Green Hell VR adds a compelling co-op mode with today's update on Quest and PlayStation VR2. Read on for our full impressions.
Games receiving long-term updates is hardly surprising these days, but every once in a while, a new feature comes out that fundamentally changes how to play. Green Hell VR originally came out in 2022, and our Quest review praised it as “a great survival game.” The new co-op mode fundamentally changes the game by adding countless options to take advantage of working together.
Gameplay footage captured by UploadVR on Quest 3
For the uninitiated, Green Hell VR is a survival game with a 10 to 15-hour story mode and a sandbox mode. In either option, you are dropped straight into the middle of a jungle wilderness with a notebook, a backpack, a watch, a walkie-talkie, and your wits.
That same handy notebook offers a series of pointers, such as your insights into what effects a plant has or the exact items required when crafting. In story mode, there's also a brief overview of your main character’s current predicament. The hefty backpack helpfully carries the many sticks, axes, and armadillo meat that you scavenge for. Finally, your watch keeps you informed of your stats like health.
Co-Op mode runs smoothly from the first moment. Your fellow survivors, up to 4 in total, can just drop into your session and things roll from there. If you've never played this game, getting familiar with its intuitive mechanics feels much easier as sharing ingredients, knowledge, and tools is encouraged.
The base game's isolated atmosphere is immediately exchanged for one of camaraderie. Sharing the always ridiculous moments that can happen because someone fell or ate something they weren't supposed to delivers brief moments of joy in between desperately finding resources to keep surviving. When working as a group, rendezvousing after successfully finding different resources is gratifying.
Beyond offering friendly advice on what not to eat or do, you can also physically aid each other. You can wake them up if they faint by lightly tapping their head, or heal them with plants if they have any open wounds. There is friendly fire as well, so you can kill your allies in their sleep for kicks or take the easy way out if you're slowly dying from a scorpion's venom.
Thankfully, Green Hell VR isn't too punishing as your character will immediately respawn in the same spot if you die, albeit with no items. In Story Mode, the cutscenes need to account for all players in the session to experience them at the same time. Multiplayer sessions can easily be saved and loaded from where your team last left. The synchronicity feels natural.
What's key is how Green Hell VR drives home the need for cooperation as clearly as can be. Keeping each other's health bars in check, searching for supplies, and trying your best to survive in the wilderness together can make the hours fly by. To have a mysterious narrative on top provides a substantial jungle adventure for those who crave something out of the ordinary.
Green Hell VR co-op mode is available now on the Meta Quest platform and PS VR2. Elsewhere, the base game is also out on Steam and Vive XR Elite.
