I’ve said it before, I’ll say it now, and I will likely say it again: Virtual reality is all about immersion and presence. If you can make the player feel like they are really there and give them some awe-inspiring moments during the gameplay, then VR has achieved its purpose. Much like any medium, there are many different ways that virtual reality can be harnessed to tell a story and deliver interesting gameplay. Skydance Interactive is no stranger to emotionally connecting with their audience, being an arm of Skydance Media that has an incredible resume of films and TV shows under their belt. Archangel stays on this bearing by making the player a pilot of a six-story mech and telling a captivating and emotional story about love, loss, and sacrifice. “A captivating and emotional story about a guy in a mech"” you ask, or at least I assume you might, considering I wondered the same thing as I started Archangel up. I just wanted to get to blowing stuff up as I piloted a mech, but was surprised to find that being Gabe (or Gabby, if you choose the girl) Walker was about so much more than the kind of destruction a 70-ton machine could cause. I won’t spoil the opening for you here, but just know that how you begin the journey through an apocalyptic landscape in a metal death machine is pretty heart rending, and each mission further evolves Walker’s personality, mission, and story as you interact with your team.

Archangel isn’t ful...