FATED: The Silent Oath (english)

Family values in Viking world!                                          

Ulfer wakes up in Valhalla where valkyrie offers him change to save his family. The cost is loose his voice. This starts family adventure set to viking mythology. Ulfer is trying to protect small group of refugees including his wife and kids. The home village has been destroyed in mysterious event and ancient giants, the jötnar, have appeared. FATED: The Silent Oath is designed from start to be VR-game and the interaction is happening with the controller and from comfy sit position.

Pelin tiedot

Name: FATED: The Silent Oath Publisher/Developer: Firma Originals / Firma Studio (2016)
Platforms: pc (HTC Vive), Oculus Rift, Playstation VR Type: adventure, drama
Age ratings:  n/a
Reviewers: Rami (36)
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Mechanics and play

FATED: The Silent Oath is story based gamed that's starred only with handful of characters. Virtual goggles are offering rather unique view from the world like seeing up close when your children hugs you or you can look around when driving the wagon. The game is designed to be played in small spce so HTC Vive features are not used. Player can look around freely but control method is controller only. Luckly freedom of head movement is utilized during bow shooting.

Something for experienced players?

There's lots of dialog and diffrent game mechanics in diffrent levels. These include puzzles and driving horse carriages. Suprisingly strong feeling of motion sickness was the first thing that came up once I tried to move the character with controller. Looking around worked pretty smoothly but turning whole character was taxing though I coped with it by taking look straight foward when turning. The game itself provides only meager ways to remedy the motion sickness like turning in steps.  This left me wondering if it would have been better to keep head under control of virtual goggles and slave rest of the body to controller? E.g way to solve this would be not  move head with the body. The motion sickness is the thing that actually prevents VR from growing and it actually hampers marketing of games so it should be thing that's taken account of. 

Another thing that devalues otherwise great game is it's lenght - or lack of it. The whole story can be run through in mere one hour and there's not a single sword combat in the game (probably design choice here). In practice I felt game letting me down because actual playable content wasn't in par with other design. With the cost of the game one would wish more engaging and challenging content. As for now the game is stylish first person narrative game though it has plot that is based on 'end climax'. 

Ethical message?

Ulfers small group is composed with his wife Freya, her brother Oswald, daughter Lif and nephew Sven. Besides relatives the village seer Edda is following up spouting about bad omens. From the start it's told that main character should protect them but from what? It's hinted that's theres lots of going on but besides heavy hints toward viking mythology not much is revealed? The story is actually suffering from sudden start - Freya is crying over his dead husband who's resurrected without ability to talk. The game is making great effort to actually make player to identify himself with the Ulfers family.

Interesting features?

The graphical style is semi-realistic with the 'uncanny valley' phenomena avoided. The diffrent levels have nicely diffrent graphics. At the beginning I was unwary about the style but in the end it worked pretty well. The VR goggles make favour to graphics because VR brings everything up close and personal. 

There is interaction with the other character with the nodding or shaking head. The family theme was something I liked. Example your daughter asks 'if the accident of Ulfer happened because she climbed the tree that wasn't allowed to.' The main character can't talk so player just shakes head sadly.

Some players might find it uncofortable that because story arc is short and it leaves many things open. Of course there's always possibility of second part but the overall ending of the game leaves player so much dumbfounded that guesswork build during the game completely falls down. However the game should be Firm's first attempt in VR-games so I would understand certain kind of experimentation with the game or narrative?

For families...?

The VR goggles benefit game and surroundings. They give out nice feeling of 'being there'. There's also triggers for those players who fear bats or spiders.

Accordingly designers they wanted to explore hard feelings like sandness, caring and happiness. FATED is a beatiful in its whole and it can connect even to the most cynical players. However I'm not totally convinced that ending is making use of the narrative and social attachment to characters in most efficent way?

DLC?

Nope

Age raiting?

Theres actually no battles in which player is involved hands on. Tension is kept up and in contrast of finnish age ratings I would believe distress criteria is more appropriate than violence. However depictions of sadness are not generally changing the age rating. Meanwhile PEGI age rating might be 12 or 16 depending one scene. Probably latter though?

Families can talk about

• What can you tell about characters? What kind of people there is?
• Story so far? In your opinion what might be happening behind the scenes?
• VR goggles in gaming. What things are easier to do and what are things that goggles are not excelling in?