Firewall Zero Hour Revitalised My Love For VR Gaming

I don’t think I’m the only one who’s allowed their PSVR to collect dust. While I was blown away by my early experiences within the headset, the buzz faded away as I struggled to find anything to really suit my tastes. Until recently, the last game I think I played with the headset was Moss, and that was for a review.

It also doesn’t help that my cable management is a complete mess. It was never great before, but a recent overhaul of my living room had meant that there were several different cables for the PSVR in different cupboards. I, for the life of me, just didn’t want to face trying to organise it again — setting up the headset can be a bit of a head-scratcher if you had thrown away the instructions.

When a review code for Firewall Zero Hour landed in my inbox, however, it was the perfect opportunity to dive back in. After plenty of sweating and cursing, I was all set for PSVR again. Within just a few matches of Firewall, I began to question why I had ever stopped playing VR.

There have been plenty of VR shooters for PS4 (Farpoint, Superhot VR), but whether it’s down to them not really doing much to make the most of the tech or just not dealing with the notorious “drifting” all that well, they’re not quite as freeing or innovative as they should be. The team at First Contact must have learnt from the mistakes of their peers (perhaps most soberingly the disaster of Bravo Team) as Firewall is the definitive way to experience tactical murder in virtual reality.

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Thanks to a team who have years of experience within the FPS wheelhouse, Firewall Zero Hour is first and foremost just a great shooter. Using a gun feels as primitively satisfying as it should and all without disembodied hands, too. It’s in how it utilises virtual reality as an asset and not just a gimmick that the game really begins to come into its own.

With some surprisingly accurate tracking, you are able to use your head to look around corners and aim your gun with your choice of controller. It’s tense and reminiscent of Rainbow Six Siege, which is a compliment. As a tactical shooter with a heavy emphasis on teamwork, there’s more than a few shared strands of DNA between the two, though Firewall is more welcoming for beginners.

The community is a big reason for that. Almost everyone I played with was friendly and light-hearted but also driven to win, which made it easy to pair up with them. One guy would shriek my name with the most sincere of melodrama whenever he was in trouble, like it was a slightly less athletic version of Prison Break.

It’s easy to become lost in Firewall Zero Hour, to really feel like part of a team. As a fairly neurotic dude, I was never able to fully take myself out of the real world as a guy with a pizza neck hunched over and breathing a little too heavily, but there were moments when I simply forgot that I had a headset on.

My time with Firewall Zero Hour left me hungry for more, and not just for the game itself. For the first time since I first haphazardly set up my PSVR, I am ready to immerse myself in virtual reality gaming. The only question is which game is going to pick up Firewall’s baton and run with it?