The full release for Attack on Titan VR: Unbreakable is now available, but decent combat can't save a disappointing adaptation. Read on for our full review.
Update Notice
Our Attack on Titan VR: Unbreakable review was initially published as an unscored review-in-progress on July 22, 2024, when the early access version released with the first two chapters. Due to issues accessing co-op mode pre-release, this remained an unscored review-in-progress when we updated it on December 16, 2024, after playing the full release.
A final update to this review took place on December 18, 2024, turning this into a fully scored review.
As someone familiar with the anime series, Attack on Titan VR: Unbreakable initially intrigued me. I'm hardly a “mega fan” though considering the VR fan game's notability, I was curious how an official game would adapt this premise. UNIVRS initially took the early access approach, releasing the first two chapters back in June before tomorrow's Version 1.0 launch. I had my initial criticisms, which were perhaps held back knowing that it wasn't the complete game yet. Sadly, the full release is a major disappointment.
What is it?: An official VR game based on the Attack on Titan anime and manga series.
Platforms: Quest (reviewed on Quest 3)
Release Date: Out now
Developer: UNIVRS, Inc.
Price: $7.99 for Part 1, $12 for Part 2, $19.99 for the Complete Edition.
Attack on Titan VR: Unbreakable gameplay clip captured on Quest 3 by UploadVR
Unbreakable, thankfully, doesn't require prior knowledge of the source material; all the context you need is helpfully explained during a brief opening segment. With the Titans continuing to decimate humanity, you play as the newest recruit for the Survey Corps, and familiar faces like Eren, Mikasa, Armin, and Levi accompany you.
Unbreakable begins with a tutorial, easing you into a straightforward control scheme. Your Omni-Directional Mobility (ODM) gear lets you grapple nicely across the city using anchors, and a limited gas supply helps control your midair direction. It's well suited for VR's motion controls; pulling yourself into these anchors to move offers some good physicality as you swing around Titans.
Your ODM doubles up as a weapon, letting you slice these grotesque nude giants with blades that gradually deteriorate before breaking, requiring you to find ammo boxes across the city. Landing the kill after carefully targeting the back of their necks initially feels good, as does slowing them down by slicing off limbs despite the fact those arms and legs gradually regenerate.
Completing missions earns points that unlock a good range of ODM blades that are equippable at your base. Different stats for wire length, durability, attack power, and more add welcome variety to fit your style better. Being able to equip those after a mission without returning to the hub every time would be helpful, but this isn't a significant concern.
Unfortunately, that's the most positive thing I can say for Attack on Titan VR: Unbreakable, and the entire campaign is really underwhelming. The first two chapters contain five individual stages, each awarding up to five stars based on your performance, and I'm never compelled to replay them.
Missions usually involve killing a set number of Titans within a time limit, and that gets repetitive fast, even when throwing in a slightly trickier Abnormal Titan. Despite the latter's change in behavioral patterns, I rarely feel challenged. Unbreakable's idea of progressive difficulty as you advance is little more than simply asking you to kill more Titans. Survival Mode similarly becomes tedious fast by tasking you with defeating 100 titans.
The only other campaign mission types involve straightforward supply gathering as you avoid these giant foes, or defending a strategic location from enemy waves for a set period of time. Defending locations adds some welcome strategy since Titans emerge from different angles, and you can't realistically kill them all, making you consider who to distract and who to destroy. The balancing feels better in later chapters than the early access release did.
UNIVRS has labelled the first “half” as Part 1 and Chapters 3-4 as Part 2; there's a clear imbalance between these two that makes me believe the studio ran out of time. Part 1 features 10 main missions - 11 if you count the prologue. Chapter 3 has only four missions, while Chapter 4 is a single mission with an underwhelming final boss that concludes this paper thin narrative. That's it. Including retries after being killed, the complete campaign took me under four hours to complete.
It's disappointing as Attack on Titan VR: Unbreakable gets off to a good start. However, even in my former review-in-progress (which you can still read unedited in full underneath the review score), I expressed concerns about the campaign repetition and the full release doesn't improve things. If anything, this problem became worse. The final boss doesn't change the formula much, they just move faster and have more health.
