Exploring dungeons for that sweet, satisfying loot is a tale as old as time when it comes to gaming, but not an experience that has been captured incredibly well in the VR space. Until now. Dungeons of Eternity offers a procedurally generated dungeon experience that has you and your mates exploring dark, spooky locations searching for treasure and upgrades. You’ll take on skeletons in melee combat, avoid traps and hunt for treasure, all while trying to survive. It’s loads of fun, and easily one of the best cooperative VR games available today.
The Premise
There isn’t much of a story to Dungeons of Eternity, and there doesn’t need to be. The concept, at its core, is about chucking you and your friends into a dangerous environment, where you’ll fight monsters and raid their tombs for all the gold and equipment you possibly can, in order to get stronger and look cooler.
You have a hub that serves as your home base, with your quarters designed as a space to upgrade your weapons or spend points to increase your attributes. From there, you also have a large map table where you can choose missions, before teleporting straight there with your comrades. Oh, and there’s a fireplace where you can sit and pretend to drink beer, which I did more times than what is probably reasonable.
The Feeling
There are three core mission types that each offer different rewards. The first is your most standard treasure-hunting experience; you’ll explore procedurally generated maps full of locked doors, hidden corridors and secret chests filled with randomised loot and coin, avoiding traps like fire-shooting obstacles or leaping over spikes. Another mission type is more wave-based, forcing you to tag enemies with a magic staff before killing them so that you can collect their souls for trading. The third mission type has you entering an ancient pyramid, with an object in the centre; you have to find the gemstones from adjoining random rooms, insert them, and then defend the space from spirits in another realm.
There is enough variety in the missions themselves due to the procedurally generated nature, but I found the traditional dungeons to be the most enjoyable, and the most rewarding. These missions are where you get your gear which you can create, and you’ll incrementally get stronger and better gear the higher the level you are. The other missions offer the character upgrades and potion upgrades respectively, which are useful, but not as immediately satisfying as finding an awesome new weapon or a fancy helmet to show off to your buddies.
“…a hard finishing blow to the head causing their skull to stick into the blade, needing to be shaken off.”
Combat itself feels really good, as well. Where other VR experiences with melee combat have felt floaty, Dungeons of Eternity feels punchy and satisfying. You simply pull one of two weapons from your side or a magic staff/bow and arrow from your back, and get to work. Melee weapons allow you to block easily, though there isn’t a proper parry option; still, it works effectively enough in a pinch, and slashing through enemies is enjoyable. The axe in particular became my weapon of choice, fun to hack away the bones of approaching skeletons, with a hard finishing blow to the head causing their skull to stick into the blade, needing to be shaken off. Nice.
On top of that, you can throw the axe at enemies for a long-distance attack, before calling it back, Kratos-style. It’s a super fun rhythm, smashing enemies that are in your face and then turning around and physically flinging your axe into the head of a creature coming at you from afar.
Bow and arrow also is simple, and feels good, with unlimited arrows at your disposal. The motion of grabbing an arrow from your back and quickly firing at enemies worked almost flawlessly; in the past, in other bow and arrow VR experiences, it doesn’t always register the grab, but Dungeons of Eternity doesn’t seem to penalise you for “not grabbing properly”, and flinging heaps of arrows, while a bit tiring, works wonderfully well.
Overall the gameplay loop is incredibly satisfying, with different movement options available for your comfort levels; even after a bit of a gap between VR sessions, I found myself easily able to complete a few runs without requiring a break, although some of the battles, particularly boss battles, can be a bit intense!
The Style
Dungeons of Eternity looks a treat. I played on my shiny new Meta Quest 3, which has some settings you can modify to upgrade the visuals to look their best, which I’d strongly recommend, but it looks just fine on Quest 2 as well from what I’ve seen. There is some decent enemy variety, from skeletons to floating-eye things to spiders to bats (all the usual dungeon suspects), and the effects like throwing magic at foes and additional nice touches like the way arrows stick in your enemies (and stick in you, at times) add to the immersion. It’s really a polished game from top to bottom.
The Verdict
I haven’t had this much fun in a co-op VR experience in a long while. While it has a relatively simple premise, Dungeons of Eternity knocks it out of the park when it comes to smooth and satisfying combat, an addictive gameplay loop and co-op that is extremely well integrated. Its procedurally generated nature means that it’s got fantastic replayability as well, and in all of my game sessions so far it’s been difficult to take the headset off. “…one more dungeon?” is a question that my mates and I always ask, and the answer is always a resounding “yes!”. Don’t sleep on this one.
Dungeons of Eternity is available now for Meta Quest – check it out.
About the Author
Luke Mitchell
he/him
Luke spends his time making radio, playing video games, binge-watching TV, getting unreasonably invested in wrestling, hosting bear events and hanging out with his beautiful pets.
