Wanderer: The Fragments of Fate is an ambitious virtual reality puzzle adventure crafted by the New Zealand studio Mighty Eyes. After facing numerous delays, this highly awaited title has arrived on both Quest and PS VR2 platforms. The lingering question remains: Did it meet expectations?
Contextual Note for Readers
Before diving into the review, it’s essential to clarify a few aspects regarding the context of this assessment.
Following the initial release of Wanderer (which debuted on PCVR in 2022), Wanderer: The Fragments of Fate occupies a unique space between being a remaster and a kind of sequel, as it incorporates elements from the original while enhancing the breadth of the adventure.
Having not experienced the original title, I approached Wanderer: The Fragments of Fate with fresh eyes. Thus, this review will not address the extent of content reused from its predecessor.
Additionally, my experience was solely on the Quest 3 platform, so I cannot provide a comparative analysis concerning the PS VR2 version of the game.
With that clarification in mind, it’s time for a historical journey.
Challenges of Time Travel
The narrative-driven adventure of Wanderer: The Fragments of Fate unfolds across various historical periods. Starting amid the ruins of Boston in a near-future setting, players embark on a treacherous quest to locate their grandfather’s apartment. What follows is a time-warping narrative filled with secrets and excitement as you navigate through different timelines.
The story itself is cleverly woven and remains captivating over its extensive 12 to 15-hour duration (puzzle-solving speed may vary). Early in your adventure, a guiding character (no spoilers here) joins you, assisting in navigating what might otherwise be a complex journey.
Even though there are moments to select various goals to focus on, the overall progression is quite linear. However, the path isn’t always apparent. Hence, having your guide becomes vital to ensuring you are aimed to make necessary advancements in the storyline.
Engaging Puzzles Await
On the puzzle-solving front, Wanderer: The Fragments of Fate excels.
The game exhibits a remarkable assortment of puzzle types, all seamlessly integrated into its time manipulation mechanics. Repetition and redundancy are notably absent, with most challenges presenting fresh ways to engage players’ minds.
Nevertheless, the need for backtracking through different historical periods (including your grandfather’s apartment) can become tedious. Despite that, each puzzle remains engaging, compelling players to pause as they mentally reset and strategize for the next challenge.
The puzzles leverage the physical nature of virtual reality effectively, providing a genuine sense of achievement upon completion. While it’s challenging to convey the complexity of several puzzles without revealing plot details, they are generally diverse, innovative, fair, and consistent—mostly.
Towards the latter part of the game, some puzzles deviated from the established rules, making them unnecessarily difficult to solve. A few puzzles seemed to necessitate items gathered much earlier in the campaign, which felt implausible in hindsight.
For such situations (and others where the puzzle simply confounded me), an in-game hint system exists to support players. Though I usually prefer to avoid hints when solving puzzles, being offered a solution I would have never conceived to progress was a lifesaver. Used judiciously, this system proves beneficial in helping players of varying skill levels continue the narrative without becoming frustrated.
Action Elements In Play
Apart from the puzzles, Wanderer: The Fragments of Fate features numerous action segments, from hand-to-hand skirmishes to extensive gunfights. While the idea of an exhilarating, time-hopping adventure brimming with action is appealing on the surface, the execution of these elements falls significantly short. Much of the combat feels half-finished, diluting the overall experience.
From the outset, the issues with combat mechanics are glaring. The game instructs players to punch an enemy, yet the controls hinder you from forming a fist, forcing you to poke at the adversary with an outstretched finger. Attempts at countering attacks are awkward and unreliable, while enemy movements appear jittery. As a result, combat encounters rarely evoke any sense of excitement and instead become sources of frustration.
Regrettably, ranged combat suffers as well. Gunplay is overly complicated due to the physics system. Reloading proves to be a hassle, and the auto-aim feature is excessively aggressive, often diminishing player engagement (though it can be disabled). Headshots seem ineffectual, and despite an impressive range of historical weaponry, each encounter feels repetitive. The general strategy boils down to aiming in the vicinity of your target, shooting once, waiting for the recoil animation to finish (hits do not register during these animations), and then shooting again.
If the combat mechanics had been better executed and had the same depth as titles such as Blade and Sorcery or Zero Caliber 2, Wanderer: The Fragments of Fate could have been a potential standout. As it stands, the cumbersome combat machinery detracts from the entire experience.
Technical Hurdles Galore
Regrettably, Wanderer: The Fragments of Fate is riddled with technical challenges that severely detract from the overall gaming experience. The Quest version exhibits continual frame rate drops, glitches, and erratic physics interactions that compromise gameplay. The frequent stutters in frame rates led to headaches and mild nausea during my session.
At various points, physics interactions went awry, causing hands or objects to become lodged inside other objects, necessitating a game restart to progress. Additionally, I encountered at least half a dozen crashes throughout my playthrough.
These technical flaws border on game-breaking. There were instances where I spent 30 to 40 minutes searching for the next action, only to later realize that a critical item had failed to load, rendering progress impossible without reverting to an earlier save.
The most detrimental effect these issues had on a puzzle-focused game is affecting players’ confidence in the logic of the puzzles. After multiple experiences of being halted by glitches, I found myself assuming “this must be a glitch” instead of “maybe I should try a different approach.” This shift in mindset proved damaging and ultimately diminished my overall enjoyment of the game.
Visual Presentation
Graphically, the Quest variant of Wanderer: The Fragments of Fate presents a mixed experience. Though the environments are expansive and beautifully crafted, they suffer from blurry textures, constant object pop-in, and significant artifacting during interactive sequences. The physics system, while ambitious, appears to overload the hardware and results in performance compromises that undermine the overall experience.
Ultimately, I felt let down that my initial (and likely only) experience within this intricately crafted world occurred on a version so fraught with issues. If enjoyment were my sole priority, I would have stopped playing after the first hour and opted to await the Steam release or at least a series of patches before revisiting this world.
Outstanding Sound Design
On the audio front, the game shines. The voice acting is exceptional, especially from the timepiece companion, who so closely resembles Matthew McConaughey’s vocal style that it left me questioning whether it was indeed him. The wealth of characterful performances significantly enriches the story.
The soundtrack is masterfully composed, skillfully rising and fading as needed. In gameplay moments where silence is crucial for puzzle-solving, the music fades gracefully into the background, enhancing the gaming experience. Additionally, the selection of in-game music, found on hidden cassette tapes, adds to the authenticity of this alternate timeline.
Final Judgment on Wanderer: The Fragments of Fate
Wanderer: The Fragments of Fate holds tremendous promise, boasting a uniquely engrossing storyline and a superb collection of inventive and delightful puzzles. The puzzles themselves are genuinely impressive, and in the absence of chronic technical troubles, it could have easily crowned itself as the best title in its genre to date.
Nevertheless, the technical glitches coupled with the subpar combat mechanics hinder any strong recommendation at this stage. It is evident that an exceptional game lies beneath these issues, which, with proper updates and enhancements, could transform into one of the finest VR experiences available. For now, it may be wise to hold off on diving in.
UploadVR employs a 5-star rating system for our game evaluations; further details on our star ratings can be found in our review guidelines.