Synth Riders Synthwave Essentials 2 Review

My favourite rhythm-based VR game recently got a new update, with Synthwave Essentials 2 - bringing along eight new tracks to bop and weave to. It’s quite proud of the fact that it brings along Muse, which is even a name that I recognise, and I know nothing about music.

Admittedly, part of the press release did mention that it “pays tribute to 80s music culture”, and I do like a bit of 80s music! Yes, I’m that sort of person.

Synthwave Essentials 2 consists of five paid DLC songs:

• Algorithm (Alternate Reality Version) - Muse
• The Dark Side - Muse
• Running In The Night - FM-84 & Ollie Wride
• Days of Thunder - The Midnight
• Tech Noir (Carpenter Brut Remix) - Gunship

I’ll level with you here and now - these are all great songs that got me grooving and jiving. However, Days of Thunder is the standout track to me. It’s not from the movie of the same name, it just hits all of those 80s themes for me. The start has you riding the rails as a motor revs, and a car drives off! I mean, on the easy difficulty, anyway. On harder difficulties, boy does it get challenging!

Kluge Interactive has actually gone a bit further with this DLC pack, as Algorithm isn’t just a track to play on. It heralds the first Synth Riders Experience, which is to say that it’s not an ordinary stage. You can play it as such, and those with certain disabilities may wish to keep it as such - according to the warning that pops up when you select the track.

The Algorithm experience still has the notes flying at you in time with the music, but there is no scoring involved. It’s literally an experience, and it’s quite difficult to put into words what it is like. Rather than being on a standard backdrop, everything is tailored to the song. Objects rise and fall, colours shift and flow, and I’ll admit that the first time I played it I was in awe. “Transformative VR experience” indeed!

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Of course, you may wonder if you have to buy these songs to play them in multiplayer. No, you do not! So long as the host owns the song, or any paid DLC song, you can all play it together.

As with their other DLC, there are three songs that are free for all players:

• Abyss (Gancher & Ruin Remix) - 3FORCE (feat. Scandroid)
• Empire of Steel (MASKED Remix) - Essenger (feat. Scandroid)
• Automatic Call - NINA

That means that there are 67 songs (only 15 that you have to pay separately for). It’s actually funny that when I was reviewing the main game, I would pick the random option to choose my next song. It rarely chose one from this DLC pack, and when I came to review Synthwave Essentials 2 itself, I realised that I’d never played two of the songs! Whereas I’ve played Days of Thunder about a dozen times - mainly through choice.

I can’t think of anything to fault Synthwave Essentials 2. It’s a great bit of DLC, and I can’t wait for more Synth Riders Experiences.