Firewall Ultra PSVR 2 review. When Firewall Zero Hour blasted its way onto Sony’s previous attempt at VR gaming back in August 2018, it was doing something that no other PlayStation VR had done by crafting an eminently enjoyable and engaging first-person tactical shooter that proudly stood as one of the best games on the platform. Fast forward nearly five years exactly and developer First Contact Entertainment is back at the tactical shooter grindstone once more with Firewall Ultra, a follow up to 2018’s Zero Hour that looks to meaningfully progress from its predecessor, all the while the trying to make the most of the cutting edge technology that Sony’s PlayStation VR2 has to offer.
Firewall Ultra PSVR 2 Review
A Decent VR Tactical Shooter That Has Its Best Days Ahead
Of course the advantage that Firewall Zero Hour had in 2018 – in that it was really the only decent tactical shooter available for PlayStation VR – is one that is lost in 2023, thanks in no small part to the release of the superb Pavlov VR on PlayStation VR2. So while the shadow of Pavlov VR certainly looms large over Firewall Ultra, it’s also fair to say that the latter still has appeal in spades – even if a number of launch issues take some of the sheen off the overall package somewhat.
From the get-go Firewall Ultra makes a welcome overture to newcomers in the form of a series of connected tutorials and practice rooms, each of which allow fresh faces to become familiar with its numerous mechanics and idiosyncrasies. From accomplishing basic traversal and using cover, through to reloading your firearms, using gadgets and so on, it’s fair to say that Firewall Ultra does a reasonable job of getting new players acquainted with its various mechanics, however, it’s also here that you discover one of its most baffling design decisions as well.
Unlike its most immediate comparable counterpart, Pavlov VR, Firewall Ultra only permits you to reload your weapons via button press, rather than allowing you to perform the physical motions of actually reloading your weapon as you would do in Pavlov VR. Now, while I understand that this may have been done to make Firewall Ultra more immediately accessible to new players, it feels like a sizable step back from Pavlov VR in this regard, which aimed to make the experience feel as believably immersive as possible. Ideally, there should be some sort of toggle in place to allow players to choose and to say its absence feels like an omission would be an understatement to say the least. Hopefully while this is something that will be resolved by a touted ‘ultra’ post release update, it isn’t here yet – so the point still stands.
That said, while the lack of an accurate reload does frustrate somewhat, Firewall Ultra does manage to palpably nail other aspects of its tactical, firearms based combat model. Actually handling your weapons feels appropriately believable, with all primary weapons allowing you to switch between a one-handed grip and a double-handed hold for added stability – the latter feeling especially satisfying as you peer down the mounted (or iron) sights attached to the weapon itself. In another concession for typically non-VR folks, Firewall Ultra allows players to engage immediate ADS with a simple press of the L2 button, rather than manually aiming down the sight (though you can still do that if you wish). That said, the snapping motion of ADS feels a little off-putting in VR and will certainly take some getting used to for most.
Beyond that, the impressive capabilities of PSVR 2 are further brought to the fore in other additional ways that feel directly useful to the sense of believability that Firewall Ultra is trying to establish. Whether you’re letting off single shots from your sidearm, or firing off a burst of high-calibre rounds from a semi-automatic rifle, the PSVR 2 Sense Controllers respond in kind, deftly mimicking the sort of rattle and recoil one would readily associate with the use of such firearms. Elsewhere eye-tracking is also used generously in Firewall Ultra, supporting the snap to ADS with pin-point accuracy according to the position of your eyes, while if a flashbang goes off nearby, you can simply close your eyes to protect yourself from the effects of the detonation. It’s all neat stuff that really helps to immerse you into Firewall Ultra’s tactical shooter world, but it nonetheless lacks the sort of furious, physical immediacy that Pavlov VR readily boasts at every turn.
A big reason for this is that Firewall Ultra’s various maps just seem to miss the interactivity that you’d get in other games. From guns that are reloaded by a button to doors that are opened with a button, it just feels like that the developers behind Firewall Ultra just don’t have faith in players to fully interact with the game world in these most obvious and intuitive of ways. It’s a shame, really.
