Many people want to run around in VR, exploring interesting worlds, having sword fights, and shooting guns at space monsters. I just wanna play with toys. To me, a perfect VR game is one that has me hovering over some landscape, manipulating the tiny buildings and creatures that inhabit it. For some, VR is an opportunity to see a big world. For me, it's an opportunity to be big myself, and peer down at the world below like some aloof, vaguely-interested god. So Townsmen VR seems like exactly what I'm looking for in a VR game, and as such, the game has scooted it's way to the top of my PS VR2 launch list.
I played the PS4 version of Townsmen - A Kingdom Rebuilt a few years back for another site, and found that the base game was solid, but felt pretty dated. Townsmen VR looks like just the update the franchise needed to bring it into focus. Sure, the basics of the townbuilding mechanics seem to be intact, but now you can directly act upon what is happening in your town. I love the idea of picking up my little dudes and setting them down elsewhere to put them to work.
Townsmen VR looks like it will be familiar, yet livened up significantly by VR mechanics. You'll move through all of the usual genre steps, building up your town with different buildings that allow new professions to expand your holdings. And eventually, you will oversee battles between your carefully built village and nearby villainous settlements that want to take what is rightfully yours (there are hints that pirates may be lurking about as well).
Townsmen VR is also offering some interesting PS VR2 exclusive features, not the least of which is haptic feedback on the PS VR2 Sense Controller, which will allow you to feel things like "the ocean" and "weather" (can't wait to see how that works out). The game will also take advantage of the haptics in the headset, and the adaptive triggers will allow you to feel your little dudes squirming around when you pick them up.
RTS is probably my favorite genre in VR, and it is one that is woefully underrepresented. I'm delighted that HandyGames is bringing Townsmen VR to PS VR2 as a launch title, as it feels tailor made for players like me that enjoy puttering around with playsets rather than storming the castle.
Townsmen VR is scheduled to launch on February 22 on PS VR2.
