Spymaster Review

A brilliant time-rewinding VR spy adventure that makes you work with yourself.

Virtual reality games constantly add new elements to make their experiences feel distinct from traditional gaming. But every once in a while, a game comes out with an idea that really shows VR's creative potential. Spymaster is one of those experiences, taking the old fantasy of being an international secret agent and treating it from a refreshingly different angle.

Spymaster takes a similarly innovative approach to virtual reality from the team behind A Fisherman’s Tale. The developers have expertise in building experiences that exploit VR in unexpected ways, and that creative thinking is instantly obvious here. It blends a VR escape room, spy thriller, and puzzle-adventure feel like I Expect You To Die, while also featuring a time-based action concept like SUPERHOT.

You might expect a James Bond experience: infiltrating enemy installations, taking out security forces, and saving the globe from an evil organization.

Spymaster sets its story within an international espionage organization and introduces you to a group of secret operatives who work together to execute risky assignments. Instead of a single traditional protagonist going through the whole adventure, the tale revolves around three agents you control: Tick, Mulligan, and Oscar, a.k.a. OCR.

Your secret base is a boat, and the adventure begins there. You are exposed to the strange personalities and the mysterious cassette device, a prototype that allows you to control agents across many points in time. Tick is the more combat-heavy operative, equipped with a gun that lets you take down hostile threats. Mulligan has a taser, which is quite useful when dealing with electronics, security systems, terminals, and cameras.

The story also introduces a villain, Prous, and other characters tied to the secret operation. Missions slowly introduce you to diverse situations, like a high-speed train incident and a bomb that needs disarming. This task, in particular, shows how the tale gives you fresh circumstances for the gameplay rather than sending you through the same facilities over and over.

Unfortunately, the storytelling doesn’t match the gameplay. The main premise gives you enough incentive to move from mission to mission, but the characters don't get enough development to make their interactions especially memorable.

Spymaster's greatest achievement is easily its gameplay, thanks to its unique time-rewinding system. You don’t control all three operators at once, but work with two agents on separate missions. Your previous actions become part of the next stage of the assignment. You could use Tick to get to a button, pick up a vital object, or activate a mechanism, then rewind time and switch to Mulligan.

While you control Mulligan, Tick will continue doing what you recorded before. This lets you coordinate motions, use multiple devices, and set up opportunities that would be impossible with just one character. Until you try it, the system sounds simple, but it gets intriguing once you do. And you have to think about what your first operative is going to do, how long it's going to take to execute it, and what your second operative has to do while that sequence is unfolding.

A move at the wrong time can throw off the entire plan, and you’ll need to go back and reevaluate your approach. This is taught in the first tutorial, where you have to take an agent to a button, record his actions, reverse time, and then have another operative work in tandem to fulfill the objective. The concept is smart; however, the initial instructions can feel complicated. You'll need to experiment to learn when to rewind, switch agents, and start recording.

One of the coolest things about this mechanism is how Spymaster shows it on a holographic map.

Between rewinds, you can interact with a large holographic depiction of the world, physically holding and manipulating it to study the mission area. There are even humorous occasions when your current operative can communicate with your past self. You can wave to the character that is mimicking your movements from before. You can throw things between several versions of yourself.

You can do things that are timed in sync. These moments show how effortlessly the primary mechanic translates to VR.  Spymaster offers more than just time manipulation; it has a slew of mobility mechanics that make traversing the areas a thrill. You can climb, sprint with hand gestures, and cross places with ziplines.

The only area for improvement is movement freedom. The controls can feel limiting, especially if you want to crouch, jump, or turn corners intuitively. The game offers an engaging spy fantasy, but doesn't always give you the flexibility you’d expect from a full-blown secret-agent adventure. The basic idea of Spymaster continually proves its strength in puzzle-solving.

The game doesn’t merely throw you a handful of isolated problems that one character can crack; it routinely requires you to combine the abilities of several operatives to build a successful chain of events. For example, a mission could involve disabling a security camera using Mulligan, then switching to Tick, who needs to navigate the suddenly unmonitored area and take an access card.

Other times, you might have to kill an enemy, trigger a device, or hold a door open long enough for your second agent to go through. Then there’s the train task, another great example of the mechanism. You have to stop a bomb on a high-speed train, with multiple agents approaching the goal from different points. One operative is already on the train, and another needs to reach the right spot as the train passes.

The most satisfying moments are when you finally see how all the diverse pieces fit together.

You can spend a lot of time trying to get the timing right, and then find that a tiny modification makes it all work wonderfully. With the ability to rewind and experiment, these failures are a lot less annoying.

The difficulty is a bit all over the place. The puzzles range from simple riddles where you can get the hang of the core mechanics to ones that take a fair bit of thought. Sometimes you’ll scratch your head, especially when you need to orchestrate many actions in a tight time frame. But this is also one of the game's greatest virtues, because accomplishing a hard assignment is rewarding.

Combat, however, is far more fundamental. Tick’s gun is a basic way to eliminate foes, whereas Mulligan’s taser can deactivate certain threats and electronic systems. The biggest missed opportunity is that Spymaster doesn’t fully commit to its secret-agent concept in terms of action. The action would have been a lot more fun if it had more ability to crouch, hide behind cover, leap around, and sneak around corners.

