The Light Brigade Review – VR Rogue-lite Brings Wizards to WW2
Developed by Funktronic Labs
Published by Funktronic Labs
Available on PC through Steam, Meta Quest 2, PSVR 2
MSRP: $24.99
I don’t get an opportunity to say it often, dear readers, but when it comes down to it, I am a full-blown glutton for VR gaming. I love it, strapping that chunk of plastic to my head kickstarts the same cluster of neurons that had me pumping quarter after quarter into the Time Crisis machine at the mall arcade. Unfortunately, worthwhile VR games can be few and far between depending on what genres you typically enjoy, and as a fan of shooters and adventure games, it had been a while since I had gotten genuinely hyped about a game. The Light Brigade is a title that immediately checked multiple boxes for me, its “WW2 with Wizards” aesthetic helped it stick out among the masses of rogue-lite VR shooters. Once I dove into the trenches of the dark fantasy world of The Light Brigade, I found myself hooked by the tense gunfights and rewarding upgrades of each run, and spent many nights staying up late for “just one more run.”
The core gameplay loop of The Light Brigade is similar to other Rogue-Lite shooters, you pick a class, you start your run, and as you make your way through the procedurally generated stages, you fight for your life and try to accumulate upgrades. Almost all upgrades in the game aim to make a firearm capable of carrying you through to the end of the campaign, which provides an excellent drip of dopamine as the numbers steadily go up. What separates it from others in the genre is the sprinkling of Dark Souls mechanics and influences that permeate the experience. Fans of FromSoftware’s seminal series will surely see the similarities in the story, as the conflict in The Light Brigade sees a single soldier striving to restore light to the darkness, with an ending that will leave the fate of the world in the player’s hands.
The story is not the only place where the developers drew inspiration from Dark Souls, as the game features a mechanic that revolves around souls. The experience gained by the player are “unpurified souls” that need to be held on to until you’ve reached the next altar to purify them. And of course, as with Dark Souls, if you die before cashing in, you will have to fight your way back to your body to reclaim your souls. It gets a little dicier than that, as it would be a tad too forgiving if you were able to collect your souls and continue on as if nothing had happened, so the game does also feature a limited lives system. Even if you get your souls back every time, it is still three strikes, you’re out at The Light Brigade.
The world of The Light Brigade is a world of religion, with the player initiating most interactions with prayer. Starting your run, changing your class, and of course, praying for your fellow soldiers who have fallen are just a few of the actions in the game that are tied to the motion of putting your hands together in prayer. The most useful function of prayer is to enlighten the player as to where the enemies and loot are in the level. This works exactly like you’d expect from Far Cry, although it does have quite the cooldown, to avoid abuse. The spirituality extends into the upgrades as well, as the player will collect tarot cards throughout their run that will increase their abilities both offensive and defensively.
The tarot cards stack and interact with each other to give the player that excellent scale of power as they make their way through the various biomes on their way to restore the light. On top of these cards, you will collect money that can be used to buy attachments for your gun, including anachronistic holographic sights and poisonous silencers. If you’re blessed by the gods of RNG then you may be able to find keys on your adventure that can be used at an otherworldly shop to get top-tier gear from locked chests. Or perhaps you’ll be lucky enough to cut out the middleman and find some good gear in the wild, such is the nature of rogue-lite games. On top of the buffs gained during the run, the player is awarded a skill point for their chosen class every time they purify enough souls to level up, and these upgrades are persistent through all future runs. But all of this would be nothing if the moment to moment gameplay wasn’t engaging on its own.
Thankfully, the gunplay in The Light Brigade is tight and responsive, with the various enemy types creating constantly changing situations for the player to adapt to. As you progress through the stages you will go from basic evil infantrymen, shooting standard rifles, and escalate to powerful wizards and slenderman-adjacent enemies putting pressure on the player. These enemies fill the stages between the three boss battles that occur over the course of the run. On top of the enemy presence, the player will occasionally encounter fellow soldiers on the battlefield, who will fight alongside you, and if alive at the end of the battle, may even reward the player for watching their six. It sincerely made me change my entire play style every time I entered a new stage and heard the sound of my comrades in combat. I would abandon all caution and instantly make their survival my top priority, often harming myself in the hopes that my new friend might cough up a +16 homing shot charm for my Gewehr rifle.
There’s so much more that I would love to talk about, from the mysterious way that lore is doled out, to how the player is left to figure out what each tarot card does with little explanation, or one particular moment that legitimately scared the hell out of me; but I need to leave something for you to explore if you pick up The Light Brigade, which I really hope you do. If you do want to turn to the light and grab a copy for yourself, it can be found on the Meta Quest 2 store, on the PS5 with PSVR2, or you can nab it on Steam. Of course, if you are on the hunt for other ghoulish and gruesome games, then you can head right back to DreadXP and read more of our eerie reviews!
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