Playing in co-op mode doesn't alleviate these issues, either. Like any game, being joined by friends can make this more entertaining, and public matches are also available. You can play either through the arcade mode where you can select individual missions, training, or the survival mode, but the existing issues remain. Multiplayer is also locked until you beat the first mission in Chapter 1. Even if this isn't a massive hassle to beat, it's a pointlessly restrictive design choice.
Comfort
On-foot movement uses artificial stick-based locomotion with no option for teleportation, and movement direction is based on either your headset position or left controller. You can also sprint by swinging your arms or holding them behind you while running in a "ninja" style chosen in the options menu. Annoyingly, you can't adjust comfort options during a mission and have to return to base.
There isn't a specific 'left-handed mode' to select, but the inputs are mirrored across both controllers. You can choose either Japanese or English for both voice acting and text languages. Your avatar's skin tone can also be selected. Player height is manually adjusted using a slider. Seated and standing modes for gameplay are both available, too.
You can also adjust the UI elements for the ODM gear display, Titan HP, and subtitles. Camera turning is snap turning only and you can turn off wind line effects and camera vibration. Otherwise, it's quite a physical game that may get you sweating, and, unfortunately, you can't pause mid-mission. I'm also surprised that there aren't any vignettes in a motion intense game.
Arguably, the most significant change to missions when playing solo has also made things worse. Your teammates could sometimes be spotted in the early access release when the mission goal is to reach set locations, yet they were nowhere to be seen during combat. In version 1.0, they take a more active role and I now wish they didn't. Frankly, these scouts are a liability. They won't even try attacking titans, instead acting as a distraction before inevitably getting grabbed and in need of saving.
While this part is likely a bug, and I don't know if it's currently being fixed, the most infuriating thing is that the scouts won't even move after being freed. They will physically just stand there until a Titan grabs them yet again. The same issue happened across multiple missions and across a larger map with at least two scouts, this means I'm going back and forth continuously to save the other scout. “Don't just stand there!!” I could've yelled in frustration, not that they can hear me.
Attack on Titan VR: Unbreakable gameplay footage captured by UploadVR on Quest 3
Slippy in Star Fox 64 was a more useful teammate than this.
Unbreakable desperately needs more polish, and this only reinforces my point that I believe the studio ran out of time. Voice lines repeating themselves during combat less than a minute apart don't help, nor do regular performance issues. Further issues include the final boss regularly clipping through buildings and lip-syncing issues in the last cutscene. Equipped weapons sometimes disappear when you're in the base area and approach the accompanying main character, too.
That's before we get into the wider visuals. Main characters like Levi, Mikasa, and Armin look good on Quest 3, whereas the Titan designs are fittingly difficult to look at. Poor environmental art makes me believe the developer hopes you'll be too preoccupied with Titans to not check your surroundings. Building damage could have been pulled from an N64 game, grass looks painted to the floor, and visual assets noticeably change as you get closer to them. It's a big immersion killer, and it's not brilliant when we know Quest can deliver fantastic cel-shaded visuals.
Version 1.0 isn't the end for Unbreakable. Further updates are planned, though I can't see these fixing my fundamental issues, beyond hopefully addressing the inactive teammates in solo play. UNIVRS states next month will introduce a new “Global Challenge” mode and a new Thunder Spear weapon, while a further update with unannounced content will follow later next year.
Attack on Titan VR: Unbreakable Review - Final Verdict
Attack on Titan VR: Unbreakable is a disappointing adaptation of the popular series. While UNIVRS has done well with the combat and the controls, everything else ultimately falls flat. Between the performance issues, inconsistent visual quality, unreliable allies during solo missions and a short yet repetitive campaign, what's here feels rushed and unpolished. If you're a fan of the manga or anime, you may enjoy playing with friends, but I can't recommend it.
UploadVR uses a 5-Star rating system for our game reviews – you can read a breakdown of each star rating in our review guidelines.
