Into the Radius has an amazing atmosphere. I wouldn’t say the developers perfectly captured STALKER (which is clearly a big inspiration), but they got very close while still creating something of their own. The whole setting feels like Northern/Eastern Europe: Soviet-style furniture, cars, houses, everyday objects - it all makes sense visually. At the same time, the enemies feel more inspired by Prey from Arkane. The “memories” left behind by other people are very atmospheric and pleasant to encounter, and they don’t get in the way of gameplay. Lighting and the day/night system are also excellent and sometimes create incredible situations. Once I had to escape a house in complete darkness, surrounded by enemies, almost out of ammo and with literally one bar of health left. To survive, I had to sort through all my magazines in the light of my flashlight just to scrape together a few bullets. The HUD and backpack system are pretty bad (more on that later), but there are also smart ideas, like the small belt pouch and the whole philosophy of organizing items. You basically have floating storage space, and if you throw everything in randomly, you won’t be able to grab what you need in a critical moment. Different pockets have different purposes, and sometimes this is used very cleverly. For example, the underarm slots where you usually store a knife or tool can also hold a small Silent Hill 3–style flashlight, and it works just as well there, which is very useful considering some enemies react to light.
All the core mechanics feel well thought out. The basic loop of going into the Radius, coming back, managing resources, and going out again supports itself nicely. Technically, you could stay in the zone forever, and I wouldn’t be surprised if people did hardcore challenges like “how long can you survive without returning.” Hunger and sleep push you forward, but you can sometimes find beds even inside the zone, and food is fairly common. Still, you always need to return to base to drop off loot before the zone resets - or stay longer to immediately farm respawned items. This loop works really well. You can play just for survival, but there are also main and side missions and an actual story campaign. In today’s VR landscape, where most games are gimmicks or sandboxes, Into the Radius stands out. It’s not the only game like this and not the best VR game ever, but it’s one of the very few that really tries to be a full experience.
I really like how difficulty grows naturally. It feels a bit like Dark Souls: in theory, you can go to very dangerous parts of the map early on, but enemies and the environment clearly show whether you’re ready or not. That said, a big part of the first half of the game is spent with just a basic pistol and a sawed-off shotgun. Still, there is actually a decent variety of weapons, and they work realistically: bolts, magazines, feeding rounds, and so on. The ammo system is especially interesting. You don’t just have boxes of ammo, but also magazines that must be loaded separately. You can’t just shove bullets from a box straight into most guns (except weapons like the shotgun). This creates a cool dynamic where you might carry ammo boxes on your belt and four loaded magazines on your chest, reloading depending on the situation. When enemies are nearby, you swap mags quickly, and later, in a safe place, you refill them from boxes. The only annoying thing is that you can’t easily grab the dropped magazine with your left hand, so you often have to let it fall and pick it up or catch it in midair.
The physics are decent. It’s not Half-Life: Alyx with tons of fully interactive objects, but it’s also not RE4VR where everything is nailed down. It sits somewhere in between, closer to RE4VR. Usually, you can interact only with usable items and with containers like drawers and crates. Still, almost everything you find has some purpose, so any loot feels valuable. I also really love the direct quotes from Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers. There aren’t many, but they strongly connect the game to the original source of this whole sci-fi subgenre.
There aren’t many anomalies, but there are enough and they’re varied. The only one I genuinely hate is the lightning anomaly. Even after finishing the game, I still don’t understand its proper counterplay. I avoided it almost the entire time, and only interacted with it when quest items were inside clusters of anomalies. Those moments were extremely stressful and unpleasant, with lots of reloading.
The downsides: the game is very technically janky. Objects often get stuck inside each other. The HUD is a nightmare - you constantly grab the wrong thing, sometimes in almost comical ways. Your backpack and your two-handed weapon are both on your back, but you almost always have to remove the weapon first just to access the backpack. The underarm pockets are unresponsive, so you often grab chest ammo instead. Gun cleaning is boring and not very responsive, though it kind of makes sense since it’s meant to be tedious maintenance between runs (and you can repair weapons in the field if you have resources). Controller triggers are also awkward. I came straight from Alyx, and Valve definitely did this better. Instead of your hand working like a natural fist, different triggers control different finger actions, which is confusing at first. You do get used to it quickly, though. In general, HUD and controller jank go hand in hand with VR games.
This might be on me, but I feel like the game does a poor job explaining that you can sell unwanted items. For about 20 hours, I assumed there must be a shop that unlocks later. In reality, selling is available very early, but the game doesn’t highlight it properly. Maybe it was mentioned in a tutorial and I missed it, in which case that’s my fault - but as an average player who doesn’t want to google everything, it took way too long to figure out how to sell junk.
The game has a lot of physical objects, which is fine in the zone. The problem starts when you hoard stuff at your base. Eventually, you accumulate so much loot that your base starts lagging, especially since the game clearly wants you to store items in a specific area. I’m the type of player who keeps everything “just in case”: cigarettes, extra knives, duplicate guns. Eventually I had to sell almost everything just to reduce performance issues. I don’t really blame the developers - engines can’t handle infinite physics objects - but it would’ve been great to have “virtual storage shelves,” where items are saved but not physically simulated, while keeping real shelves for decoration.
Another minus: you can’t jump. At all. It’s absurd. You get used to it, but sometimes it leads to ridiculous situations where you can’t step over a small rail at a train station and have to use the “unstuck” function, which is buggy and might teleport you onto a roof or under a building.
Most artifacts are pretty useless. The only truly useful one is the regeneration artifact, and maybe Cat’s Eye. Everything else is basically just for selling, and the game doesn’t even hide that. This feels like a missed opportunity. Some artifacts look like they should have cool functions — once I thought I found a reusable grenade, but it turned out to be just another sellable item.
In the end, this is a very good game. I haven’t had a game grab me this hard in a long time - I genuinely wanted to play it every day (even though my headset battery and my head itself needed breaks). The weapon mechanics are done on a very high level, which makes it even more impressive that this became a full game and not just a shooting range simulator. If you enjoy STALKER-like games or extraction shooters and you own a VR headset, then Into the Radius is an excellent game for you.
