There’s nothing mousy about this VR multiplayer spinoff
Developer/ publisher Polyarc
Format PCVR, Quest
Origin US
Release TBA (Early Access out now)
When you’ve found success in VR – that rarest of things – with a pair of charming fairytale adventures, a free-to-play miniature MOBA might not seem the most obvious next step. It’s a tough field for new multiplayer games right now, let alone ones that have a pricey headset as an entry requirement. Then again, given that its three founders left jobs at Bungie to set up a specialist VR studio, taking risks is nothing new to Polyarc. And it is, at least, being careful to build on its prior achievements. As the somewhat unwieldy subtitle suggests, this is a Moss spinoff, where you once again find yourself in the role of The
Reader – or rather, A Reader, given that this time there’s another ghostly mask looking at you from across the table. Quill, though, Moss’s beautifully animated rodent companion, has been replaced. Instead of the mighty mouse, you manage a team of three Champions, assembled from a small (in more ways than one) roster of common class archetypes redrawn as rodentia. Gwendoline, for example, is a guinea pig – and thus, by the standards of this world, an absolute unit. Accordingly, she’s placed in the tank role, with an enormous health bar and a cooldown ability that can suck up damage directed at her more fragile teammates. Filling out your team might be Rees, the dormouse healer, and roguish, ratty archer Brel.
Gwendoline is a guinea pig – and thus, by the standards of this world, an absolute unit
Elsewhere, the character selection is used as an opportunity to expand this world beyond the bits Quill was able to visit on her adventures: monastic gerbils hailing from an unexplored mountain region, an order of ‘Torched Knights’ who seem to be this universe’s equivalent of the Sith, even jailbroken versions of Moss’s automaton enemies. They’re all realised with Polyarc’s trademark care, the 3v3 skirmish setup giving them the feel of animated miniatures – something that’s underlined by the gorgeous p
