Grim's foundation is solid, but there's clearly much work to be done in terms of user experience, content variety, and overall polish
Grim drops you onto the red surface of Mars with nothing but basic tools and your wits to survive. As a fan of survival games, I was intrigued by the premise of bringing Rust-like gameplay mechanics to VR, especially in a sci-fi setting. After spending several hours with this early access title, I've got some thoughts to share about this ambitious project.
The game takes place on a desolate Mars, where failed colonization attempts have left behind various structures and resources for survivors to scavenge. The environment is exactly what you'd expect from Mars - lots of red dirt, rocky terrain, and a harsh, inhospitable landscape stretching as far as the eye can see. One thing that I kinda liked about this game is connected to Ghosts of Tabor, an excellent VR game that I've played the most in VR and that I absolutely love.
The most interesting locations are the massive domes scattered across the map. These enclosed environments offer a stark contrast to the barren Martian surface, housing lush greenery, various structures, and even wildlife. It's within these domes that you'll find most of your early-game resources and equipment.
Like any proper survival game, Grim features multiple systems you need to manage. There's hunger, thirst, and uniquely, oxygen levels to monitor. Oxygen management adds an interesting layer to exploration - you've got roughly 20 minutes of air before needing to find a refill station, usually located near dome entrances.
Food can be obtained through various means, including hunting wildlife within the domes or gathering mushrooms. I learned the hard way that raw mushrooms aren't the most efficient food source, but they'll keep you alive in a pinch by addressing both hunger and thirst.
The crafting and building systems are where Grim shows its Rust DNA. Resource gathering involves the familiar routine of hitting rocks and wood piles with your starting rock and later tools you can craft like stone or metal pickaxes, axes, and hammers. Scattered barrels and crates provide additional resources and items like fuel, scrap and whatnot when destroyed.
Building your base is an interesting experience in VR. While the system works similarly to Rust, executing it in virtual reality presents unique challenges. Creating a simple shelter requires careful placement of foundations, walls, and other components. The building mechanics work, but the control scheme takes some getting used to as the game has no tutorial whatsoever, heck it doesn't even have button prompts telling you what you need to press to do anything - so expect to spend some time fumbling with button combinations and placement angles before getting comfortable with the system. Base building persistence, if you place a tool cupboard with enough resources inside it, means your structures remain in the world until server wipes, adding long-term meaning to your construction efforts, but again the game doesn't tell you any of this, yet.
New players are thrown into the world without explanation of basic mechanics or controls. While some might appreciate this hardcore approach, it can lead to frustration when trying to perform simple tasks like reloading weapons or accessing certain features.
Combat in Grim currently feels basic but functional. The nailgun, one of the early weapons you can craft, offers a satisfying feel when firing, though reloading mechanics aren't immediately obvious. As I said before, you have to figure out how to reload. I spent like 5 minutes trying to figure out how to reload the damn thing. In the end it was fairly simple as I just had to move my hand to my shoulder, press the trigger and a clip would appear on my hand that I could then insert it in my gun. But figuring that out was a bit of a pain.
Exploration yields various points of interest beyond the domes. There are bunkers housing hostile NPCs, an outpost for trading scrap (similar to Rust's system), and various abandoned structures to loot. The tension of exploring these locations while managing your oxygen supply adds an interesting wrinkle to the typical survival game loop. I found a bunker where I shot some scientists and got a couple of bullets for a gun that I did not have. I found a knife, a lamp and generator in a crate inside a wharehouse. I got mauled to death by a bear inside another dome. I died to radiation as I was running towards another point of interest. I died of hunger, I died of thirst and I died cause my oxygen run out after only spawning in the game with like 180 seconds due to a bug. However, in my playtime, I didn't die to any other players.
Grim is always online and the server population varies significantly. The multiplayer aspects work as intended - you can encounter other players, trade, fight, or cooperate. The server that I chose to play with a low enough ping had only one other guy playing. And he was a nice dude, we chatted a little bit, he explained some things to me and we both went our separate ways. Now if he had a gun or if I had a gun, we would have probably killed each other, but we didn't and that was a cool experience.
Being in early access, Grim's presentation is currently a mixed bag. The VR implementation works well enough for basic interactions, but many other simple things like just opening a door are just a simple button press and that's not cool in VR. Crouch walkig is also kinda busted in a very hilarious way, which you can see in the video above. The Martian environment, while thematically appropriate, can feel sparse and repetitive as it's mostly just red dirt and rocks with the occasional dome or structure.
It's important to emphasize that Grim is in early access, and it shows. While core systems are functional - building works, crafting functions, combat operates as intended - everything feels like it needs way way more additional polish and refinement. The foundation is solid, but there's clearly much work to be done in terms of user experience, content variety, and overall polish.
The game successfully translates many survival game mechanics to VR, and when everything clicks - when you're building your base, exploring domes, or hunting for resources while managing your oxygen supply - you can see glimpses of what Grim might become with continued development. However, for now, it's a promising but very-rough-around-the-edges experience that will appeal primarily to survival game enthusiasts willing to overlook its current limitations.
The game was reviewed on a Quest 3 via a code provided by PR. Grim is available on Meta Quest and PCVR.
