Requisition VR Review – Duct Tape and Ingenuity Breathe New Life Into Zombie Slaughterhouses
Developed by Arcadia
Published by Spheroom
Available on PC
MSRP: $29.99
When it comes to VR gaming, zombie games are a dime a dozen, with the Steam storefront being littered with a litany of low-effort zombie slaughterhouses. Even among higher-caliber games, there is still a large collection of undead funhouses to fight your way through. All in all the oversaturation of zombie games on the market can make it hard to tell whether another VR zombie game is worth your time. Well, I am here to tell you, dear reader, that not only is Requisition VR worth your time, but, having gotten to spend some time with the title as it made its way from early access to full release, I think it might be the best multiplayer zombie game on the market. The open-ended crafting system alongside a more traditional Dead Rising style of slapping power tools together to make new armaments allows for a great deal of replayability. And the fun is multiplied when you can get your friends together to throw down with haphazardly assembled swords and staffs.
The core of Requisition VR is the campaign, which offers up five levels in varying locales for the players to explore as they scavenge for weapons and complete objectives. The real joy in the campaign comes from replaying each level, becoming accustomed to the layout, and experimenting with what crazy weapons you can cook up. While the game could be completed with a baseball bat and a handgun, it is infinitely more entertaining to duct tape two sledgehammers to the end of a shovel and run around beating down zombies with your “sledge-fork.” The simple crafting system allows you to connect various items at various points in whatever combination best suits the situation, which will lead to some outlandish and effective meat tenderizers. Aside from the ability to cobble together weapons on the fly, there is also a selection of specialty items, like in Dead Rising, that come together when the right items are crafted together. The game displays this information well, and it is easy to distinguish which items are used in specialty crafts.
Once the campaign is completed the other modes will offer a substantial amount of extra content. The horde mode does well to use the mechanics of the game to its advantage. Things like spring traps and the ability to board up windows are rarely used to their fullest in the campaign, so having a separate mode that highlights these features is welcome, and helps to distinguish the moment-to-moment gameplay of the horde mode from the campaign. The initial panic that sets in as all the players frantically scatter, smashing furniture to pieces in order to barricade windows, is a perfect way to start off an endurance battle against the undead. The horde mode is another example of replayability through exploration, as players will find the best strategy and most suitable armaments as they familiarize themselves with the sizable arenas.
Lastly is the deathmatch mode, which to some, may seem like a throwaway mode, meant to pad out the content available. But I assure you, dear reader, that the deathmatch is as much chaotic fun as the other modes. The gameplay remains unchanged, only now your fellow players are all fighting to the death in a free for all battle. And while the typical course of action in this type of game may be to find a shotgun and deliver some buckshot to your opponents, I have found that firearms do little to impede a man who is charging you with four knives attached to chair legs, attached to a coat rack. The sheer joy that comes from the cartoonish antics involved in a typical deathmatch have made it a favorite for me. Frantically running around, taping items together, in a desperate attempt to out-craft my opponent and hit them first, is much more entertaining than creeping around corners and throwing flash bangs. And for those who are more cloak and dagger than swing of hammer, the springtraps make for an excellent tool to gain the upper hand on foolhardy players who are too eager to run into a fight.
Altogether, Requisition VR is absolutely worth the price of admission for the campaign alone and the replayability it offers. The horde mode and the deathmatch are simply the icing on the cake for me. Aside from that, the team continues to support the title and has made it clear that they will be working to update optimization and introduce new modes in the future. At this time, I am eagerly awaiting the release of the survival mode, which aims to add an open world, semi-Project Zomboid angle to the game, adding in hunger and thirst, as well as NPCs with objectives to complete. All the more reason to grab the title now and get familiar with its controls before the new mode drops.
If you want to get your hands dirty with duct tape and zombie guts, be sure to grab Requisition VR on Steam. The title is planning to launch on Quest 2 sometime in Q1 2024, which goes to show that the team has no intentions of ceasing work on the project anytime soon. And as always, if you are absolutely fiending for more spooky scoops, then head back to DreadXP and read more of our dreadful reviews!
