Journey to Foundation

However, if you are into good storytelling, with a detailed back story, good voice acting, and are patient with the story to kick in; Journey to Foundation is the ticket. The game should take between six to eight hours to complete if you focus on pushing through the story. However, if you stop to peruse the encyclopedia it will extend your play through time.

While admittedly a little buggy in places, this is a clever use of Isaac Asimov’s genre- leading science fiction, with enough invention and immersivity to impress. [Issue#35, p.83]

Journey to Foundation is a game that is greater than the sum of its parts: the absolute merit of the original work is set against the backdrop of mechanics and ideas that are limited and already seen, but when put together manage to function as pieces in the complex and fascinating mosaic that Foundation has always been. Do not, however, expect a revolutionary or particularly challenging VR experience.

Journey to Foundation is a multi-layered concoction of elements drawn from other titles that have been unified under an engrossing and non-linear sci-fi narrative. Though its story and cast of characters engage for the most part, these different elements all feel like they have been executed better elsewhere, making Journey to Foundation feel precisely the sum of its parts and nothing more. That said, fans of Asimov's writings and involving sci-fi tales in general will still find much to enjoy here.

Despite its high ambitions, the game cannot hide its presumably small budget. Instead of the infinite freedoms of space, we spend seven hours in confined spaces. We shoot at an average level and successfully apply smaller VR elements. At least the story entertains well. Finally, technical shortcomings also lead to the price-performance ratio not being right.

Journey to Foundation respects the narrative and aesthetic canons of Isaac Asimov's literary work from which it is inspired. Visually it is evocative and the plot keeps you engaged until the conclusion of the adventure. Unfortunately, not everything about the gameplay works. Moreover, even the control system is not without flaws.

Journey to Foundation tells a compelling story with no shortage of ambition in its methods to make you a part of it, ultimately shaping its outcome. This doesn't always come together, and many of your actions in between make the experience feel like a time capsule of a bygone VR era in which studios still experimented with this space. That period might be in the past now, but in a time where many VR games continue to bet on spectacle and feel rather than worlds and characters leaving a mark, I'm glad that Archiact committed to the premise's strengths from the beginning.