Espire 1: VR Operative

Espire 1: VR Operative is unquestionably the best expression of the stealth action genre we’ve seen in VR yet. The small touches of polish go a long way towards selling the immersion and opening your mind to the creativity on display to complete missions and the inventive VR-focused mechanics make it a pleasure to play actively in a roomscale space. While a larger budget, more time, and overall more resources could have elevated Espire 1: VR Operative to the status of being a landmark VR game that pushes the boundaries and redefines the genre even further, it’s still extremely good and certainly worth playing.

Espire 1: VR Operative is good for those new to VR wanting to experience what the platform has to offer without getting easily motion sick. But for those wanting to play a serious stealth title with incredible gameplay mechanics, the unmistakable bugs and annoying enemies may make you want to put down the controllers.

Espire 1 is a decent stealth action game. It contains replayability through its Challenges mode, but what it offers in terms of main story is a bit short – roughly four hours of story, padded to five or six hours via gates that force you to finish a certain number of Challenges to continue to the next mission. Of course, the main draw of Espire 1 is that it takes place in VR, and it uses that to its benefit. Sneaking around and using the bevy of Espire gadgets and traversal options available to do so feels great, but is overshadowed by a combat system and AI that is so exploitable that sneaking around quickly loses its purpose in the first place.

Espire 1: VR Operative excels in delivering some familiar stealth combat in a new, more immersive package, albeit with a few hiccups along the way. In addition to its superhuman acrobatics, you may find Espire 1 a serviceable Metal Gear-style game, although it is still somewhat rough around the edges due to stupid AI, a standard but forgettable story, and a general lack of haptics and solid world geometry that might otherwise have sent this high-flying stealth combat game yet higher.

Espire 1's VR stealth is brimming with neat ideas, but the end product is slightly less than the sum of its parts.

Espire 1's jank gets in the way of the gameplay far too often to be really enjoyable. There's better action shooters in VR certainly, but I guess we'll just have to keep waiting for a good stealth one.

With good intentions and interesting ideas, Espire 1 - VR Operative unfortunately doesn't live up to all its ambitions. If the voice control is effective and the gadgets appreciable, the enemies' AI is quite limited and the disturbingly easy fights are not worth being sneaky. Fortunately, the world leaderboard is there to remind us that the goal of the game is to be stealthy. The Control Theatre, on the other hand, has turned out to be disappointing and will probably be deactivated. If we appreciated the possibility of playing seated, the graphics are too bland and the collision system can be improved. At the end of the day, we get the impression that the developers lacked time and/or resources, and it's a shame.