Space Marine VR Threat Lethal Preview: Survive the horde

... and maybe, survive yourselves?

It’s been a long while checking out Zero Latency VR, so when I was offered the chance to play its latest game, Space Marine VR Threat Lethal, I jumped at the chance. Knowing that a Zero Latency recently opened up at Moorabbin’s Morris Moor entertainment hub, I also recruited a local crew of friends and family — of various skills and exposure to VR — to help me out.

The latest Warhammer 40,000 title at Zero Latency, Threat Lethal will task up to 8 players — erm, sorry, make that Space Marines — to push through a series of trials and, of course, enemy swarms. The clock is ticking all throughout — in Team mode, you’ll have just 30 minutes to complete all objectives, while Extra Team mode adds an additional 15 minutes to your overall pool. We opted for the former and set on our way.

Our team of five — eventually separated into a squad of two, and another of three — came into the experience with quite varied backgrounds. My husband, our friend’s son, and I were all familiar with virtual reality, while our two other friends — one the mum of the aforementioned son — was not. Of those latter two, I specifically invited my husband’s best friend as her only real VR experience to date was the terrifying Kitchen PlayStation VR experience. We’ve long since lost a video taken while she was playing it, and I’m devastated by that as her utter terror remains one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.

I honestly would have uploaded and posted it here for you all to see if I could. Sorry, friend.

Our onboarding process was extremely simple. We each scanned a QR code, completed our details, set our gamertags, and away we went. Our minder asked us to enter one briefing room, but also informed us we’d then need to enter into a second as headsets and weaponry were fully charged in one and not another.

This caused a bit of confusion with our two non-gamer friends — the video explained how to shoot the weapon, switch to grenades, switch between frags or stun grenades, and how to revive players. It referenced buttons on weaponry that we weren’t yet holding, and questions about that were posed and sadly unanswered.

While the video did warn us that friendly fire was turned on, that solicited another question — “what is friendly fire?” Our group missed a bit more of the briefing as I had to explain that meant we could kill each other if we weren’t careful with our own shots.

Moving into the briefing room and putting on headsets, we then were escorted to the playfield where we started losing more time. As our Space Marine boss was trying to set the tone, we stopped to try to help one another figure out where their headset’s focus and volume dials were. Someone then lobbed a grenade at our own feet, so more time was used reviving one another before we actually set off.

I’ll admit: it was here that I became VERY worried about how our group would do. I also regretted our decision to pair our two most experienced players in one squad. Oh well, I concluded, it was far too late to change any of that.

Luckily, we turned things around quite quickly. We did a full, proper team wipe in the first two encounter rooms — requiring a reversion back to an earned checkpoint — but we quickly regrouped, learned enemy swarm points, and formulated strategies to stand our ground. We were asking a lot of questions, but we were working together to answer them too.

In between efficient communication were many, many screams. Enemies in Threat Lethal are plentiful, and aggressive. Your standard rifle does pretty well in keeping foes at bay, but a rather lengthy reload process will leave you quite vulnerable to attack. It’s properly terrifying to have no ammo when you’re being rushed by several spider-like xenomorphs.

Thankfully, grenades are quite useful for crowd control; your standard frags just rip through groups, while stun grenades are best when you need a second to breathe (and reload). Special weapons are also dotted through challenge rooms; the flamethower proved to be the preferred weapon of our group.

We communicated all this in the middle of the match, and it was here that I realised a better tutorial — in-headset and explaining the things that a video on a TV screen attempted to otherwise — really would have been beneficial to our overall experience. I write this fully realising that Zero Latency is an arcade-like experience that wants you to keep coming, playing, and trying, so maybe this inefficiency was intentional.

The VR experience itself was pretty tight — I only noticed a couple laggy sections I’d describe as frame drops, and they really played with my brain. Our group — especially those who weren’t used to VR — also complained about myriad ramps and stairs that played with your head as you moved across a flat surface in the real world.

The revive system also proved tricky at points, not helped by the fact that our group had a tendency to lob grenades at our own feet to prompt the need for revival. To perform a revive, you need to get close to an ally and then depress your weapon’s trigger to bring them back up. This proved difficult at times and we almost had several collisions because proximity sensitivity was hit-and-miss (pun not intended).

Despite these gripes, we walked away from Threat Lethal energised, entertained, and very much ready to go and do it all again — especially as we made it to the final objective and sadly ran out time to complete it. Just five more minutes?

Best yet, we actually posted up some decent scores to boot.

Threat Lethal is a great time, especially so at Morris Moor; also home to Holey Moley Golf Club, an Archie Brothers Arcade, and a Stomping Ground Brewery, it can be just one part of a fabulous night out. While our session was purposefully private (aka locked out from 3 randoms), our Wednesday night appointment was after a 3-person session and followed by one with just 2 other people. I’d suggest saving some cash and going off-peak if you don’t want to make new friends.

Weapons free, and watch the friendly fire.

Space Marine VR Threat Lethal was previewed using a private, five-person booking at Zero Latency, as provided by Zero Latency. Screams and post-game beers were provided and paid for by game participants.