Now Playing: House of the Dying Sun (VR)

House of the Dying Sun is a tactical space shooter that you can play in or out of VR. I played it primarily in VR so that’s what this review will focus upon, but I did try a few missions out of VR to compare the experience.

Visually, the game is . . . basic. It reminds me a lot of the original Homeworld – the 1999 edition that is, not the remaster. And you know . . . I’m totally okay with that. Everything is blocky with simple textures, but it’s a clean visual style that’s easy to read even when things get hectic.

And the audio is also evocative of Homeworld with a lot of radio battle ‘chatter’ between ships. The music though is more reminiscent of the Battlestar Galactica remake and it really gets you pumped up during dogfights.

There’s a campaign mode with 14 missions to complete, each with primary and bonus objectives. As you progress through the campaign you’ll unlock new ships to your fleet – 3 additional fighters, 3 destroyers and a single frigate. You’ll need these (and the new weapons you’ll also unlock) to tackle the higher difficulty settings.

Completing the bonus objectives on a mission will grant you points you can spend to purchase various upgrades or equipment for your fleet and you can change the load out of each ship type prior to mission launch. Only by ship type, unfortunately – you can’t assign individual load outs to individual ships which would have been nice and really let you customise your fleet.

There’s also a tactical RTS style mode in which you can pause the game and assign orders – where ships should go and who they should target – but I must admit, I’ve not yet found any situation where it’s actually necessary to use, which I’m kind of happy about because it’s also pretty awkward to use in VR and, thankfully, you can issue simple orders (protect, attack, defend) in real-time just fine. It is useful though for simply switching between your different fighters and taking direct control of them and that’s where you’ll have the real fun in House of the Dying Sun.

The space combat feels pretty good but it’s also a little rough. The cockpit feels . . . too big, I guess? I never felt as immersed within it as I should. The scale of the ship also feels a little off and this makes precision flying kind of dangerous as it’s so easy to clip another object or ship and instantly be destroyed.

There’s not a great sense of impact when you use weapons or (and this is the worst part) when you take damage. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a lot of fun to fly and fight, but it’s lacking in a few ways that would really immerse you within the action.

The real problem House of the Dying Sun has though is the lack of content. I played through all 14 missions on the default difficulty in under two hours. The missions are all incredibly short, even if you play for the bonus objectives. And there’s no real variety to the missions at all – you warp into a map and must destroy a single (primary) target and a handful of optional (bonus) targets. Then . . . you warp out.

Some missions, even completing the bonus objectives, can be completed in 5 minutes or so. And the maps don’t offer a good variety either with just slightly different space backgrounds and slightly differently sized space rocks to fly around.

That’s not to say the game doesn’t have good replay value though – the additional difficulties and the short nature of each mission actually encourages repeat play. There’s no lengthy cut-scenes to sit through or tedious ‘fly to X’ or ‘scan Y’ stuff. You warp in and start shooting almost immediately. 

The story aspects are kept to a welcome minimum but they’re . . . neat, I guess? They give you some context for why you’re blowing shit up and I guess that’s all you really need. There’s also a ‘challenge’ mode in which you can fight increasingly tough waves of enemies which adds a little more value.

Overall, House of the Dying Sun is a fun, if limited, VR space shooter. I picked it up for a few quid in the sale and I can’t say I feel I haven’t gotten good value out of it, but the regular RRP seems a bit steep. It obviously can’t compete with the content or production value of Star Wars: Squadrons, but I never expected it to.

I’d certainly recommend you pick up Squadrons over this, but House of the Dying Sun isn’t a terrible alternative and I really do like the visual style and audio. It’s the closest I’ve come to feeling like I’m playing a Homeworld VR game and if that’s something that sounds appealing to you, be sure to give it a shot on sale.

6/10