At times, the game feels like it is holding back on its potential: it has an engaging background and characters, but it doesn't always let you experience the physical freedom of being a secret spy.

There's also a fun potential for cooperative multiplayer. The time-rewinding concept already feels like a single-player version of a coop experience, and having another person manage one of the agents could lead to fascinating circumstances. Right now the game is about directing your own past deeds, but a separate cooperative mode would be a very fun addition if the developers ever go that route.

Spymaster does not have a standard experience-point system or elaborate character-leveling features.

Instead, you advance by completing missions, learning what your operatives can do, and improving at coordinating their actions. Missions also include additional objectives and opportunities to earn bonuses by completing certain activities. The objectives make you pay attention to the mission briefing instead of just running straight for the main objective.

For example, you may need to keep both agents alive, complete certain tasks, or move in the same direction within a set time. That adds depth to the experience, because you’re not always satisfied with just finishing a task. The more familiar you become with Tick, Mulligan, and Oscar, the more you will understand timing, when you can cooperate, and how to utilize the tape without always screwing it up.

Optional objectives and the chance to improve your completion times also give you an incentive to return to the missions. However, the game may use some more progression methods. Other reasons to replay missions could include unlockable gear, greater powers, or optional objectives. Right now, progression mainly comes from mastering mechanics and completing objectives.

Visually, Spymaster uses a simple polygon visual style that gives the experience a distinctive personality. It doesn't try to compete with visually realistic VR productions. The reduced presentation makes the settings and interactive aspects rather straightforward to understand.

The character designs are rather simple, and the facial motions are very limited.

As they speak to you, their mouths don't move right. Their heads typically tilt and turn as they speak. That said, the environmental design is much more amazing. The developers have clearly focused a lot of their visual attention on the settings themselves, creating distinct environments with moody lighting and enough detail to make the different missions feel believable.

Another visual feature is the holographic mission map. It’s a remarkable presentation that seems particularly well suited to VR, as you can watch your past actions play out while physically interacting with a small representation of a place. Performance is worth emphasizing as well. The standalone Meta Quest 3 experience was seamless, and we noticed no visible frame dips during the sessions assessed.

The game also offers several comfort settings that let you personalize the experience. Motion sickness was not a major problem during the sessions evaluated. However, the older version had some technical problems. One particularly annoying issue was that the game wouldn't record when you completed a mission objective.

Overall, Spymaster's graphics mix superb ambient design with poor character depiction. The visual design fits the experience, but better animations and more polish would have made it much stronger.

Sound design plays a crucial role in creating Spymaster's mood, especially since the game relies heavily on discussions, mission briefings, and character interactions. Thankfully, the voice acting is one of the most engaging parts of the presentation. Each individual has their own personality, and their chats help create the sensation of being part of a particular kind of secret spy squad.

Mission briefings that would normally be straightforward gain personality through hilarious exchanges between operators, and entertaining moments pop up between assignments in meetings with headquarters. The language also helps set the tone of the journey. Spymaster often uses humor to lighten the experience, so not every task feels like a totally serious spy operation.

The sound effects also boost the game's interactivity, offering feedback when you trigger devices, operate systems, or achieve objectives. The audio presentation generally fits the game's nature and doesn't detract much from the puzzle-solving experience.

However, several chats and cutscenes feel a bit too long. At times, the dialogue stops the gameplay, and the character animations aren't enough to make these moments feel exciting. A little better tempo and a more vibrant presentation would have benefited a lot. Still, the voice work and character interactions add to the experience. The soundtrack isn't necessarily mind-blowing, but it strengthens the game's personality and makes the secret-agent quest even more fun.

Spymaster is one of those VR experiences that proves how a truly inventive gameplay concept can make an otherwise familiar genre feel fresh.

But its crowning glory is its core time-reversal ability, which lets you control multiple hidden operatives at different times and coordinate their actions to complete complex tasks. Another big plus is the environmental puzzles; they provide enough variety to keep you thinking throughout the campaign. The diverse agent skills allow for exciting situations, and the holographic mission map makes planning and coordinating movements feel natural in virtual reality.

The train-bomb task also shows how the game can mix its time-based features with dramatic settings. The additional four missions and the story in the full release give the total bundle more meat than the previous early-access experience. Still, there’s room for more content, and the concept has enough potential to justify new missions and extra gameplay ideas down the road.

Unfortunately, Spymaster is not without its faults. There is no real character development, the enemy never feels like much of a menace, and several bits of dialogue seem drawn out longer than they need to be. The fighting is likewise rather basic, but the movement options may allow for much more variety. Character models and animations are another area that needs some more work.

The first instruction is similarly confusing, as it introduces the cassette and how to coordinate different agents.

Better explanations would help novice players learn the core mechanic without extra trial and error. Also, adding co-op multiplayer, more foes, new equipment, and optional mission objectives could extend the game’s longevity even further.

All in all, Spymaster shines brightest when it lets you play with time, coordinate your agents, and work out tricky situations through cunning preparation. You might not get the full-on James Bond-style action you were hoping for, but it does something perhaps more interesting: it creates a VR spy adventure where your greatest weapon is thinking ahead.

If you like VR puzzle games, escape-room experiences, and inventive mechanics that utilize virtual reality, Spymaster is definitely worth checking out. It’s an original, enjoyable experience that leaves you wanting more, even if some components could use a bit more polish.