Windlands 2

My first thought, strapping in and firing off a grapple hook into a canopy of floating island greenery, was that Psytec Games had found something genuinely rare in VR: a locomotion system that feels physically earned rather than teleported or thumbstick-shuffled. Windlands 2 is a built-for-VR first-person grappling and combat game where you dual-wield grapple guns to swing between trees and ruins at speed, while also drawing a physical bow to pick off robotic enemies and chip away at titanic bosses. The world operates at low gravity, which means arcing through the air feels slow-motion and weightless in the best possible way, like a dream someone hand-painted in a cel-shaded palette. The draw distance alone, thanks to that stripped-back visual style, carries a quiet majesty that no amount of polygon count could manufacture. The campaign runs around six to seven hours if you follow the main path through the game's three large zones, and it supports up to four players in online co-op. Playing solo, the wide-open spaces can feel hollow - the world is large but not heavily populated, and the fetch-quest structure that stitches each zone together wears thin well before the credits roll. The story gives you a guardian on a mission to prevent the resurrection of something called the blood guardian, voiced NPCs included, but the narrative is thin scaffolding rather than a reason to push forward. What actually pulls you forward is the movement itself. Rhythmically chaining grapple to grapple, building arc and momentum, then releasing into open air at the peak of a swing, is a sensation that a lot of VR games have chased and very few have caught. Boss fights against the titular titans break up the swinging with target-specific archery under pressure, and at their best these encounters feel genuinely cinematic. Where the PC version earns its "Very Positive" Steam rating - sitting at around 80 percent approval - is in that core movement loop. There is no leveling system and no weapon upgrades. You get the grapple hooks and the bow from the start, and the game trusts you to get better at using them. Advanced challenge modes, including no-hooks runs and one-life attempts, exist for players who want that edge. Speed-run races across five tracks offer replay value for completionists, and 120 collectibles are hidden across the three zones for hunters. The grapple hook reach has a hard limit that some players find frustrating - missing a swing in a wide-open space means a fall to instant death and a respawn at the last checkpoint. Community feedback consistently flags checkpoint saving as a pain point, particularly in longer sequences. The enemy variety is also lean: a handful of robotic types, limited boss designs, and a campaign structure that repeats the collect-and-kill loop without much variation to break the rhythm. The soundscape is one of the undersung virtues here. Music shifts smartly between ambient, almost meditative tracks during open exploration and higher-tempo compositions when a titan encounter ramps up. Sound design for the grapple release and bow draw carries real tactile weight through VR controllers, which matters more than it sounds when the whole game is about the feeling of your hands in motion. A word of practical caution: Windlands 2 demands full arm range of motion in every direction. Players with limited sensor coverage or smaller tracking spaces may run into controller tracking losses at critical moments - this is a hardware consideration, not a game bug, but it is worth knowing before you buy.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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