Archangel (2017), the single-player mech shooter from Skydance Interactive, is hosting a free-access weekend starting today, going until Monday at 3:00 AM ET (local time here).

Letting you step into the cockpit of a six-story mech as the main force behind the United States Free Forces’ war against the tyrannical corporation HUMNX, you command an arsenal of weapons to shoot down the enemy and protect a post-apocalyptic America.

Playing as either Gabriel or Gabby Walker, you bond with an experimental mech AI, M1KL, and are tasked with delivering it to the secret resistance facility Deep Mountain.

Gameplay is ‘on-rails’, meaning you don’t really get to locomote around the map, instead traveling through cinematic interludes filled with arcade-style shooting.

While the $30 price tag might have been too rich for your blood at launch back in summer, this presents a good opportunity to jump in and see if it’s really for you or now without. It appears the Steam version is not offering a similar free-access weekend, although Vive users can user Revive to shoe into the game over the next few days too. The PSVR version doesn’t seem to be doing it either, so it looks like only Rift and Vive will be able to take part.

You can find the Rift version here.

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • NooYawker

    On rails.. the absolute bottom of the barrel type of movement.

    • burzum

      I started the download one minute ago and just canceled it after reading this…

      • ender707

        This game is a very fun arcade shooter with good graphics, good voice acting, and a decent story. I encourage you to play it, especially for free. Just don’t go in expecting a full movement mech sim.

        • Edward Morgan

          Also, bring a chair. The game assumes you are sitting down, and everything “feels” weird if you aren’t..

      • NooYawker

        It’s free so it wouldn’t hurt to try it. I didn’t like the game at all but that’s me. You roll somewhere. Shoot block shoot block. You get moved to another section.

      • Evgeni Zharsky

        Do you even high speed internet bro? How long does it take you to download ?

    • Lucidfeuer

      This is currently one of the best locomotion model for arcade/entertainment type VR.

    • Edward Morgan

      Nothin’ wrong with that. As long as people aren’t led to believe they are getting something else.

      Speaking of on-rails VR: Sega! Panzer Dragoon VR! You know you want to do it!

  • MW

    Ps2-level graphics :(

    • Edward Morgan

      Spoken like someone that never owned a PS2. I’m not saying the visuals are great, but they are FAR past what a PS2 can do.
      …
      For one, they run at a higher resolution than 640×480.

      • Twa Corbies

        Thank you captain obvious

        • Edward Morgan

          You’re welcome.

          In all seriousness, to me it looks like a PS4 game that is trying to render far more pixels a second than the PS4 was actually designed for, and made significant graphical compromises to get there. Which, well, is what it is. It is right at the detail level I’d expect a PSVR title to land at(I own a PS4, but not a PSVR).

          • MW

            Oh I didn’t realise it was a PSVR title because I didn’t bother to read anything else after seeing the trailer. lol.
            IMO the models look fairly, but the environments and animation bring it down. But maybe it’s par for the course for PSVR, idk.

          • Edward Morgan

            Yeah, began as PSVR, is now available on Windows(I know because of the “related article” links at the bottom). And… well, the PS4 is more limited than a “VR-ready” PC. If that is your target platform, you have to cut some corners. It is perhaps disappointing that the game was not significantly upgraded when it came to Windows, but it is what it is.