Quest 3 Hands-on: Last Stand is an innovative mixed reality PVP shooter
The mixed reality shooter Last Stand connects your home with that of your human opponent. We tested this innovative concept.
Last Stand is being developed by Soul Assembly, the studio behind the cooperative zombie shooter Drop Dead: The Cabin and its mixed reality mode Home Invasion, in which zombies invade your home. I tried Home Invasion six months ago and found it to be one of the better mixed reality shooters for Meta Quest 3.
With Last Stand, the studio continues to develop the concept. You still fight zombies, but for the first time you have a human opponent, which makes the fights even more hectic and challenging, as Josef and I found out during our hands-on.
Released on November 14th in Early Access for Meta Quest 3S, 3 and Pro, the mixed reality game still needs some polishing, but already shows a lot of potential.
Duel in the zombie apocalypse
Last Stand turns your room into a shelter barricaded with wooden planks. Outside, zombies are up to no good, trying to get in from all sides. When I look out, I see that I'm in the middle of a department store, and across the aisle is another barricaded store from which Josef is attacking me. The mixed reality game connects my room and his room and integrates them into the game scenario.
I have only a pistol and shoot back through a gap in the wooden barricade while keeping an eye on the zombies attacking my refuge from the front, side and back. Ammo is scarce and falls sporadically through a hatch in the ceiling. Since there are not enough supplies, I can pull out a tablet to buy ammo, weapons and medicine. These then fall through the same hatch into my room. I get the money I need to buy these items by killing zombies.
The duels are limited to a few minutes. The constant attacks of the zombies and Josef's fire make the wooden wall crumble more and more, until I have almost no cover left. Fortunately, I can take cover behind a physical table in my room. Shortly before the end of the game, I win the duel. Not because I've killed Josef, but because the zombies have overrun him.
Frantic shootouts
You can find a snippet of our experience above. Unfortunately, I forgot to record Josef's voice, so you can only hear me talking (in German). Also note that I increased the resolution a little bit using the Quest Games Optimizer.
Last Stand is a very hectic game. You have to stay in cover, fire back, reload, kill zombies, buy ammo and weapons, and heal yourself when necessary. The first couple of times we tried it, it was overwhelming, and quickly turned into pure chaos. We thought it was really cool how immersive the game was in connecting our rooms and how you could use physical objects as cover. I can already see myself moving furniture around the room next time to fortify my space against Josef's attacks.
We hope the studio can continue to improve the experience and make it easier to buy items. Using a fiddly tablet in the heat of the moment can spoil the fun. For the coming months, Soul Assembly promises a co-op mode, a new battlefield, a duel mode without zombies and improvements to the single-player mode.
You can currently purchase Last Stand for a reduced price of $8 from the Horizon Store.
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