  • On the OSS Room typewriter, type “Open Sesame” and hit the carriage return to unlock a chest of Respawn Easter Eggs.
  • Additional under the hood fixes and optimizations.

Respawn was quick to deliver three patches in the small window between the game’s launch and the December holiday period. Since then we haven’t seen teases of additional patches, but with many of the initial complaints addressed to far, we’d love to see the studio take their time on a more substantial update.

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Ben Lang
Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."

  • It’s great to hear they are really on the ball with getting stuff fixed and fast. Kudos.

  • Here’s some stuff I’d like to add:

    Given that the game’s file size is utterly huge and actually impractical for many people, myself included, I think it would genuinely be worth considering releasing [in addition to the complete package] each of the three major components of the game for standalone download so people can choose to buy only the bits they are interested in: So, maybe this could mean having the main campaign available for £15, the multiplayer for £15 and the gallery for £5 for example.

    I think it would be worth looking at the aiming scope on the sniper rifle again, as it seems to be a bit off-putting to many people and shows stuff through the scope in 2D and a lower than ideal resolution. Could use examples from a few other VR games to improve this further.

    I’d like an option to hide any non-realistic ammo counters from the weapons and the like (I know you have some but not all of that stuff optional).

    I think it would be much more satisfying, and indeed better design, if you make all the objects in the environment that look like they should be intractable in a simple way (such as something you should be able to pick up or shoot or even just knock with your hand for example) actually be so (cups, plates, bottles, cases, hats, books, lamps, whatever), and try to limit as much of the purely baked surface-level window dressing versions of this stuff as possible. That kind of non-interactive world detail is acceptable in flat-screen gaming, although I don’t personally like it and never have, but in VR it just breaks all immersion and actually kinda ruins the experience and fun imo. Personally, if you can’t give it any interaction at all then I’d often rather it weren’t there at all, and instead you populate the levels with more of the stuff that actually was interactive. And you should be doing this is a kind of modular way with all the stuff you design anyway, so that once one instance has the interaction applied then all other instances should too (hence the point of instances)

    It seems the eyes on the characters could do with a little extra work, particularly cleaning up any times they look to be just blankly staring very wide-eyed at the player, but even just making them look a bit more convincingly real (a bit more reflection and the like). There’s often a bit of a dead eye look that could be improved.

    There’s a gun right near the start of the game that looks like you should be able to grab it immediately but you can’t (when the player in sitting on the ground and it’s resting on his leg), and I think if you can’t grab it immediately then it would be better to not have it there until it’s required and have the other character actually hand it to the player at that time.

    Maybe have an option to unlock head aiming from any weapons that use that currently.

    When aiming down the sights I’ve noticed some issues with parts of the player’s arm getting in the way, especially in some of the YouTube videos, so maybe some tweaking for that would be good. Could have them arm part go semi transparent or fully hide away, or could have an option to turn them off fully anyway.

    Add an option to turn off the hit arrow indicators. I hate game stuff like this popping up and ruining my immersion, and twice as much in VR games.

    Sometimes when a room or level loads in at the start you can see obvious LOD and texture pop in, just as it’s loading, so maybe it wouldn’t hurt to have the fade in take just a little longer so as to hide that. I think people would be okay way that, say if the fade took 1 second rather than 1/2 a second or whatever. It just gives those moments a slightly more polished look too, not being able to see the pop in so obviously. And, since you know the rooms the player is going to next, maybe you could even pre-load some stuff just as the other level is ending or whatever to also help make it even less likely that this stuff would appear.

    Have characters react when you throw stuff at them in the meeting rooms and stuff. Simple reactions like leaning out of the way slightly or swiping a hand, and a little “Hey! Quit it!” or something like that. It’s just a little thing that adds more immersion and the suspension of disbelief. And it looks cool and is fun too.

    Let people grab more ammo cartridges from their belt even if there’s already one in the gun. They should just be able to eject the one in there at any time and replace it with a new one (and you should only reduce the total ammo by the amount use in such a case, rather than wasting unused bullets).

    Make it easier for people to take off the hats once they’ve put them on. Looks to be way too fiddly.

    Not sure if it’s in there as an individual setting, but if it’s not, I’d like to see an option to turn off the bobbing when running.

    • Gonzax

      The campaign for 15?? Is that a joke? the campaign alone is well worth 60€. It’s an amazing game, I’ve never in my life disagreed so much with a review.

      The first hour is bad, really bad with all those mini levels but after that it becomes classic MoH in all its glory. It’s a 12 hour campaign, how could that be 15???

      • The entire game is £45. It would be utterly moronic of you to actually encourage them to go and charge £60 for the campaign alone. Do you own shares in the company or something? Why in the living **** would you spout out this kind of total ignorant crap that is in no way good for us–the actual paying customers? WTF!

        • Gonzax

          What is really moronic, no offence, is to even dare to suggest that a AAA game like MoH which cost millions of dollars to make is going to be sold at the same price as an indie game.

