Here Are 5 Great Reasons to Check Out A Township Tale
VR is taking gaming in exciting new directions and offering players a portal to worlds and experiences that traditional games can’t match. But as awesome as those short and sweet titles have been so far, we’re still waiting for that “killer VR game” to match the massive AAA time-sinks on other consoles that can steal your life away and keep you hooked to your headset beyond a few hours.
That wait might be over, though, with the arrival of A Township Tale. Already on PCVR, it has now arrived on OculusOculus, which brings it to a huge new group of VR gamers and for the first time, without requiring a PC connection. An open-world co-op MMO with crafting, exploration, and monster slaying, this is one VR title that promises the kind of massive replayability Oculus gamers have been waiting for. Check out these 5 Reasons we are stoked for A Township Tale — and you should be too.
1. The Freedom
A Township Tale is completely open-ended in its gameplay arc. There’s no end and no beginning; you’re just thrown into a living, working town with nothing save a few storage slots and an avatar. There are no pop-up messages or cute cartoon sidekicks to show you the ropes. That’s frustrating for some, and honestly, there are a few aspects (notably the bare-bones “Tutorial”) that could use more structure. You’ll spend your first few hours likely overwhelmed, even lost without any guidance. But that will pass, as you slowly learn how to gather resources, use them to craft, cook food, and discover the town and its hinterland. You’ll grow to love the freedom in A Township Tale to go anywhere, do anything you want. Eventually, you’ll settle into a role that will make you want to invest serious time into it, and that is a rarity for a VR title.
2. The Mining and Crafting
To survive in A Township Tale and (hopefully) prosper, you’ll eventually learn to make things like weapons, gear and tools. You start with a few recipes but many of the best ones must be obtained through exploration. If you’ve played many survival MMOs in the past, you’ll know the drill pretty well. But what’s amazing is that A Township Tale brings that same depth of crafting to the VR platform for the first time, and that is an amazing prospect. Plus, the crafting mechanic in the game is very unique, involving physically attaching things together with your virtual hands. There’s a genuine immersive feel to making things in A Township Tale that can only be achieved in VR. The same goes with mining: using your pickaxe or other mining tool, you literally swing at a boulder until it crumbles into copper, or gold, or even something exotic like mythril. It’s actually a bit of a workout, and it is fun in a way that mining and crafting usually aren’t in other games. One tip though: take plenty of torches with you in the deeper mines, because your torch will eventually burn out and those mines get very dark.
3. The Role Playing
And if you like mining or crafting enough in A Township Tale, you can make it your full-time job; in fact, that is encouraged. On some of the best servers I’ve joined, the human players all took a role to play and worked together in a surprisingly realistic and industrious little community. You can be a woodcutter, a warrior (there are monsters in the forest and mountains), a cook, a carpenter — whatever appeals to you. Players of A Township Tale take these roles very seriously, calling them Professions, and there are plans for adding more roles like a Farmer to the game in the future. And in VR, playing these roles feels so much more immersive and authentic than in other platforms. At its best, A Township Tale is like a real town, with everyone coordinating their roles and each role contributing to the town, each in their small or big way. Its a positive and incredibly rewarding gameplay loop that makes A Township Tale a refreshing antidote to the brutal and sometimes toxic atmosphere of many survival MMOs.
4. The Exploration
Sometimes, open-world MMOs can be too big, and too unfocused. Especially as a newb, you can feel just overwhelmed and paralyzed, not knowing where to go or what to do. In A Township Tale, the world is relatively modest by open-world standards; it’s focused around one town, with hinterlands like forests and mountains on the outskirts which is actually a plus, especially for newcomers. A Township Tale feels perfectly balanced, with lots of opportunities to explore and yet still small enough to be manageable. You can choose to go out and find hidden passageways and areas if you want, and A Township Tale will reward you for your curiosity. Although it might seem limited at first, the world is deceptively expansive if you know where the right pathways, bridges, and passageways are. But be warned: The further you venture away from town, the more you’ll need to be on the lookout for all manner of monsters like Wyrms (sand worms that pop out of the ground) or Gotera (tree monsters that shoot nuts at you).
5. The Community
But of all the great things to love about A Township Tale, by far the greatest is its truly amazing community of players. Many online games these days boast a “great community” but in the case of A Township Tale it really is true. On many servers I have joined, other players have actively helped me, taught me about the game, and offered to join me in my quests even though I was new to the game and of little use to them. And as I mentioned above with role playing, when everyone in the town is playing a role, working together and cooperating, it is a truly beautiful and positive thing to be a part of. And there is a strong and active resistance to toxicity because it just doesn’t fit well with the way the game is designed; to put it simply, a toxic player is a rogue player, and playing A Township Tale as a rogue is not a very effective way to play. Sure, you can play A Township Tale completely by yourself, but I don’t recommend it because the fun is really in the cool way everyone comes together into this real, working town.
There you have it — 5 things that have us totally stoked for A Township Tale in VR. Sure, it’s not perfect and there are still some things the devs are working on, but keep in mind this is a work in progress that’s only going to get better. Bringing such a massive MMO experience to VR is no easy task, but developers Alta have been great about responding to player feedback and updating the game regularly. Trust us when we say A Township Tale could be the big, killer VR experience you’ve been waiting for.
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