‘Township Tale’ Studio’s New VR Extraction Dungeon Crawler Launches Open Playtests This Week

By
Scott Hayden
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9

Alta, the studio behind A Township Tale (2021), is getting ready to launch open playtesting for its upcoming dungeon-crawler extraction game REAVE.

The News

While Reave has technically had a number of playtests starting earlier this year, they’ve required users to sign up for the game’s Discord (invite link) and get approval first.

Now, the studio is opening up playtesting to anyone with the launch of Reave: Limited Access, which is coming to Quest on December 4th. You can find it on the Horizon Store for Quest 3, a special invite for Quest 2, and also on Steam for PC VR headsets.

This means users won’t need to follow the Discord, get approvals or sign up, as anyone will be able to install and join playtests going forward. While playtests are still going to be time limited, Alta says they’re be “more open, frequent, and easy to join.”

And if you haven’t heard of Reave, here’s the skinny: Reave is all about facing off against terrifying monsters as you fight your way back to the surface with your bag of loot—which can be tough, since you’ll also encounter fellow players looking for an easy score.

For the most up-to-date look at Reave, check out the studio’s latest devlog below:

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My Take

I am genuinely excited for Reave. A Township Tale revealed just how much expertise Alta has in creating immersive, object-oriented VR experiences, and I’m definitely expecting the same care and attention here.

I think I love the concept not only for how cool dungeoning in multiplayer is, but also because it promises to serve up authentic emergent encounters. You could be fighting for your life on the edge of victory against a monster as a fresh squad of bandits smash in, looking to rob you blind. It all sounds like bringing an episode of Delicious in Dungeon to life. So far, cooking hasn’t been confirmed to be an in-game feature, which so far doesn’t seem like a core gameplay element anyway, but it could still be pretty neat.

That said, I’ve purposefully not played any of the playtests as I was initially hoping to drop in at early access launch, although I that might change come this week, as the game looks like it’s very nearly ready.

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • Kairos

    Given how they abandoned the old game so quickly without finishing it i dont expect his one to be any better

    • Serge

      It seems foolish to assume that they haven't learned from past mistakes.

      • JanO

        Also seems foolish to assume they have…

    • Dangerhart

      ATT really had potential, most hours in vr for me by far. This game has been interesting and fun to explore but ATT was better

  • Corey

    Given vr has a smaller audience then non be it seems odd to let some players kill off others. Would be an interesting idea of not online or just co-op but maybe that is just me. Either way I don't have a vr setup so won't be part of the player group. But a vr dungeon crawl without the pvp would be something I found cool

    • Shields Jackson

      Tons of games like this already exists on vr…. Lmfaooo. Having a PVPVE one would be the one that stands out

    • NL_VR

      YYou have those alternatives already like Dungeons of eternity and Legendary tales etc.

  • JanO

    I was looking forward to this title and just tried the play test expecting to spend the whole evening dungeon crawling… Less than 20 minutes later, I was just pissed and fired another game.

    To the devs: guys you are clearly not ready for a public play test. What I experienced was seeing almost everyone being confused, just wandering in the lobby, most of them trying to figure out why they were crouched (the suggestion to adjust height before starting being to the right, most people just didn't notice). When I finally met a group of people I could go dungeon crawl with, they suddenly dissapeared… And then when I'm trying to find others to play with, I'm unexpectedly thrown into a dungeon, by myself….

    I might eventually check back, but I just had a very bad firt impression…

    Just took this off my wishlist.

  • Dangerhart

    I've been part of a few play tests and once you get the quirks its really a lot of fun. A warning, they are completely focused on quest for now and essentially ignoring PC. Its playable on PC but has a lot of issues. I could not get it running at all on Linux and streaming to a quest 3 is almost unplayable via any wireless method. Wired index works great.