I’ve come to realise that the VR games I appreciate most are the ones where I feel I, Meg Pelliccio, am an active participant. A role beyond taking control of a character as you would in any normal game, and actually stepping into the world as yourself and interacting with it.
One of my favourite VR games is the Moss series, which places you as a participant in the world and plot as the Reader.Youare in the virtual world of Moss, but you interact with Quill and the world as an individual, and can even catch glimpses of yourself in reflections as a mysterious masked figure. Allowing you to take on an active role and to have characters acknowledge your presence makes you feel all the more involved in what’s happening.
Demeter takes this idea one step further with its use of mixed reality, and serves as an excellent example of how VR technology can be more than just stepping into a first person role and getting to move around; it can merge two worlds into one. Much like Moss, you are a character that the protagonist, Atalanta, converses with. As a rocket crash lands beside you and platforms sprout up next to your couch, Demeter makes use of mixed reality to blend its world into your own front room, turning your house into just as much a participant in the game as you are.
You’re still controlling Atalanta, but you’re not embodying her. You’re two separate players working together as a team and trying to unravel the mystery together. As well as shuffling around your living room to help this tiny character achieve their goals, you’ll unlock more tools as you progress to help Atalanta interact with the world.
Near the end of the first chapter, you’ll unlock the Prismalight, which essentially acts like a torch. You use one of your controllers to shine a light on areas to make ethereal sections tangible, such as floating platforms, ledges, or even enemies. With one hand, you’re shining a light on the path ahead to open the way, and with the other, you’re guiding Atalanta through. Levels become more involved, keeping you on your toes (sometimes literally), not only to solve platforming puzzles but because when Atalanta reaches the end portals on each level, it’ll vanish from sight and another chunk of Demeter’s world will pop up elsewhere in your room, so you’re not always stood in the same place.
I love Demeter’s sense of tacticility. I found myself moving around the chunks of levels and platforms despite knowing I could have walked through them. It feels like your world and Demeter have truly merged; those chunks of strange, out of this world levels are really there next to the coffee table. You crouch down, peer around, and look at the levels like a child viewing a large dollhouse and wanting to see the details of each room.
There are moments where you can’t quite see what you want to, because the platform falls a little outside of your boundary or perhaps because the Demeter environment is a little dense, with trees, waterfalls, or rocky outcrops blocking your view. Yet you have a nifty tool at your disposal, the Inception Portal. At the press of a button, you can stick your head through a portal and see things from Atalanta’s viewpoint. You’re still not taking control of her; you can only look around to gauge her surroundings, maintaining that sense of you and her being distinct separate players in this game, while also playing with the size difference between you and her.
This was my first real test drive of the Meta Quest 3, outside of short previews at Gamescom, and the improvements made to the passthrough technology made a world of difference. The Quest 2 has a grainy, black and white image for its passthrough, whereas the Quest 3 has full colour — and while still a bit grainy — is a noticeably clearer image that makes it so much easier to immerse yourself in a mixed AR/VR game.
Demeter is short and sweet. It takes inspiration from classical civilisations, and gives it a fresh, sci-fi twist, and utilises mixed reality to bring players and digital characters together in an intriguing story that showcases VR technology at its best. Mixed Reality is Meta’s big gambit for this generation of Quest devices, and Demeter definitely suggests it’s managed to pull it off well.
Demeter launches today, January 25, and can be played on Meta Quest 3, Meta Quest Pro, or Meta Quest 2.
