D-Day Enhanced

Written by Jason Dailey on 2/16/2024 for PSVR2  

Let me begin by extending my apologies to developer Strange Games for just now completing my review of D-Day Enhanced. My right PS VR2 Sense controller quit functioning and my entire rig had been with Sony for repair until recently.

I thought maybe the passage of time would benefit my perception of the game. In the weeks since its release, the studio has pushed out several updates for the game, which I assumed would work in the game’s favor, but unfortunately, it has not. The virtual reality multiplayer shooter contains more than an acceptable amount of VR “jankiness”, finnicky controls, and an extremely low player count that make it a tough game to recommend for PS VR2 owners.

D-Day Enhanced is a remastered and upgraded version of 2019’s Honor and Duty: D-Day for the original PlayStation VR. It’s a World War II shooter with a low poly art style that reminded me somewhat of that BattleBit Remastered game that took the internet by storm for a spell last year. D-Day is not that low def, and it’s certainly not the best-looking PS VR2 game you’ll ever see, but its art direction fits the tone of the game. It’s also not a hardcore tactical shooter, such as Firewall Ultra for example, but instead has a more arcade feel to it.

While it boasts matches for up to 64 players, I struggled to find matches against even one other human being. It includes the usual multiplayer shooter game modes like team deathmatch, free for all, and so on, but all I was able to experience was free for all, because that mode will fill with AI-controlled bots when you aren’t able to match with other players. The first time I played, I was able to play with four other humans, though only for a few minutes. Eventually, I was one-on-one against a lovely Frenchman who was giving me tips and explaining bits of the game’s upgrade and customization trees to me – it was just as romantic as it sounds. I was only able to play with one other human after that despite playing at different times of day, ranging from 7pm to midnight eastern time. I use the term “play” lightly because that person was AFK while I sat waiting for them to spawn. Unfortunately, this seems to happen with PS VR2 games often, as the general player base is relatively low. Still, as a multiplayer game, I would be remiss not to mention that there is hardly anyone to play with in D-Day Enhanced. While I appreciated that the game would populate matches with bots to give me something to shoot at, they are completely mindless and simply rush to your position to murder you, which devolved the game to a boring slog.

In a bit of good news, D-Day Enhanced does support PS VR2’s haptic feedback, adaptive triggers, and eye tracking technology, all of which work quite well. Firing weapons felt satisfying and appropriately tactile, and the eye tracking seemed to keep my aim true most of the time. It also offers manual reloading, or one-button reloading if you don’t want to fool with it. However, even the aiming and weapon controls acted finnicky far too often. There were issues with gripping weapons with two hands where I would press and hold L1 or R1 to grip it, and it either wouldn’t do so, or remain gripping a weapon long after I had let it go. There are settings to adjust your grip style, but the “press and hold” option didn’t work well for me. Sometimes just getting my left hand near the gun on screen would cause it to grip it, even though I wasn’t hitting the button to do so. I was constantly fighting to get the game to do what I wanted. With that said, when everything with the guns and shooting worked as intended, I did enjoy it.

Beyond shooting, you can also get behind the wheel of jeeps and tanks, which I figured would activate my motion sickness, and if everything worked correctly, I don’t think it would have. Driving the jeep was no problem, and relatively intuitive from a control standpoint, but the tank has some major issues. I was testing it out on the in-game training ground (because I could not get into a game with humans) and every time I attempted to drive the tank, the game glitched so violently that it spit me out of the tank. Those tanks did not want to be driven, and the game wanted to give me a headache for my troubles. Though blowing stuff up with them was fun, at least.

By this point, you’re probably seeing a pattern; D-Day Enhanced has some cool features suffering from some very un-cool bugs. Speaking of, even the game’s progression system appeared to have issues. As you rank up with XP from matches, you earn tokens which can be used to buy new weapons and customization items. Ranking up also unlocks additional character classes such as Medic or Spec Ops, in addition to the default Assault class. My first night playing I hit rank five, which unlocked the Medic class, but when I logged back in the next day, I was still a rank one, which was disappointing, to say the least. Additionally, I experienced numerous graphical glitches, from screen tearing to pop-in to flickering. D-Day Enhanced is a real cornucopia of bugs at the moment, all of which can be fixed of course, but it has been weeks already and here we are. Combined with an absentee player base and I don’t really know what is left, save for bland AI-populated free for all matches.

I wish I had nicer things to say about D-Day Enhanced, but it simply could not get out of its own way in many respects. The gunplay was fun when it worked as intended, but I wouldn’t spend money just to shoot its AI bots. There is not much Strange Games can do about the low player count, though to be fair, they are trying to bolster it by hosting double and triple XP events most weekends. What we’re left with is a PS VR2 multiplayer shooter with the best of intentions but poor execution. Whenever Sony chooses to begin offering VR titles on its PS Plus subscription service, a cleaned-up version of D-Day Enhanced could benefit well from a rebirth as one of the monthly game offerings.