It’s also worth noting that Firewall Ultra is one of the better looking PSVR 2 titles. Thanks to a combination of some tremendously nuanced lighting, highly detailed environments, character models and PSVR 2’s much vaunted foveated rendering, Firewall Ultra is extremely easy on the eyes to say the least and certainly makes a statement as a truly attractive VR experience in its own right.
If you happen to be new to Firewall Ultra, it’s important to set an expectation about the kind of game this is. Far from being a fast-paced, arcade style shooter affair like the recently released Crossfire: Sierra Squad, Firewall Ultra instead bears a far closer kinship to squad-based shooters such as Rainbow Six: Siege and Rainbow Six: Extraction. This bears out in both the PvP and co-operative PvE modes too, where effective use of friendly communications, flanking tactics, suppressive fire, creation of chokepoints and smart utilisation of various gadgets and operator skills can mean the difference between victory and defeat. Fortune doesn’t just favour the bold, it also favours the smart, too.
As to the modes themselves, the PvP Contracts mode from Firewall Zero Hour returns here, pitting two teams of four players against each other and tasking each with protecting or hacking a laptop depending on how the round shakes out. While Firewall Ultra’s new PvE Exfil mode, expands that concept somewhat, having four players take on a raft of AI opponents all the while they attempt to hack three separate laptops. The beauty of the Exfil mode however, is in how it neatly leans into Firewall Ultra’s more tactically considerate beats, in that players can go about hacking those laptops however they like – either through direct confrontation or stealth, and it really forces you to work as a team with your fellows to get the job done as quickly and efficiently as possible. The fact that there are just two modes however, certainly makes Firewall Ultra feel more threadbare from a content point of view than it needs to be at launch – irrespective of whatever future updates bring to the table.
That said, both modes acquit themselves well enough (the Exfil mode in particular proves to be a highlight) – so long as you have the flesh and blood bods to play with – and it’s here that Firewall Ultra finds itself stumbling on a couple of counts. Firstly, there is no solo play right now in Firewall Ultra, which means that not only can you not meaningfully practice before throwing yourself into the fray, but so too does this put you at the mercy of the second point, which is to say that trying to get into a game can often prove to be a chore. Though a new patch (version 1.04) is now live as of this writing and helps to reduce the lobby waiting queues, the fact remains that it still takes much too long to get into a game, making Firewall Ultra far from the pickup and play prospect that it really should be.
The eight maps that you’ll play across in Firewall Ultra are all well-designed to say the least, too. Boasting ample design logic that permits all manner of tactics and intelligent gunplay to unfurl, it’s also worth noting that many of these maps are essentially rehashes from the map selection seen in 2018’s Firewall Zero Hour. That said, the developers behind Firewall Ultra have gone the extra mile in bringing them bang up to date for PSVR 2, with more sophisticated geometry and improved lighting that allow careful players to better take advantage of its various nooks and crannies.
Of course the one thing that Pavlov VR doesn’t really have – in any sort of meaningful way at least – is a progression system. Though in the case of Firewall Ultra, it proves to be both a curse and a blessing, at least at this stage in its existence. While the experience point and credits based system provides ample incentive to level up and unlock new gear, add-ons and other such equipment, both of those key currencies are dished out in very stingy amounts (though the recent 100K credit giveaway by the most recent 1.04 update certainly didn’t hurt). Again, a possible solution to this – the special Assignments mode which has you completing special tasks for massive returns in both currencies – isn’t in the game yet, but is set to be patched in soon.
And really, this is emblematic of Firewall Ultra’s overall state right now in that so much of what would make it a truly complete and excellent title, just isn’t place right now. Sure, this is a live service game, so a steady stream of post release support is assured – much like the first game. However, you also need to ask yourself how long you’re prepared to wait for these updates to arrive.
As arguably the biggest, full-fat PSVR 2 first party release since Horizon: Call of the Mountain, it’s clear that Firewall Ultra doesn’t quite match the deservedly lofty expectations that have been set for it. This is thanks in no small part to a modest amount of content and a progression system that is currently grind-heavy to say the least. However, it’s also clear that this is a gorgeously realised tactical shooter that approaches excellence when everything falls into place with your fellow human players – it’s just that, as of right now, such occasions are more fleeting than I would like thanks to so much for Firewall Ultra’s promise being locked behind promised future updates that have yet to arrive.
Firewall Ultra is out now on PS VR2.
Review code kindly provided by PR.