The latest Medal of Honor game takes the series to VR, for better or worse. The move gives it a chance to step out of the long shadow Call of Duty casts in the genre MoH popularized.
Above and Beyond isn't without competition on VR platforms. How does it compare to standouts like Half-Life: Alyx? Here's what critics are saying about the latest World War II FPS.
Gabriel Moss, IGN: "There’s a pretty good amount of content, at least. Between a lengthy Campaign mode, online multiplayer, a versatile Survival mode, and the wonderful Gallery mode filled with interviews with living World War 2 veterans, there’s plenty to see and do here. However, if you came expecting the VR equivalent of Respawn’s conventional shooters like Apex Legends and Titanfall 2, the slow pace of the campaign is going to be a disappointment. Instead, the often low-key missions take about nine hours to clear from start to finish across six acts set in the European Theater."
Chris Carter, Destructoid: "When multiplayer clicks in Above and Beyond, it can feel pretty cool. ...But most of the modes (deathmatch, team deathmatch, blast radius, domination) outside of mad bomber — which tasks players with blowing everyone up with explosives — feel the same. The fact that the game exists in VR is only somewhat impressive in 2020 when there have been many great shooters before it; so a barebones level of variety isn't quite cutting it in terms of keeping people interested long-term."
Christopher J. Teuton, Screen Rant: "It's rather shocking that Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond requires 170GB of storage on PC, especially when looking at the game in action. The graphics, while not terrible, are nowhere near the level of VR games like Half-Life: Alyx, which only required 67GB of storage at launch."
Mat Paget, GameSpot: "Some of the action sequences can be a little too intense, including a sequence where my character was in the back of a moving truck and shooting enemies in the opposite direction, which made me especially motion sick. That said, Above and Beyond offers some great comfort options to help alleviate motion sickness. These include settings that let you tweak turning increments, turn on tunnel vision when sprinting, or even let you skip more intense action sequences entirely and continue through the story. These were enough to alleviate my own issues with motion sickness and made it possible for me to make it through every section without skipping through them."
Nicolo Paschetto, The Games Machine: "The time we spend talking to our comrades in arms exceeds the average of the shooters, precisely because Respawn has understood that if you play a game in virtual reality, it is worth taking advantage of the immersion of this technology to make us live a story in a way. ...The excellent acting and the fantastic sound accompaniment contribute fundamentally to the final result, especially when they manage to patch up somewhat stereotypical conversations that, in the hands of not excellent professionals, would have seriously compromised several scenes."
Clement Goh, CG Magazine: "Another real highlight came from its Gallery, featuring bonus videos with real WWII veterans. They tell some pretty fascinating stories which are knitted together with plenty of footage and interesting details. I admit that Gallery was compelling enough for me to eventually grab a chair and watch nearly every documentary. This brought out Respawn’s attention to detail and showed off the team’s process in creating highly-authentic levels."
Ricky Frech, DualShockers: "While those docs are, without question, worth seeing, the single-player campaign is the star of the show for me. As a VR game, it does have the interactivity of something like Half-Life: Alyx. It’s also at times buggy and the narrative is all over the place. That said, the sheer level of spectacle is staggering. You could probably tell this from the headline, but this feels like the best James Bond game we’ve had in decades. Except it takes place in the middle of World War 2 and there’s no womanizing."
Ben Lang, Road to VR: "Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond is a shooting gallery at heart. With imaginative weapons and interesting enemies, that wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing. But the game’s enemies have effective zero variability from one to the next, neither in the way they approach you or the way you approach them. ...After you’ve killed one, you’ve killed them all—which makes killing hundreds of them throughout the game a dull affair."
David Jagneaux, UploadVR: "It’s a shame there isn’t more depth to the online mode, though. There are no progression mechanics in place and other than unlocking character skins in the single-player campaign you don’t earn anything for the time you spend playing. While it’s refreshing to have a shooter that really adheres to that old-school design philosophy of putting entertaining and challenging gameplay first, I really think you can do that while still offering some sort of progression path or reward structure for time spent."
Tyler Wilde, PC Gamer: "Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond does go above and beyond in ways. It's longer than I expected, bursting with one-off experiences and multiplayer modes and extras. And I can't say it betrays the spirit of 2002's Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, which was one of my favorite games when I was a teenager. The M1 Garand still goes ping, if quietly, and the beach assault scene is basically the same, with some added explosives to plant as you run between anti-tank obstacles. But it's nearly 20 years later, and Steven Spielberg directs stuff like Ready Player One now. Even in the still young medium of VR, Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond feels outdated."