          • Again, the price is already £45 as (so not far off what I’m saying), Half-Life: Alyx costs around the same price and has clearly made a healthy profit, and that really is far more of a true AAA game, so all your arguments are just moot and still totally idiotic. This game would make its money back and more if it were £30–so long as the game actually delivered on its full potential and had continued strong sales as a result. But, one more time, do you own shares in this company or something? Or are you really this dumb?

        • powervr

          after alyxa this is the game to get… my opinion the price is right!

      • powervr

        the game is amazing… don’t understand why the bad…criticism, maybe they don’t have the game… :D

        • Kenneth Mahan

          I also loved the game! People should give it a shot after updates and return if you dont like it after an hour or so.

  • Great, after they fix the very basic stuff like this (don’t forget to make the sniping all nice and proper like every good VR FPS, just go buy Onward – or Contractors VR, but Onward has more gadgets and things yet maintains intuitive controls so it’s the perfect FPS controls example – and play around with its mechanics) they could maybe try and make a good campaign like MoH 1 & 2, with interesting levels you progressively get through with nicely designed objectives you think how to achieve, good AI and encounter design, stealth opportunities, etc., instead of basic shooting galleries and set pieces.

  • VICTORY!

  • VR5

    At the time of writing, RoadToVR’s review doesn’t seem to be included on MC. I’ve noticed this for many (but not all) reviews from this site. Maybe some are just late to be included but still makes me wonder how MC chooses/collects its aggregate sources.

  • wheeler

    So, it’s great that they’re addressing some of the issues, but what the heck happened here? Anyone with some basic VR experience could have told them what was wrong with this. Why didn’t they just delay the game and fix the blatant issues and get a mediocre critic response, rather than straight up guaranteeing a complete failure just to get it out early? There are tons of people that will never look at this thing again. Sure, there’s the holidays, but VR is so niche that we’ll be willing to buy a decent AAA IP any time really.

    Was this a “we didn’t really care, but now it looks so bad that we have to care” kind of situation? Or were there unexpected orders from higher up that required a release this year? The bugginess, lack of optimization, and performance/detail options in particular suggest this was either rushed out or they didn’t care.

    • Sven Viking

      Not sure it’s “early” exactly — it’s been years. The question is why they didn’t get someone who’d played VR games to try it earlier.

      • powervr

        don’t know why the fuss I like it! it’s kind like the cyberpunk, the game works flawless here… I have no consoles… :D

  • Roger Bentley

    sniper scopes next

  • Well it’s edging closer to a “Buy”, but the biggest issues are still Install Size and Price.

    How about an option to skip the sappy WW2 videos? How much room are those taking up? There’s no shortage of WW2 movies and documentaries, nobody needs them in their VR game. I’d like to see a download that doesn’t contain them, nor attempt to install them. If they are so important, put them on YouTube, save the harddrive space!

    • Gonzax

      The Gallery videos take up 10GB

    • Mike Childs

      It does seem like they could just be streamed rather than built-in. I’m guessing pretty much everyone has good enough internet to stream videos.

    • Yeah. And on this front I actually think they should allow us to download the three main parts separately: Campaign, Multiplayer, Gallery. And they should charge a much reduced price for each.

  • sfmike

    Due to the size of the entire program the documentaries should be separate and chooseable whether to download them or not. Big mistake.

    • I actually think they should allow us to download the three main parts separately: Campaign, Multiplayer, Gallyery. And they should charge a much reduced price for each.

      • VR Ambassador

        Good idea! Then i buy.

  • NooYawker

    From what i’ve seen on video reviews and steam reviews, it’s a fundamentally flawed game. Can’t patch fun into a bad game.

    • powervr

      if you see and VR game without being in VR looks less dandy… I find the game very beautifull… not the alyxa level but close.

  • powervr

    Using ocules quest 2 here… and glad I bought it… one of the best games on VR around…it works at max even with my 6600 k intel icore… 2700 super nvidia here… don’t understant why they say needs a beefier cpu… not with oculus quest 2 via wifi and virtual desktop.

    • John Moore

      Thanks for posting! EXACT same specs, so that answers that question.

  • Dmacell

    Being that the game is advertised as seated or standing… a crouch button would be great! I cant get past the omaha beach level and gave up trying on the forums. “Keep your head down” but it keeps me standing and i get my head shot off over and over.

  • Andrew Jakobs

    Great they push out updates so fast with every update real nice new extra’s.

  • Sven Viking

    “By default, the game now disables the ‘Star Ranks’ setting which would draw star icons over higher level enemies to indicate their difficulty.”

    In the story campaign? They wouldn’t have put that in a flatscreen Medal of Honor game — why did they think it would be a good idea in VR?

    • PRGuy69

      ye its dumb, they do let you choose in the beginning with an interactive doctor appointment.

  • VR Ambassador

    God, those smooth-turners. Must be all seated people…otherwise i really don’t unterstand they don’t turn their bodies ;)

    • david vincent

      It’s faster and you don’t get entangled ?