For preservation reasons following widespread changes to the original article, our initial unedited review-in-progress from July 22, 2024, can be found below.
Initial Review
Attack On Titan VR: Unbreakable Review-In-Progress - Good Start With Fun Combat
Attack on Titan VR: Unbreakable brings the acclaimed series to Quest, offering enjoyable combat but a repetitive campaign in early access. Read on for our full review-in-progress.
I'm hardly a "mega fan" but as someone familiar with the anime series, Attack on Titan VR: Unbreakable initially intrigued me. Considering the VR fan game's notability, I was curious how an official game would adapt this premise. UNIVRS has taken the early access approach, releasing the first two chapters before Version 1.0's winter launch. You won't need long to "beat" Unbreakable right now and while the game has its moments, several flaws hold it back.
Unbreakable, thankfully, doesn't require prior knowledge of the source material; all the context you need is helpfully explained during a brief opening segment. With the Titans continuing to decimate humanity, you play as the newest recruit for the Survey Corps, and familiar faces like Eren, Mikasa, Armin, and Levi accompany you. Other Survey Corps members appear during missions but they never assist you in combat.
Unbreakable begins with a tutorial, easing you into a straightforward control scheme. Your Omni-Directional Mobility (ODM) gear lets you grapple nicely across the city using anchors, and a limited gas supply helps control your mid-air direction. It's well suited for VR's motion controls; pulling yourself into these anchors to move offers some good physicality as you swing around Titans.
Your ODM doubles up as a weapon, letting you slice these grotesque nude giants with blades that gradually deteriorate before breaking, requiring you to find ammo boxes across the city. Landing the kill after carefully targeting the back of their necks initially feels good, as does slowing them down by slicing off limbs despite the fact those arms and legs gradually regenerate.
Completing missions earns points that unlock a good range of ODM blades that are equippable at your base, though it's worth noting that some are currently unavailable in this early access build. Different stats for wire length, durability, attack power, and more add welcome variety to fit your style better. Equipping those without returning to the hub every time would be helpful, but this isn't a significant concern.
Despite these entertaining moments, Unbreakable's campaign currently feels underwhelming. Both chapters contain five individual stages, each awarding up to five stars based on your performance, and I wasn't initially compelled to replay them. Missions usually involve killing a set number of Titans within a time limit, and that gets repetitive fast, even when throwing in a slightly trickier Abnormal Titan. Despite the latter's change in behavioral patterns, I rarely feel challenged.
The only other campaign mission types involve some straightforward supply gathering as you avoid these giant foes, or defending a strategic location from enemy waves for a set period of time. Defending locations adds some welcome strategy since Titans emerge from different angles and you can't realistically kill them all, making you consider who to distract and who to destroy. I wouldn't consider this particularly well-balanced as Titans quickly refocus, though these stages were likely designed with the upcoming co-op mode in mind.
Some poor environmental art makes me believe UNIVRS is banking on you being too preoccupied with Titans not to check your surroundings. A flat fruit stall at the beginning reminded me of Fire Emblem: Three Houses, building damage could have been pulled from an N64 game, and grass often looks painted to the floor. It's not all bad but that's disappointing when we've previously seen great use of cel-shaded visuals on Quest.
Unsurprisingly for an early access release, I didn't need long to see everything Attack on Titan VR has to offer; each chapter took roughly an hour to complete. It's unclear how many more missions we can expect right now - the early access roadmap only specifies that "later chapters" and the co-op mode are coming with version 1.0. I'm keen to see how co-op plays out, and I can see where Unbreakable would be considerably more enjoyable with friends.
Attack On Titan VR: Unbreakable Review-In-Progress - Current Final Verdict
Attack on Titan VR: Unbreakable in early access offers some thrills, though a few flaws mean I can't enthusiastically recommend it just yet. Unbreakable's current highlights are easily the entertaining combat and well-considered aerial controls, though the campaign is let down by repetitive missions, easy difficulty, and occasionally poor environmental visuals. There's work to be done before Version 1.0 lands but in early access, I still enjoyed taking down Titans.
