Bringing a galaxy far, far away to the world of Meta, Star Wars: Beyond Victory is a clever little experiment that takes three gameplay styles and melds them together for a strong result. Beyond Victory effectively has three elements to it, each of which utilizes a different aspect of the VR gameplay. While none of them are necessarily killer apps on their own, they come together to create an effective playset, racing game, and self-contained story.
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Star Wars: Beyond Victory is almost more exciting as a proof of concept than a game, which isn’t meant as a knock against the title itself. While it’s short, the overall game and story of Beyond Victory are entertaining enough, especially for young fans of the franchise. However, the presentation of the game (and the potential it lays out for what video game storytelling in a VR space can look like) is what really stands out.
3/5
| Pros: | Cons: |
| Adventure mode is an effective and tight Star Wars plot about a fan-favorite corner of the universe. | Short run-time leaves the player wanting more. |
| Pod racing is simple, chaotic, and fun as a throwback to arcade games | Controls on Pod racing can be a bit unweildly |
| The playbox options offers potentially limitless options for creativity and play | The playbox options offer potentially limitless options for creativity and play |
The Pod Racer’s Dream
Star Wars: Beyond Victory takes a clever approach to the game’s latest VR excursion, with an overall design that speaks to the medium’s great adaptability — even if the short story mode and ultimately limited gameplay options don’t quite live up to the full potential of the tech. Beyond Victory has three game modes, each with its own specific approach and format. The primary mode is Adventure, which introduces up-and-coming pod-racer Volo.
The story frequently shifts back and forth between a VR perspective where players embody Volo and a top-down AR perspective that sees Volo exploring the larger map. The story is somewhat basic, but it does find an excuse to bring back Sebulba from Phantom Menace for a bit of fun. Now a retired racer, he’s decided to recruit Volo for his plan to win big at an upcoming tournament and steal a fortune right out from under the Hutts.
It’s a simple plotline that can be resolved in a few hours, but the lack of depth doesn’t distract from the likable elements of the story and cast. The VR segments and AR segments are fairly straightforward, with a great deal of potential that is mostly only used for simple VR puzzles and AR exploration. These sections are broken up by a few pod races, which also make up the game’s Arcade Mode.
This top-down racing game is more akin to the racing games of older generations, playing out on an AR table instead of taking players into the cockpit. When it flows well, the pod-racing can be fun. However, the controls are a little finicky, and the quickly developing map can easily become difficult to traverse. It’s not bad, and it’s a perfectly entertaining Star Wars story for kids and long-time fans alike — especially when it comes with a fairly affordable price tag compared to other games. However, the short run-time and controls leave more to be desired.
Play Time Is Any Time
The secret draw of Beyond Victory is the Playset Mode. As players make their way through the story mode, they’ll unlock more models and effects that can be used in Playset. Effectively a digital toybox, the Playset Mode is designed around letting players take the models from the game and customize their placement around a room. The figures are all designed with the kind of posable joints that made action figures so much fun to set up as a child, leaving open endless possible designs or combinations.
This is where Beyond Victory opens the door for more creative elements, inviting players to create their own scenarios. It’s undeniably neat to have a life-size R2-D2 standing next to you, and it can be a lot of fun to create dynamic little scenes out of the figures. This is where Beyond Victory finds a replayability factor that makes it stand out, even if the somewhat limited selection of toys is from this very specific era of the franchise. It’s a clever little way to bring that joy of playing with Star Wars toys into the VR space, in a way that doesn’t get lost in the VR and AR elements that define the other modes.
While not every aspect of the toys can come to life in the same way, it’s a genuine delight to pilot pod-racers around your living room and over the natural tracks you can construct. It’s a simple but entertaining mode that lends itself well to the tech and invites plenty of questions about how else it could expand and what players can create with it. This is the mode that feels like the most exciting addition to the Meta library, and will hopefully set the stage for similar creative exercises.
A Galaxy Far, Far Away — In Their Comfort Of Your Own Home
Star Wars: Beyond Victory is a somewhat slight game, which isn’t really too much of a heartbreak given the $19.99 price tag. It’s very much a toy box that utilizes the VR capabilities to solid effect, even if the actual gameplay modes are somewhat limited. More than anything, Beyond Victory feels like a proof of concept for how established worlds can be expanded by the VR space.
The AR table-top storytelling, which can be adjusted for size and scale to either be life-size or miniatures, presents a lot of possibilities for future games that use a top-down approach to world exploration. The VR storytelling, while basic, is effective — and highlights the medium’s increasing capability in bringing vivid settings and designs to life. The Arcade mode may be chaotic and simple, but it underscores how even the very narrative-driven VR titles can fit classic gameplay mechanics into their design to break up the story-driven elements.
The fact that Beyond Victory is able to infuse these different gameplay approaches with such a lived-in touch of the Star Wars magic underscores how clever design and effective application of the tech can do wonders for established franchises. Beyond Victory is a fun experiment and showcase for the VR tech that Star Wars fans will find plenty to love about, but hopefully, the developers can take these lessons from this title and build on them in ways that only improve upon a solid bedrock.
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