Iron Man VR


Marvel's Iron Man VR is a virtual reality shooter video game developed by American studios Camouflaj and Darkwind Media and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation 4's PlayStation VR headset. It is based on the Marvel Comics superhero Iron Man, and is inspired by the long-running comic book mythology and adaptations in other media. In the main storyline, a mysterious computer hacker and terrorist known only as Ghost begins attacking Tony Stark and his company, seeking revenge for deaths caused by weapons the company manufactured in the years prior to Stark becoming Iron Man.
Gameplay is presented from a first-person perspective, calling on the player to navigate the game's virtual space by using the flying mechanics and weapon systems of the Iron Man armor to attack enemies primarily in aerial combat across several environments. Iron Man can freely navigate the different environments in the game accessed through a linear progression of different levels, interacting with characters, undertaking missions, and unlocking new armor upgrades by progressing through the main story or completing challenge modes outside of the story.
After a series of delays and a disruption in the game's production caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the game was released for PlayStation VR on July 3, 2020. The game received "mixed or average" reviews according to review aggregator Metacritic.

Gameplay

Iron Man VR is an aerial shooter played from a first-person perspective, taking place across various global locales as Iron Man attempts to thwart his enemy Ghost and the various combat drones she employs to bring ruin to Tony Stark and his company. As a virtual reality game, it is played from a first-person perspective, employing the use of one PlayStation Move controller in each of the player's hands to allow control of Iron Man's palm-mounted repulsor weapons and flight stabilizers. Based on hand and head positioning of the PlayStation VR headset and Move controllers, the player can freely fly around the game's various environments in order to attack combat drones while also interacting with elements of the game map in order to do things like deactivate explosives, repair broken items or put out fires.
Environments can be navigated freely as opposed to employing elements of rail shooting, with the player in total control of roaming each game map by use of the Iron Man armor. The player uses the weapon systems of the armor including the repulsors and various auxiliary weapons to defeat enemies, and can also employ melee attacks that are given additional power through the use of the armor's jet propulsion systems. Successful completion of missions earns the player up to five "research points" based on their received score-based star rating, which can then be used to purchase upgrades to the Iron Man armor that can be crafted and installed in Tony Stark's garage between missions. The upgrades can augment the capabilities of the Iron Man armor while also adding new auxiliary weapons that have different effectiveness in different combat scenarios, and the player can create and choose between two different armor loadouts while in the garage featuring different upgrades and armor shaders.
Cutscenes which progress the story are also presented from the first-person perspective, allowing the player to interact with objects and look around freely while story material is taking place around them. Challenge modes consist of racing and combat-based exercises taking place through the game's pre-existing environments, giving the player an additional opportunity to earn research points they can use to upgrade the armor.

Synopsis

Characters and setting

Iron Man VR features an ensemble cast of characters drawn from the history of Iron Man and Avengers comics. Tony Stark is a billionaire industrialist and weapons manufacturer who, at some point prior to the beginning of the game's tutorial, was captured by terrorists and held hostage with fellow captive with whom he surreptitiously built the original Mark I version of the Iron Man armor in an effort to escape their captors. Yinsen was killed in the ensuing escape, and upon his return to the United States, Stark announced that his company would stop manufacturing weapons and publicly revealed himself as the superhero Iron Man.
Five years after ceasing the manufacture of weapons and becoming Iron Man, Stark is regularly assisted by the newly-appointed CEO of Stark Industries, Pepper Potts, as well as his sentient A.I. assistant F.R.I.D.A.Y.. The story also sees Stark revive another A.I. called "the Gunsmith", made in Stark's image and who formerly assisted Stark Industries with designing new weapons. The adventure also brings Iron Man into contact with other Marvel Comics mainstay characters. S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Nick Fury used to have a more cordial relationship with Stark, which became strained when he became Iron Man and no longer supplied S.H.I.E.L.D. with weapons, though Fury and Stark still respect and admire each other. He has a generally friendlier relationship with Fury's Deputy Director, Maria Hill. Encountered villains include Ghost and Living Laser.
Iron Man VR depicts fictional locations and entities adapted from both the Marvel Comics Universe and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, including a Stark Tower based in Shanghai, Tony Stark's beachfront home in Malibu and a S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, described as Tony's final weapons project before retiring the weapons design arm of Stark Industries. In-game references are also made to Stark's membership in the Avengers, where he mentions designing and installing new technology into the team's headquarters, while the player can also locate blueprints for transforming Stark Tower into Avengers Tower. Buildings in the game's rendition of downtown Shanghai also make reference to other Marvel companies, including Roxxon Energy Corporation and Advanced Idea Mechanics.
Oscorp is also seen in-game, with lore presented during loading screens explaining that the company was founded by both Norman Osborn and Otto Octavius, matching at least one element of that company's story in Marvel's Spider-Man.

