Wanderer Review

Well first and foremost we need to address the Wanderer trailers we've been seeing for the last few months. They're stunning and we obviously assumed that everything we were seeing was PC footage and that we'd be taking a substantial hit in both detail and resolution on PSVR. Well as it turns out that footage in those trailers is ON PAR with the PS4 Pro and PS5 versions of the game. In fact the opening moments of Wanderer are some of the best looking environments you'll ever see on PSVR with lush foliage, delapidated buildings, detailed character models - making you wonder if, maybe just for a moment, you'd walk around a corner to see Joel and Ellie fending off a horde of clickers. Not all of the areas look quite this good but the overall look is pretty remarkable. While we're talking about aesthetics, it should be noted that the sound design is no slouch either though. Each area and big event you encounter sports its own soundtrack or or at the very least has convincing ambient noises all of which comes off sounding extremely polished. Within the first few minutes of the game you'll find your way to your grandfather's apartment. And in order to figure out who he was and what he was researching - along with some much loftier story arcs, you'll take up residence here and it'll double as your home base for the rest of the game. There are a ton of puzzles to solve here just to get the power on and get everything up and running - and this is the moment it becomes ectremely clear that Wanderer is an escape room in every sense of the word. Turning on the power isn't as simple as finding a swritch and flipping it. There's about 20 steps to the process and every solution reveals yet another element of the puzzle to solve. But unlike something along the lines of say, 18 Floors or even The Room VR - everything here makes a lot of sense. For a game involving time travel, a lot of the puzzle solutions are surprising grounded in reality. That doesn't mean the puzzles are easy - they're not. Over the course of my 12+ hours with Wanderer I was stuck frequently for long periods of time, just walking from one place to another, from one time period to another, wondering if I even had the right items to solve the puzzle I was stuck on. It's a pretty linear game that allows you to go way off the path whenever you want - so sometimes it's hard to find your way back. Speaking of time travel, that's sort of the core of what you'll be doing in Wanderer. You'll frequently stumble apon items that the game calls "fragments" - and they're used to immediately travel from one time period to the next. You're able to jump back and forth between them at will with almost zero loading - and it's always fascinating to see where the next one will take you. The real mystery though is how the items you find in one time period can be used somewhere else, which means that you'll be trying to take almost anything of interest back with you to store at your uncle's apartment, and given the limited number of slots in your personal inventory, you're pretty much guaranteed to make a total mess of the place. There's stuff on my bed, on my couch, on the shelves, on the floor - which i actually find to be really cool, but at the same time extrememly stressful. If you happen to drop an item in one time period and forget that it's there, you could be looking around for an hour trying to figure out where you put it down. Luckily you're not totally alone through all this though. Your watch, Samuel, is a technical marvel. He holds your items, keeps track of where you are, and can be popped off your wrist to help you with puzzles. He talks a lot but generally when he has something to say it's worth taking a minute to listen. And if you're a fan of collectibles, there are glowing shards and seemingly irrelevant items hidden everywhere that will allow you to upgrade his inventory slots and customize his appearance There are moments in Wanderer that'll make you think its one of PlayStation VR's best games. And it might be. I'm in love with the concept, the freedom, the look, the creative puzzles and most of the execution. But a few problems get in the way of an otherwise excellent game. The controls are fine overall with options for full locomotion, smooth turning, and of course teleportation and click turning. But there are points where you're forced to use teleportation to jump from one place to another, which isn't a dealbreaker but definitely kills the immersion. There's also no crouch button. Wanderer keeps this from being an issue by allowing you to interact with items beyond your normal reach, but it's still seems like a strange ommission. Controls aside, you're likely to experience a few technical problems througout the course of your adventure. Aj and I both had to start entire chapters over after either a crash or experienceing random bugs, and it's definitely a little frustrating when you're looking for a particular item that you KNOW YOU HAD and when it goes missing you're not sure if you lost it or the game lost it. There have already been 2 major patches before launch though, and after talking to the team it does seem like they're fully aware of the problems are working to correct them as soon as possible. After spending the last few days playing Wanderer it quickly became obvious why the developers over at Oddby and M Theroy didn't reveal a whole lot about Wanderer leading up to launch. It's a visually stunning game with graphics and environments that absolutely shine on PSVR - with thoughtful puzzles, a well told story, and a ton of variety thrown at you the whole time - and they didn't want to spoil any of that for you. It's a little slow paced but there are surprises around every turn - so if you're patient and love escape rooms, then get ready - beacuse PlayStation VR has a new must have game with your name written all over it.

Score: 9.5/10