Raw Data

I put enough hours into Raw Data to form a strong opinion on where it sits in the VR library: it's the most structurally complete wave-defense shooter the platform had seen at launch, and that structural completeness still counts for something today. Most VR action titles at the time were glorified tech demos. Survios shipped a campaign, a co-op mode, a PvP suite, four distinct hero classes, and a progression system with unlockable abilities - all in one box. That alone earns respect from anyone who tracks what actually shipped versus what was promised in the early VR era. The class design is the engine that drives replayability. You pick from Bishop (dual-wield Crusader Pistols), Boss (pump Dominator Shotgun), Saija (Flash Blade katana, eventually dual-wielded), or Elder (Viper Bow), and each comes with six special abilities to unlock across your runs. Physically pulling weapons off your body, checking stats on the forearm display, deflecting projectiles with the blade - the haptic vocabulary is tight and deliberate. The bow mechanics in particular hold up better than most competitors managed. Where the class system earns fair criticism is depth: the four heroes feel more like aesthetic loadouts than genuinely asymmetric playstyles, and anyone expecting the strategic divergence of a Battlefield or a deep hero shooter will find the differences shallower than the branding implies. The campaign structure is wave defense with a tower-placement layer on top. You spend in-game currency to drop turrets at choke points, which keeps solo runs from being pure reflex tests. Enemy variety escalates with real intent - new unit types with distinct weak points arrive just as you think you have the rhythm locked. The difficulty settings matter here: Normal can plateau into muscle memory, but Hard mode genuinely demands positioning, turret investment, and class-ability timing. The campaign's main liability is length. It wraps faster than most players want, and the mid-section missions are structurally similar enough that the pacing sags before the final push. Multiplayer is where Raw Data makes its best argument. Co-op removes the forced solo gate entirely - you can drop into a two-player run from the opening mission, which is the right call for a VR game. The Hostile Takeover PvP mode runs up to 5v5 king-of-the-hill matches with stealth and armor power-ups layered in, and the locomotion there switches to joystick movement rather than the campaign's glide-teleport system, which is a smart concession to competitive pacing. The teleport implementation in the campaign is worth singling out: it's a quick glide rather than a blink, which reduces disorientation without breaking spatial awareness. Motion sickness risk exists in free-roam mode, and new VR players should start on teleport until they have their legs. At 87 on Metacritic and 76% positive from over 2,400 Steam reviews, the critical consensus and the player floor both land in roughly the same zone: legitimately good, occasionally brilliant in its physicality, but not without ceiling. The online population in 2026 is thinner than launch day - that's a real caveat for PvP specifically, where finding a full lobby is not guaranteed. Solo and co-op hold up better because the wave structure doesn't require a live playerbase. If you own a SteamVR headset and haven't touched this, the price of entry for a full-featured VR action game with class variety, turret strategy, and cross-platform multiplayer is hard to argue against at a discount.

Diego · Scout Team

Strategy & simulation

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