Syberia VR Review – Not Good Enough

Syberia – Remastered, a remaster of the original Syberia, recently released, improves numerous aspects of the game, from graphics and controls to puzzles and compatibility with current platforms. But that’s not the only gift for fans, as the remastered version of Syberia was released almost simultaneously with Syberia VR, bringing the first installment of the franchise to virtual reality. We played the new project and are ready to tell you how it lives up to expectations.

• Developer: Virtuallyz Gaming, Microids Studio Paris
• Publisher: Microids
• Platforms: Meta Quest 3*
• Release date: November 14, 2025

Syberia VR doesn’t change the original game’s storyline in any way, but it does offer the opportunity to experience Kate Walker’s adventure from a first-person perspective and fully immerse yourself in the game world.

However, the developers have slightly reworked some puzzles to make them more convenient for the player, who now has to directly interact with objects using their hands and controllers . This doesn’t significantly impact gameplay and certainly doesn’t detract from the overall experience. However, the changes to the challenges don’t provide much cause for excitement, as Syberia VR, unfortunately, falls short in other areas.

Undoubtedly, the opportunity to experience the events through the protagonist’s eyes is invaluable, as is the chance to chat with characters face-to-face, read notes while holding them, and explore locations with a free-angle view rather than a fixed camera . However, the implementation is seriously flawed, and the adventure can quickly become frustrating for players hoping to search for the brilliant inventor Hans Voralberg.

The first thing that catches your eye is the outdated graphics. While the “flat” remaster deserves praise for its improved visuals, the VR version, on the contrary, falls short. Jagged objects, spacious but empty locations, blurry textures—all of this is compounded by poor performance and visual bugs. The environment clearly wasn’t designed for changing perspectives: approaching any building and looking out the window reveals a flat interior, and the image is positioned at an unnatural angle, as the image was originally positioned with a static camera positioned far from the character and was not adapted to the player’s perspective.

Despite such a modest visual component, the sheer number of loading screens that appear at every transition between locations is surprising. Since Syberia has quite a few buildings and rooms that can be entered, gamers will be forced to frequently view these screens, which, of course, quickly becomes annoying.

But that’s not the only problem the player will encounter. For one, the controls lack fluidity. Regular movement with the stick is frustratingly slow, even with sprint mode enabled, and teleporting disrupts immersion. Furthermore, the sharp camera rotation system sometimes makes it difficult to accurately aim at an object or speak to an NPC.

Speaking of conversations, the subtitles are accompanied by a black background that can obscure characters’ faces, and many dialogue lines and menu items are poorly translated into Russian. This not only ruins the atmosphere but can also ruin the gameplay.

As for puzzles, things are a little better. Interacting with objects in first-person, holding them in your hands, is much more satisfying than simply pressing buttons. However, some scenes involving using objects feel quite clunky, making such puzzles take much longer to solve than solving puzzles in the “flat” version of the game. Even dialing a number on a touchscreen phone becomes a challenge, where you try in vain to hit the buttons while the heroine presses anywhere but the right spot.

Syberia VR is riddled with problems. The game wasn’t tested thoroughly enough, all the bugs weren’t caught, and the localization flaws weren’t fixed. In its current state, the project is practically unplayable, so fans of the series should wait for the developers to fix everything (if they do, but they promise to release patches with fixes). While they wait, they can enjoy the new Syberia – Remastered , which, fortunately, is almost perfectly fine, save for the cutscenes that remain unimproved.