Respawn Entertainment’s Oculus Rift exclusive VR game Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond has been shown off at Gamescom’s Opening Night Live stream. The game is coming out Holiday 2020.
Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond drops you into the role of an Allied agent of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), going on a tour of duty across Europe. The cinematic story will take place across three acts, starting off with a collaboration with the French Resistance, then diving into the fray on D-Day, and finally dismantling the Nazi’s secret weapons programmes. Being built from the ground up for VR, there won’t be any cutscenes, with everything in the game witnessed through your eyes. Respawn are looking to tap into the immersive properties of the world, letting you catch grenades out of the air, pick up and throw pans at enemy soldiers, throw knives, jump out of planes and so much more.
The game will feature both a single player campaign and multiplayer modes, but Vince Zampella opened the video explaining how grounded in real experiences it is (though obviously sensationalised). It will also give you the opportunity to sit down in VR with WWII veterans and survivors to hear them tell the first-hand stories that they brought back from one of the most tumultuous periods in our history.
Despite having once been the go-to WW2 shooter series, Medal of Honor hasn’t really been viewed as a major AAA franchise for quite a long time, having been superseded by Call of Duty in the late 2000s, and then stumbling as it tried to follow COD to the modern era. It’s been eight long years since the last game in the series, Medal of Honor: Warfighter, which was slated by critics and players alike. Of course, with a completely different team working on the game at Respawn (but with Peter Hirschmann from the original game returning to work with Respawn), VR technology and a step back to WW2 in a year where VR has really hit its stride with games like The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners and Half-Life: Alyx, there’s maybe some cause for optimism that this could be another standout VR experience.
