Battle Orb
MixRift
Get ready to aim, launch, and dominate opponents in fast-paced PVP battle arena styles games with smart tactics and immersive mixed reality. Battle Orb is the ultimate real-time strategy free to play VR game that turns any room into a 4 player fighting arena with friends or in online multiplayer.
Battle Orb is a crossover between pool and Angry Birds with a lot to love. It’s a turn-based strategy game that’s simple to learn but difficult to master, with an increasing amount of gameplay depth.
Created by experienced VR game creator Mixrift, Battle Orb is surprisingly well-polished for a game that’s in Early Access. In Battle Orb you’ll compete against friends or opponents online in PvP matches which are either a 2-player versus or a chaotic 4-player match-up. 4 player works extremely well. There’s the option for friendly battles and ranked battles, but you could also just hang out with other players in the lobby.
Currently, there are 25 units (Heroes) for players to collect and use in battles. Each one has its own unique abilities, different weights and different speeds, which can affect how you throw them. There are also different unit types, including healers, AOE dealers and tanks. Some Heroes are called “Imbuers”, which means they can give friendly units a buff or give the opponent’s Hero a debuff, and these Imbues can only be changed with another Imbue unit. There’s also an in-game Hero Order indicator above each player’s head in the game, which gives you the chance to adjust your strategy ahead of time and remove any potential debuffs coming your way.
Combat is very physics-driven. There are a lot of careful movements needed to find the right angle to attack from and use the right amount of power. Battle Orb is a game that rewards precision and timing. Playing games with similar physics-focused gameplay like Angry Birds or Worms can give someone a big advantage. Unfortunately, this does mean that while Battle Orb is easy to learn but there is a big skill difference between players too. VR games often have fewer players than other PvP games, so this matchmaking issue is more obvious in games like this one but you can always find players on their Discord.
Pros
Free to play
Deep strategy
Mixed reality
High replay value
Cons
Minor but typical Meta glitches
Matchmaking issues
No PvE
VR only
While the combat is the biggest draw to this game, Battle Orb does have some other cool features too. There’s a leaderboard that’s reset every week and gives out substantial prizes to the top players from that week. Meanwhile, the daily missions offer Coins and Gems, the in-game premium currency, for completing different tasks every day. Coins and Gems can be spent in the shop, where players can get gifts, and there are daily offers to upgrade the Heroes faster. Chests here can be used to unlock new Heroes or get cards that can be used to upgrade your current units.
In conclusion we had a blast playing together live on stream. Its true, Battle Orb could use some improvements, but it’s already in a really good place and most of the issues are typical Meta software bugs. Performance was great on Meta 2 and 3 headset with the Meta 3 headset really shining in Mixed Reality mode. The developers at MixRift are releasing regular updates and from what we’ve seen, the team is paying close attention to player comment reviews to fix issues when they arise or add improvements in the future.
Overall Rating
