The Game Awards were an exciting time for all gamers, regardless of platforms. We saw Beat Saber release their multiple degreed levels along with a music pack, we got our first look at the Xbox Series X, and even saw Fortnite master Bugha take home some prestigious awards. Another announcement that wasn’t as hyped, was the announcement of Path of the Warrior from Twisted Pixel Games and Oculus Studios.
This game is an old-school styled game with moves that are reimagined and made for virtual reality. This isn’t a game that is going to require you to sit through hours of back story cut-scenes and story-driven narratives. The action is as common as the humor in this game, and the environment is completely interactive. Path of the Warrior is going to allow you to interact with nearly anything and everything you see in this game. From the pool cues to the garbage can lids, you are going to be able to defeat your opponent with anything you find around you.
“Some of my earliest memories in gaming were beat ’em ups like Double Dragon, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcade Game, and later on Streets of Rage and Final Fight—the genre was huge in its heyday,” explains Oculus Studios Executive Producer Mike Doran. “When we had an opportunity to sign Twisted Pixel to create a Quest title with a blank slate when it came to genre, an arcade action beat ’em up was at the top of their list, too.”
You can dust off your warrior skills by working your way up to fighting a boss in this game. With five different places to fight, your range of enemies to see will be large. Throughout the five (!) hours of original gameplay, you won’t be facing the same fighter once. Whether you are at the carnival or at the dive bar, you will be engaged in this game. Fighting isn’t your only task, as saving some innocent bystanders is something you’ll be tasked within this game as well.
The five hours of fun gameplay aren’t meant for only solo play either. You and a friend can both tackle the enemies when playing on the same model of headset. This is an expansive game that keeps the player in mind the entire time.
“Kicking this project off was a chance to go back and play a bunch of old brawler games that we hadn’t touched in many years,” recalls Doran. “While I’d love to do a game more like Tower of Doom or Shadow over Mystara someday, with Path of the Warrior we wanted more of a Double Dragon feel. That comes through in a few ways—the large variety of background stages and enemies being a big one. We also wanted to have tons of environmental props and ways to defeat enemies, so brainstorming those was a lot of fun. Where else can you battle a guy with daggers for hair?”
Although this game made its surprise launch last Friday, it has been in the works since October of 2018. Games that are this good don’t simply appear overnight, and this is a testament to that. When Mike Doran was asked about the surprise release, this is what he had to say about it.
“In a lot of ways, this is a callback to things that I didn’t love about gaming when I was little,” Doran explains. “A title would get announced many months before it actually came out, and there was no widespread adoption of the internet, so getting any kind of information was really hard. You had to depend on magazines for news, and rumors ran rampant on the playground at school. (“My uncle works for Nintendo and…”) We wanted to flip all of that upside down, not only announcing the game but also revealing it as being available right then and there. Hopefully, people appreciate the idea!”
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