Guardian of Realms feels like Blade & Sorcery in mixed reality and is now free to play
The mixed reality game Guardian of Realms is now available for free on Quest 3. MIXED tried it out and finds out if it's worth downloading.
I played Guardian of Realms for half an hour and would describe it as Blade & Sorcery brought into your living room.
In survival mode, you battle waves of realistically rendered human opponents and flying monsters using sword and shield. These enemies enter your home through virtual doors and windows to attack a crystal at the center of your room. The combat is classic hack-and-slash—brutal but not particularly challenging. As in Blade & Sorcery, enemies can be dismembered during fights.
In sandbox mode, you can customize the experience and activate bullet time—called "Chronokinesis" in the game—at the touch of a button. This slows enemies down and lets you stage and capture spectacular fights in your own home.
Guardian of Realms also supports community mods. New enemies, weapons, and environments can be downloaded directly within the game and used in sandbox mode.
Environment mods let you change the backdrop: for example, instead of a medieval world, you could look out your virtual windows onto a Minecraft-style landscape. Available enemy mods currently include Homer Simpson and Kermit the Frog—I had a fun few minutes recording meme videos with these pop culture characters.
Guardian of Realms is now available for free
Unfortunately, the number of available mods is still limited, but that will hopefully change with the transition to a free game. While I didn’t find the core combat and mechanics especially compelling, I liked the concept of a customizable combat simulator where you can stage battles with a variety of fictional characters in your own home.
Guardian of Realms was developed by Sinn Studio, creators of Swordsman. According to the studio, the game was a financial failure. On Reddit, they write:
"We self-funded the game with hopes that the MR audience would grow after the Quest 3S release, but that growth hasn’t happened as we expected. So, instead of keeping something we’re proud of behind a paywall, we’re making it free, hoping players like you will help grow the MR ecosystem."
You can download Guardian of Realms from the Horizon Store. The game supports Quest 3 and 3s.
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