Time travel, bizarre machines and mysterious temples: At first glance, “Wanderer” has everything that makes adventure fans curious. Especially if they’ve had a penchant for “Myst” since the ’90s. “Wanderer” was also released for PlayStation VR on January 27th. Since early screenshots made such a nice impression, I got a taste of the SteamVR version on ultra settings. After Air-Linking the Quest 2 to a gaming PC, the experience ran comfortably smooth on a GeForce RTX 2080 Ti.
The flooded Boston of the year 2061, Nikola Tesla’s workshop and even the moon are visited in “Wanderer”. Especially in Ash Neumann’s grandfather’s abandoned apartment, there are many lovingly modeled, beautifully shiny contraptions waiting to be unraveled. It quickly becomes clear that something is wrong with the apocalyptic timeline. And that I should straighten out the mishap with my time travel. Not all locations can keep up with elaborate graphic highlights like “Lone Echo 2”. Ugly rough, dull-lit walls and textures have crept in here and there at some locations like the Pyramids or the “Woods Rock” festival.
What is nice, on the other hand, is that I have what is probably the best smartwatch in the world by my side on the trip. The extremely talkative and versatile wrist gadget is named Samuel and allows travel to other places or timelines. Unlike the Apple Watch, it’s even customizable and expandable to fit more items in your inventory. If necessary, “Sam” also gives hints when I switch every minute between Grandpa’s old apartment, ancient temples or the Enigma machine.
Not really done yet
Slipping into the shoes of other contemporary witnesses and many intertwined puzzles ensure a nice puzzle rhythm in the first few hours. For example, I take a fishing rod to Tesla’s workshop to fish for a key among the gleaming machines. At the edge of a pyramid, I even switch between two spatially separated characters within the scene – almost like in the VR adventure “Maskmaker”. Only when both help each other out with cult objects do the gates open with a rumble.
Unfortunately, bugs often make progress difficult. Overall, the review version of Wanderer didn’t seem quite finished. This was also reflected in the fact that I liked to get stuck on the edge of a boat and had to start again from the last save point. The young age of the New Zealand studios M-Theory and Oddboy is also sometimes noticeable in the puzzle design.
There is also a problem with the balancing. Compared to “Half-Life: Alyx”, for example, the futuristic pursuit of glowing lines seems very simple, but frustration can arise in more complex moments. With some stone snake fragments, I had the right idea right away, but didn’t try hard enough to implement it. Only at the right angle do the stones slide together to form a complete cult object that opens the burial chamber on the rotating stone puzzle. There’s still some fine-tuning to be done.
interim conclusion
There are plenty of such rustic machine, gear wheel and mechanical puzzles in “Wanderer”. If you want to rush relaxed through a narrative adventure in Telltale style instead, you are wrong here. Also in comparison to the piecemeal puzzles in “Twilight Path” it is much trickier and more complex. Of course, this is also due to the free movement through somewhat larger areas. So far I haven’t had any nausea problems when moving with the stick. For sensitive natures there are some comfort options as well as an alternative movement via teleport.
The mostly nicely staged “Wanderer” is pleasantly reminiscent of classic adventures despite modern VR operation. Technology and game design don’t always seem sophisticated – but I still had a lot of fun with the puzzle-heavy time travel.
“Wanderer” was released on Thursday, January 27, 2022 for Windows (SteamVR) and PlayStation VR. The price is between 33.99 and 39.99 euros. USK from 18. For our allusion we puzzled on the PC – with a Quest 2 connected via Air-Link.
(then)