Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond attempts to return to the series’ roots with a VR twist. It’s also storied Titanfall 2 developer Respawn Entertainment’s first step into VR and one of the first major World War 2-themed shooters to land in the medium. While it largely succeeds with frantic Nazi-killing action that brings you into the chaos of the second World War in locations like Omaha Beach and Peenemünde, its inconsistent tone and quality makes for a shooter campaign that drags on past its welcome. Next to that, though, is the truly impressive documentary dedicated to shedding light on the true stories of those who fought and served. Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond itself, however, pales in comparison, not only to the legendary legacy that it attempts to draw from, but also in comparison to other recent VR shooters.
Before you can jump into this Oculus exclusive (which I played on an Oculus Rift S), you have to get past Medal of Honor’s shockingly high system specs that warn of performance issues on anything less than an RTX 2080 or equivalent — and you need a spectacular 340GB of storage space to even launch the installer in the first place before it settles into a mere [correction: the installer has since been updated to only require 180GB] 180GB. That’s right: Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond is almost as big as Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War. But for all that, we do get a diverse number of wonderfully detailed scenes throughout, including the gorgeous French countryside and the Norwegian Telemark. That said, NPCs rarely manage to cross the uncanny valley in VR, making their stiff and overly drawn-out performances all the more difficult to sit through when you just want to get back into the action.
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.
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There’s something enthralling about standing atop frozen mountains in Norway or commanding an M4 Sherman tank into battle that you just can’t replicate outside of VR. Likewise, there’s no equivalent to landing on the shores of Omaha Beach and using your hands to physically plant dynamite on hedgehog blockades while taking enemy fire from all sides. The problem is that these high points are buffered by long corridors of repetitive shooting and lukewarm, exposition-riddled dialogue that slows the whole thing down at the worst moments. There’s a solid half of this campaign that isn't all that memorable, and by the end it feels like it’s dragged on too long.
Again, there are peaks and valleys in this landscape. Some of the most interesting challenges in the campaign have you searching for mines, planting bombs, and clambering your way out of a rapidly flooding Nazi U-Boat before paddling your way up to the ocean surface. Each of these makes pretty good use of the motion controllers, though because all of it is so scripted, none would feel out of place on a traditional keyboard-and-mouse shooter. Further, it’s a shame that there’s only a few limited physics-based interactions throughout the campaign. In the same year when we’ve played Half-Life: Alyx and even The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners, both of which use physics to cleverly present unique scenarios that would never work outside of VR, this minimal level of interactivity feels primitive.
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And then you’re back in the action. And while it’s often exciting, it keeps getting bogged down in battles with the annoyingly bullet-sponge enemy AI. After a while, that makes the whole thing repetitive. Combat is already much slower and more grounded in VR than in run-and-gun games like Call of Duty, but it’s disappointing that enemies rarely provide much challenge; most spawn and immediately rush toward you instead of working together to try and flank you.
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Comfort also seems behind the times. There is no option to teleport here, and your character moves rather quickly when in full sprint mode. I don’t personally have an issue with this, but Above and Beyond is clearly designed for larger maps instead of smaller and more intimate ones, which is potentially nauseating for those who do suffer from motion sickness. Strafing is a useful way of navigating tight combat encounters, but it feels completely unnatural in VR, as if you’re sliding around on a skateboard rather than moving from side to side with your legs. On the other hand, there are some cool immersion effects here. For instance, if you toggle it on, you can see a “threat level” meter that appears over enemies’ heads so you can assess how to engage them in battle. You can also toggle camera shake and hit markers that boost the intensity of combat. These are great – if you can stomach them.
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Survival mode is a little different and more interesting. It’s a set of challenges where you’ve got to hold out against an onslaught of Nazis for five minutes without dying. That’s not terribly novel on its own, but you can mix things up by adding harder modifiers in exchange for a higher score multiplier, or you can sacrifice your score multiplier in exchange for boons like more powerful weapons and abundant healing syringes. You can also mix and match these things, setting up interesting scenarios against the AI whenever you feel like it.
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Verdict
The action in Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond never quite rises to the lofty goals it sets for itself as a way of honoring the real soldiers of World War 2. Its single-player campaign and Survival modes are enjoyable and offer a unique way to experience famous World War 2 battles reenacted in VR, but don't do much to distinguish themselves beyond that in terms of shooter mechanics and the bullet-sponge Nazis aren’t that much fun to shoot at. Considering the absolutely wild system requirements there is a staggering cost of entry to this ride, and while it’s a decent enough shooter, it ends up falling short of 2020’s sky-high VR standards. All of that comes as part of the package with its truly impressive set of interviews with World War 2 veterans and virtual tours of historical locations, but honestly those would probably be better off separated from the average-at-best shooter that’s handcuffed to them.
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