House of the Dying Sun (and Oculus CV1)

Hey folks!

I received an Oculus Rift CV1 about a month ago, and while it’s pretty ‘cool’, I can’t say it’s worth the price of entry, mostly because of the lack of touch controls / hand-tracking. All of the most enjoyable games out there greatly benefit from, or require, that means of input.

Well, almost all. Enter: House of the Dying Sun (previously known as Enemy Starfighter)


This is easily the most fun I’ve had in Space Combat since Tie Fighter. The game beautifully mixes elements of tactical strategy with space-fighter combat (it’s primary focus). Combat is tight and fluid. One can quickly fall into a state of “flow”, linking from one target to the next, engaging drift mode and slipping past the defenses of a large capital ship, while unloading a punishing volley of torpedoes from within the target’s shield radius.

Missions are short, 5-10 minutes each tops. There is a constant time-pressure, as your missions are all incursion style strikes - hit and runs. Inevitably, the enemy’s flagship will catch up with your small incursion fleet, warping in to stop you. You are outgunned, and should quickly extract to the rendesvous point.

Despite the relatively short single-player campaign (6 hours), introduction of a ‘Daily Challenge Mode’ with competitive leaderboards has kept me coming back every 24 hours to scratch the itch. Overall, I highly recommend this game. Note, it doesn’t actually require VR - in fact, it was designed for both use cases from the get-go. I have only played in VR, however, so can’t give my opinion on that.

I’ve posted this here mostly in case other fans of this genre hadn’t heard of the game they can check it out. But, also, I:B can borrow a lot from HOTDS. The combat “feels” so right. The audio cues are perfect: you know, without having to reference your cockpit gauges, that your secondary weapon just finished reloading, that your target just lost shields, that an enemy was just destroyed, that one of your cap ships is taking hull damage, etc.

So, have you played? If so, what are your impressions?

7 Likes

Tried, got boring quick. I’m sure it’s way more fun with a 3D headset.

I bought this on Steam Early Access. Mostly just to support it. I like the idea that you can direct the ships in your fleet.
I’m not going to play it before the full game is released. I’ve had a few beta-burnouts…

I just got finished trying it (with a VIVE on a GTX 1080 in 2x resolution). I personally did not like it very much (refunded it). The graphics are okay and the game art and presentation is very cool, but it just doesn’t feel like space to me and the game mechanics did not appeal to me. Its not bad though, I’d say its one of the better games I’ve played on the Vive, just not exactly my cup of tea.

House of the Dying Sun released out of early access a few days ago.

Scott Manley made a nice update video … I just love the part where he lets the game talk for itself, the sound design is really gorgeous.

5 Likes

I bought it after the EA release and played through it on tier 3 difficulty, great fun. I just hope they take the tech and make more game with it.

1 Like

Quick bump to say the soundtrack is now available for free by the artist…

4 Likes