Plot

Soon after escaping the capture of terrorists in Afghanistan with the aid of, billionaire weapons industrialist Tony Stark revealed himself to the world as the superhero Iron Man. To fully move on from his former life as a weapons dealer, Stark deactivates "the Gunsmith," an A.I. construct modeled after Tony himself who was programmed to design weapons and plan out battle tactics. While breaking the news to Gunsmith, Tony reveals that the A.I.'s "retirement" will consist of "full internet privileges" and that his consciousness will continue to exist. Five years later, Stark has cemented himself as a hero and member of the Avengers, having walked away entirely from weapons manufacturing, much to the dismay of S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Nick Fury.
After appointing his former assistant Virginia "Pepper" Potts to the role of CEO at Stark Industries — now a clean energy company — Stark is attacked aboard a company jet by a mysterious computer hacker known as "Ghost," who uses a tech suit that allows her to fly and to phase in and out of solid matter. Ghost blames Stark for all the deaths that have been caused by his weapons over the years and seeks revenge by reviving a series of Stark-manufactured combat drones she uses to attack the company across the planet. With Pepper hospitalized and having been blindsided by the effectiveness of Ghost's initial attack, a desperate Tony reactivates the Gunsmith. Gunsmith was instrumental in the designs of the drones now being used by Ghost, and his reactivation comes much to the dismay of Tony's current A.I. assistant F.R.I.D.A.Y. who has been modeled to exemplify Tony's new, more heroic aspirations and goals.
After Stark Tower in Shanghai is attacked, Iron Man races there and finds Ghost waiting for him, where she continues to blame him for the deaths caused by his weapons as well as her desire to seek justice for "Tim Shung," a name that neither Tony nor F.R.I.D.A.Y. recognize. At a pivotal moment in a dramatic drone battle, Gunsmith revives Iron Man's powerful unibeam weapon, allowing him to lay waste to the drones attacking. Soon afterward, Ghost attracts the attention of S.H.I.E.L.D., and Fury summons Stark to a Helicarrier to offer intel on Ghost. Ghost then appears and attacks the Helicarrier before being driven off by the combined might of S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel and Iron Man. It's here that Stark learns a former disgruntled employee named Arthur Park has been revived by Ghost and now calls himself Living Laser, who uses his laser armor technology to assist Ghost in seeking his own revenge on Stark.
Ghost then launches an attack on Stark's home in Malibu, which leads to Gunsmith employing orbital satellites with immense power to destroy Ghost's contingent of drones and causing a massive amount of collateral damage. In response, F.R.I.D.A.Y. leaves the Stark Mansion in protest of Tony's continued association with the Gunsmith, whom she sees as embodying the dangerous impulses of his former, pre-heroic lifestyle. After tracking both villains to a Roxxon facility in Kazakhstan, Iron Man defeats Living Laser and Ghost. Against his wishes, Gunsmith commandeers the Iron Man armor and attempts to kill Ghost, but Tony resists and the ensuing chaos allows Ghost to escape. Tony fires the Gunsmith, who angrily leaves the area.
Tony returns home to find F.R.I.D.A.Y. who reassures him and refocuses him on the mission at-hand. After Living Laser launches a solo attack on the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, Iron Man defeats him and discovers the location of the base he and Ghost have been using: the same cave in Afghanistan that Tony escaped from with his original, Mark I Iron Man armor that Yinsen helped him to build. Returning to the cave and finding the original armor still inside, Tony is attacked by Ghost who forcefully removes the arc reactor keeping him alive from his chest. As Tony struggles through a "trial" Ghost has planned, he learns that she was orphaned as a child by an attack using Stark weapons, and that her desire for revenge led her to correspond online with a faceless Stark employee. This apparent employee, Tim Shung, was a hero and a whistleblower in her eyes who selflessly revealed the extent of Stark's criminality before allegedly being killed by the company.
F.R.I.D.A.Y. helps recover the arc reactor and Iron Man engages in a final confrontation with Ghost, defeating her and imprisoning her aboard the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier. Shortly thereafter, Tony and Pepper come to realize that "Tim Shung" is actually an anagram for "Gunsmith," who reveals himself as the mastermind behind the ordeal involving Ghost in an effort to maneuver Stark Industries into producing weapons again, believing the world was safer with Stark weapons on the market. Realizing he cannot go up against Gunsmith using his regular armor that the rogue A.I. has access to, Stark retrofits the newly-recovered Mark I armor and returns to his home to face off against Gunsmith.
In a confrontation outside Tony's home, Iron Man allies with Ghost, who breaks into the home through an impenetrable barrier surrounding the mansion erected by Gunsmith, and she feeds information to Iron Man about Gunsmith's vulnerabilities as he goes up against a giant construct of the A.I. wearing an advanced version of the Iron Man armor. With Ghost's help, Iron Man defeats Gunsmith and destroys him once and for all, and Ghost escapes once again observing an uneasy truce with Iron Man. Months later, Iron Man and Pepper — now in her own Rescue armor — are called into space by Nick Fury to examine a S.H.I.E.L.D. orbital satellite that has become suspiciously unresponsive.

Development

The game was revealed on March 25, 2019 during SIE's first "State of Play" online presentation. The game features a new suit for Iron Man, referred to as the "Impulse Armor," designed by comic book artist Adi Granov. Granov became closely associated with Iron Man after serving as the artist on the "Extremis" story arc released in 2005-2006, and has since contributed design work to the first Iron Man feature film. Granov previously collaborated with Marvel Games on a new costume featured in Marvel's Spider-Man.
On April 2, 2020, the developer announced that the game would be delayed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On May 12, the game was announced to be released on July 3.

Release

Iron Man VR was released worldwide on July 3, 2020, exclusively for PlayStation VR. Customers who pre-ordered the game were given instant access to some unlockable, in-game features, including an exclusive theme for the PlayStation 4 dashboard as well as instant unlocks for four shaders of the game's rendition of the Iron Man armor, referred to as "decos." The decos included with the pre-order include "origin armor", "vintage armor", "silver centurion armor", and "ultraviolet armor".
The game also released a "digital deluxe edition," which featured another custom PlayStation 4 dashboard theme, the full soundtrack of the game, 12 instantly unlocked research points to use in upgrading the armor in-game, as well as four additional custom armor decos. These include "golden Avenger armor", "black centurion armor", "sun stinger armor", and "stealth armor".