Kayak VR: Mirage is a very simple game. It’s you in a kayak, paddling through the waters of some gorgeous and remote locations from around the world.
Playing on PSVR 2, the controls for this are as simplistic as you would expect, with a double-ended paddle linked to the position of the two Sense controllers in your hands. It’s almost immediately second nature to adopt the motions needed for kayaking, with the cyclical left-right-left-right motions you need to propel your craft forward. From that basic level, a quick jaunt in an indoor swimming pool runs you through some more advanced techniques, whether it’s pushing the paddle deeper into the water for more thrust, holding it to slow that side and spin you round, or leaning to get a similar effect.
You can push things further, by toggling a simulation setting in the options, and you have a setting that lets you enable paddle rotation by using a stick. No, not an analogue stick, a broomstick that you attach your controllers to.
You won’t get the resistance (or the workout) from actually pushing your kayak through water, but the water in Kayak VR: Mirage is still fantastic. It’s often gorgeously clear, for one thing, letting you peep at the fish going about their day-to-day below the surface, and there’s a serene calmness in most settings that is only disturbed almost exclusively by your wake. There’s a degree of physicality as well, whether it’s ducking under a fallen tree trunk, or pushing yourself off from rocks.
As delightful as Kayak VR is, it’s also ultimately a rather minimalist experience. Each of the four destinations – Kings Canyon in Australia, Antarctica, Norway and Costa Rica – has some time of day settings so you can explore them in different light and weather conditions – Norway during a nighttime storm is particularly affecting. You can discover certain things as you explore, witnessing an ice shelf collapse into the water, float past some penguins going about their thing. A guided tour also takes the paddle out of your hands and pulls you through each place on a set path.
The most game-y part of Kayak VR: Mirage is each location’s time trials, where you race against the clock through a sequence of checkpoints. You’ll see the ghosts of other players while doing this, potentially learning some tricks for skirting round and through the natural obstacles, but trying to paddle at speed puts a different kind of pressure on you. I’d find that my natural motion drifts to the right – which doesn’t necessarily make sense when I’m right-handed – and have to correct myself as I go. A little more annoying were the time penalties for knocking the checkpoint markers, though that’s down to paddle discipline, more than anything else.
What you get out of something like Kayak VR: Mirage will be entirely down to the individual. As a technical showcase it’s wonderful, as a demo to pop on for house guests to show them what VR can be like, it’s amongst the best for non-gamers, and there’s countless Steam reviews from kayakers enamoured with being able to take their hobby into a less-wet digital realm to chill out and relax.
For me, though, I was left wanting something more. It could be some more overt direction in the Free Roam mode, nudging me toward some of each setting’s highlights, or maybe some more competitive elements – a kayak slalom in the whitewater rapids of a man-made arena with crowds cheering you on, for example.
