Take your first step beyond the pull of gravity and a new world opens up before your eyes. This fascinating journey into space becomes a reality in Solara One, a VR experience created by AC Reality Studios.
Stepping into the world of Solara One feels like a tranquil escape into the unknown. With immersive gameplay, eye-catching graphics, and a dreamy soundtrack, the game is an experience designed for those who want to explore and relax while traveling through the infinite universe. This unique blend of tranquility and awe makes Solara One a visually and emotionally rich experience that somehow gamifies the act of meditation and relaxation.
Gameplay
Solara One’s gameplay (if you want to call it that) is primarily focused on exploration and relaxation. The idea here is to immerse yourself in the cosmic wonders that surround you, rather than any aggressive endeavors or dark, ominous sci-fi stories as seen in most recent VR space titles. First, if you choose to play the sequences in order, players will take a short, lush jungle ride in a space taxi to the spaceport, where they can soak in the serene cloudscapes before departing for their final destination: Solara One.
The detailed representation of these environments acts as a gentle introduction to the in-game movement mechanics and interactions, providing good preparation for what lies ahead. The spaceport environment not only serves as a tutorial for gameplay mechanics, but is also a teaching hub and a place for guided meditation. The upper levels feature a series of decks where players can relax, each lined with crystals of different colors. Each crystal offers a different style of guided meditation to enjoy before boarding the transporter that will take you to orbit.
Once you finally reach the ship, Solara One offers an environment where weightlessness is the linchpin of the experience. While you won’t float within the ship’s lounge environment, interactable objects around you will tend to do so at times. The ship also has a rotational motion that some players may find jarring, so it’s nice to see a slider included that lets you control the rotation speed. Other than the destination panel and this rotation speed slider, there wasn’t much to do inside the ship. There were other doors, but they couldn’t be opened. Here’s hoping that Solara One developers build more into the station so we can see behind those doors in the future.
Outside of the spaceship, players can take part in guided or unassisted zero-gravity spacewalks after passing through wormholes to other celestial bodies. The engagement level of these activities is largely passive, with the game offering a total of five guided tours, with one added in a recent update now allowing players to use in-game hand-mounted thrusters. This is a welcome addition, giving players the freedom to explore at their own pace, allowing them to truly soak up the beauty and wonder of the highly detailed landscapes the game has to offer… each one is fascinating yet soothing, resonating with the experience’s core theme of relaxation.
Graphic quality and sound design
Solara One sets the bar high for the Quest 3 with its meticulous attention to detail, but it still lacks the polish seen in other ambitious standalone titles like Red Matter and Asgard’s Wrath 2. On Earth, every leaf in the jungle, every drop of water, and every cloud in the sky is rendered in astonishing detail, and it’s clear that the landscapes are striving to exude realism, even if the limits of what the Quest 3 is capable of start to become apparent at times.
The graphics become even more impressive once players step into space; celestial bodies, star fields, and wormholes are all rendered with mesmerizing beauty, making the vastness of space feel real and close. Astronauts sometimes refer to this feeling of being very small while floating above a planet as the “overview effect,” and I felt a similar sensation on several occasions during my virtual spacewalks.
Solara One’s sound design blends perfectly with the experience and complements the visuals nicely. On Earth, ambient sounds of nature provide a calming backdrop, enhancing the sense of serenity. As players explore space, the soundscape changes to a more muted tone that complements the silence of the vacuum, mixing the gentle hum of the space station with the crackle of the new jetpack thrusters. These subtle audio elements blend with the deafening silence of space, seamlessly integrating with the relaxing style of gameplay to enhance the sense of immersion. To me, all of this seemed to help create a meditative effect.
Control and Comfort
Solara One’s control scheme is very simple. The primary mode of navigation is to select traditional smooth movement or teleport with the left stick, combined with snap turns with the right stick. There is currently no smooth turn option in the menu, so hopefully AC Reality Studios will consider adding it in a future update. The manual jetpack control feature added in the latest update is a game changer. The addition of this feature allows for intuitive and responsive movement when performing multiple zero-gravity spacewalks.
Similar VR experiences
Elite Dangerous – No Man’s Sky – Lone Echo
Solara One isn’t the first VR game to offer space exploration, but it sets itself apart with its emphasis on relaxation and the quality of the visual and audio experience. Titles like Elite Dangerous and No Man’s Sky also offer vast space environments to explore, but often combine that exploration with survival elements and narrative-driven quests.
Compared to games like Lone Echo, which offer a narrative-driven experience with complex interactions and storylines, it’s clear that Solara One’s focus is entirely on the aesthetic and meditative aspects of space, prioritizing a free-form exploration model based on an atmosphere of tranquility and wonder.
Conclusion
Overall, Solara One offers a breathtaking journey through both familiar and unknown regions of space. With a primary focus on relaxation, the experience offers a unique VR journey to the stars that sets it apart from other titles in the genre while providing a visually captivating and emotionally soothing experience. While it may not particularly appeal to those looking for the intense gameplay found in other space-based VR titles, Solara One will surely satisfy anyone looking to experience a beautifully crafted virtual reality environment that offers unparalleled immersion.
If you’re looking for a VR experience that offers both tranquility and awe, a journey with Solara One may be just the escape you need. And remember, in a game that lets you explore the infinite possibilities of the universe, the only limit is your own curiosity. Let your imagination take flight, and who knows what far-flung galaxies it may take you to?
Solara One is currently on sale for $9.99 and can be found at the link below.
Solara One Metaquest
Solara One is a one-of-a-kind virtual reality experience that takes you on a relaxing journey to the edge of the galaxy. Immerse yourself in tranquil jungles and mesmerizing cloudscapes, then soar into Earth orbit, experience a breathtaking spacewalk and travel further into the depths of space, to the edge of your imagination…
