Screenshot: After the Fall
I love four player co-op games. They’re probably the games I play the most with friends—we’re all older, with jobs, some of us with kids, so jumping into a few co-op rounds and working together has been a lot more fun than competing against sweaty kids with a lot of time on their hands. While I had high hopes for a
Left 4 Dead style virtual reality game by the developers of
Arizona Sunshine, I found myself having severely mixed feelings for
After the Fall.
After the Fall is a multiplayer co-op zombie game. There’s a player versus player mode, but the main draw of
After the Fall is to fight off its version of zombies—called Snowbreed—in four player cooperative action. Your goal is to navigate through a frozen 1980s wasteland, “harvesting” Snowbreed—basically zombies borne from ice. It’s a cool concept, with some unique world building, which I can appreciate. However, the world that was built ends up being a tad corny, with voice acting that is uneven both in-mission, and in the game’s Hub, where you get the gist of the story and prepare for missions. The hub is also full of arcade cabinets with 3.5 inch floppy drives, which serve as your meeting place and entry point into icy Los Angeles. Unfortunately, the world building is poorly written, and with such bad reads it all just falls on its face.
Screenshot: After the Fall
While the world building may be a little hit or miss, shooting Snowbreed is pretty damn fun. While it’s not the best feeling gunplay I’ve experience in VR, it’s definitely in my top twenty. Guns all feel meaty, with long guns requiring two-handed grips to control recoil. You have the option for “advanced” reload—which has you manually reload your guns when empty—or a simple reload, which merely has you touch the gun against your ammo pouch. While I played for the first few hours with manual reload for its +50% harvest gain, I ended up reverting to the arcade-style, because it’s just a lot more fun. But while the shooting is fun, I wish there was a little more variety in levels and enemies.
While
After the Fall’s gameplay can best be described as
Half-Life: Alyx mixed with
Left 4 Dead, it’s not as fun as either game. You have two inventory slots, one in each wrist, for items you find in your journey—like healing syringes, pipe bombs, and even floppy disks you might find. And grabbing items off of the floor feel almost like you have access to the gravity gloves , since the grab distance is so long—no need to bend over. No need to flick your wrist, either, which actually causes some trouble—like grabbing a weapon you discarded, or picking up a pipe bomb you meant to leave on the ground. And for those with motion sickness issues, it had GREAT teleportation options—I played for hours at a time, and never once felt motion sick. I just wish the level design was a little better.
Screenshot: After the Fall
Unlike
Left 4 Dead where you’re constantly moving through groups of zombies, watching out for special infected,
After the Fall likes to lock you into an area with fleshy vines called “sprawl” while you’re forced to fight waves of Snowbreed. While shooting guns feels great, the concept of a
Left 4 Dead-style coop game forcing you into arena after arena of swarming enemies is a little bit of a bummer. There is also a distinct lack of dangerous Snowbreed “special infected” that are more than just bullet sponges. I’m grateful that the usual line up of special infected archetypes are mostly missing (they still managed to include an exploding “boomer” type) but they were all replaced with armored enemies that are just harder to kill. It doesn’t help that the arena-style gameplay means that there isn’t much interesting to do while plinking away at the undead. I would have loved to see events that required one player to be defended while figuring out a puzzle, or gauntlets that require you to get from one location to another through hordes of Snowbreed. Alas, most of what we got was “stay in this area, and fight until everything is dead.” It makes a little bit of sense for the lore, however, as you’re out there “harvesting” these Snowbreed.
I was never exactly clear what harvesting was representing in the game world, but for the player, it means better guns and attachments for those guns. If you want anything beyond your starting weapon, you’ll have to start grinding out that Harvest. The entire game, including your lore- based impetus for playing, is based around the grind. Grinding away at new gear and upgrades isn’t the worst, but only being able to do it in about 5 levels and four difficulties isn’t very fun after a half dozen hours or so.
Screenshot: After the Fall
While
After the Fall is more fun with friends, it’s completely playable solo—or in smaller, private groups. I spent most of my time playing
After the Fall with my co-op partner, or by myself with Bots. I would love to say the bots are competent, but they’re mostly useless even at the lowest difficulty. It’s possible to play, and even do some harvest runs solo—but it’s not nearly as fun as it is with real players.
I really wanted to like
After the Fall more than I did, and spent more time with it than I probably should have, trying to find the fun I was convinced was right around the corner. If
After the Fall wasn’t a VR game, I think it would be judged a little more harshly, because if you strip out the VR, what you have left is a pretty bland co-op shooter with unique lore.
After the Fall is available now on
SteamVR and
Oculus Quest 2.
A Steam key was provided to us for this review.