Blood & Truth PSVR First Impressions

It has taken me a good month or two of daily PSVR time to become accustomed to this different way of playing games. Early on, I could manage the 3D for only 15 to 20 minutes. Then I worked up to a half hour, then an hour, and now with Blood & Truth, I’ve been able to go for almost 2 hours. Part of this is working up to that amount of time with the headset on, but a lot of it is that Blood & Truth is a fantastic experience that kept me engaged.

While many PSVR titles are limited by budget, and are often smaller in scale – see MOSS for example – this game comes to us from Sony’s own London Studio. With a big budget backing it, it was Sony’s next attempt at making the PSVR irresistible to PS4 owners. And it may work in the long run, as the money put behind this title was money well spent.

You’ll play as ex-military soldier Ryan Marks, who must return to his family after the death of his father, to stop a rival business from taking over the profitable, although incredibly shady, family business. For his family, backroom deals were just scratched the surface of how the family fortune was created.

Everything sets up for a fantastic open world, London crime drama title, but you’ll feel restricted quickly, and not necessarily in a bad way. Instead of having the ability to free roam, you’ll pick your spots within the world and your character will automatically move to that location. Based on where you are at within a level, you will either stand, or crouch if cover is available. While free roam would have been nice, when you think about the limitations of the PS4, and that this 5-6 hour campaign is focused on story and crazy, action packed moments, you quickly forget about the lack of free roam and embrace the automation that Sony has built into the title.

And the story and characters really do shine, especially when you get a group of individuals together in the same room. Maximizing the benefits of PSVR, it’s great to take in everything while, for example, holding a gun to someone. Instead of focusing on that specific moment – as traditional video games would require – you can look around the room, assess the reactions of others, and feel much more immersed in the world created.

And thanks to some awesome voice acting and a well written script, learning more about all the characters was something I wanted to do to flesh the story out and provide more context to specific moments.

Although we haven’t come to the end of Blood & Truth yet – although we are close, around 4 1/2 hours completed – we highly recommend this experience. Check out GamesReviews within the next week for our full review and score!

A copy of this game was provided by Sony for the purpose of this review!