How Does Onward’s Singleplayer Hold Up?
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Onward is a slow paced tactical shooter by Downpour Interactive. Generally when you hear about Onward, you hear about the Multiplayer mode. Tense firefights where a single well placed shot can mean victory or demise. A great VOIP system done via local chat and an in game radio your entire team can hear. Small team combat where caution and quickness mean victory. Fun stuff for those so inclined, and if that is what you are looking for in a VR shooter then Onward is definitely your game. Especially on the Oculus Quest 2, with no cord to encumber the player, it is one hell of an experience when compared to shooters on more traditional platforms.
Onward does give you the ability to play against bot enemies on any of its Multiplayer maps. However, Onward’s Singleplayer mode is often overlooked. Why is that? Is Onward worthy of being considered a Singleplayer title as well as a Multiplayer one?
Oh, and in addition to the game modes listed here Onward recently added the Mercenary Game Mode!
Mode #1: Hunt
There are two Singleplayer modes in Onward, Hunt and Evac, which come in a range of difficulty modes. Hunt is straightforward. A certain amount of enemies, selected before the start button is pressed, are spawned on the map. Shoot them all to death to win.
Just as in a Multiplayer game of Onward you can select your loadout for the fight, but this time with a whopping 18 points to work with. Grab some night vision, body armor, all the attachments you could want. Go nuts. Singleplayer is a great place to have fun with equipment you might not try in Multiplayer, or to find out which weapons you like the most.
Hunt matches tend to follow a formula. Wander around for a little while until you encounter enemies, they always come in pairs of twos. Shoot them, and all of your AI opponents on the map are alerted to exactly what your position is, and will come straight for you. Here there are basically two options. Either hold your ground and try to shoot all of them before they overwhelm or flank you. Otherwise run away and try to ambush them while they close in on the last noise you made, rinse and repeat until either you lose a gunfight or all of the enemies are deceased.
Standing your ground is straightforward, and if all of the AI enemies come at you from one direction, can be awfully easy. Running and gunning is definitely more challenging, and it can be very fun to trick the AI by shooting from one position, scrambling to another, and shooting them in the back while they run to where they think you are.
All in all Hunt is straightforward. You can jack up the amount of enemies and put them on Rookie mode to have a fun time mowing them down in masses, or turn their difficulty to the maximum and see if you can outshoot them without dying instantly. Be careful if there are too few enemies on the map. You may end up wandering in circles trying to find where they spawned, and it is tedious.
Also be mindful of your ammunition. Onward doesn’t let you know how many bullets are left in a magazine, and when against a lot of enemies it is awfully easy to run out of rounds before they run out of bodies to throw at you. There are some stashes around the maps with spares, but not many.
Mode #2: Evac
Evac’s premise is much more interesting than Hunt. Where in Hunt you are meant to wipe out all of the enemies, in Evac they are infinite, and they are there to wipe out you. When starting an Evac game you will be placed in one of a few predetermined locations on the map, and after a brief minute pairs of enemies will spawn around you and immediately close in on your position.
Hold out for long enough and a Helicopter will fly in. Now enemies that spawn will run towards the Helicopter to cut you off. You need to change up your plan and run away from the defensible position you’ve been hiding in. Go too quickly and you might get shot down while in the open. Go too slowly and more enemies will spawn, making your trip that much harder.
Make it into the Helicopter to escape and win.
Evac definitely has more creativity to it than Hunt does. There are two distinct sections of the game, hold out, and then run to safety, with different ways of approaching them. Early on you can roam around as you might in Hunt, trying to hide more than fight, or hunker down in a good spot and let your opponents come at you. When running to the chopper you can try to make it there quickly, or carefully clear corners and methodically make your way there. Whether you are low on ammunition might also help this decision.
Either way it can all be over in an instant, so every move counts. In this way Onward’s Singleplayer is similar to its Multiplayer modes. The shooting is tense and over quickly, so quick shots and quick reflexes are King. The AI opponents, depending on their difficulty, can also not hit the broad side of a barn, or accurately give you a lobotomy at a thousand yards.
The AI
Speaking of that AI, they will see you extremely quickly, even when the whole map isn’t alerted after the first shots are fired. Onward’s Singleplayer is just as much as test of reflexes and shooting skill as in Multiplayer, the opponents are just much worse at taking cover and acting tactically. Generally they will just walk straight towards where they think you are, and stand still while firing once they see you. They’re not very clever, and often will just walk right to where you are clearly waiting in ambush.
Their strength is in their numbers and their ability to surprise you from behind, because you have nobody to watch your back. Their other strength is to occasionally shoot you with instant precision. It really depends, and sometimes feels a little cheap. All in all they show no tactics and coordination. Their weapons also vary, though any weapon can hit you reliably at any range. It comes down to the difficulty selection. Rookie is ridiculously easy, but even Experienced can cause instant death.
Maps
The experience of Singleplayer Onward can vary, just as in Multiplayer, on which map you pick. Some, like Downfall, will heavily emphasize long ranged fighting due to it being so large and with few sight obstacles.
Others, like Subway, Cargo, or Suburbia, are very claustrophobic and much more entertaining for quick and up close gunplay. Picking the right map for how you want to play the game is very important. Otherwise you might bring an MP5 to an SKS fight.
In Conclusion/TLDR
At the end of the day there’s some fun to be had in Onward’s Singleplayer modes, but that well dries up quickly. With only two modes to play and uninteresting AI opponents it has difficulty standing up on its own. On the other hand it is a great place to play with loadouts and possibly have a bit of Onward’s superb shooting when you don’t have the time or patience for Multiplayer. It’s also great practice for reflexes and shooting accurately.
Though at the end of the day it only really serves as practice for the core of the game, Multiplayer. Onward is a Multiplayer focused game and that is where it truly shines.
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Onward is available on Steam as well as the Oculus Store for 24.99. Updates are often added to the game including new Maps and other options. Maybe one day there will be more to Singleplayer, but not for now.