Rager review – fight robots and keep fit in VR

In the tradition of Beat Saber comes a new PSVR2 game that turns first person combat into a fitness regime, as you fight the bulge with swords and maces.

The intersection between virtual reality and fitness comes with its own contradictions. On one hand, the fact that VR’s good at making you feel physically transported into a different space, with your arm and head movements tracked and reproduced in-game, immediately makes it a more kinetic medium than conventional gaming, where you normally slump on a sofa or office chair, your thumbs the only part of you getting even a modest workout.

On the other hand, VR has you wearing a bulky display on your head, which encases your face in plastic. Even without having to move around, that invites a degree of stickiness. Games designed with fitness in mind then go out of their way to encourage rapid, vigorous motion. It’s no doubt something that will improve as headset design gets slimmer and lighter but, as it stands, games like Rager are a recipe for sweat.

Like Beat Saber and Pistol Whip before it, Rager’s a VR rhythm combat game, which has you smashing digital attackers using various weapons in time to pounding music. Standing in a circular, neon lit arena, muscular looking humanoid robots walk, then run, towards you, unleashing flying kicks, punches, and melee weapons, their blows and your ripostes timed to coincide with the big beats of its EDM soundtrack.

Separated into three zones, each comprising three levels and a boss battle, you’re introduced to the game’s weaponry, which includes swords, maces, claws, and longer two-handed weapons, all of which crackle with electricity, their haptic feedback registering blocks and blows to enemies, as well as moments when your weapons touch each other or scrape the floor. It really is a feast for the senses.

As robotic assailants leap at you, symbols appear in front of them telling you what angle you need to parry or attack them, and which weapon you need to use. In many levels you dual wield, so you need to use combinations of melee weapons to attack and defend yourself, having to adapt to each combatant’s assaults and vulnerabilities as they come at you.

Originally released on the wireless Meta Quest, you’ll find enemies charging at you from all directions, and to prevent yourself getting tangled up in the PlayStation VR2’s cable, when fighting those coming from behind you, you can use an analogue stick to flick your viewpoint around to meet those attacks, rather than physically pivoting in their direction. Although for some reason the angle you turn seems to vary, rendering it oddly unreliable. You can, of course, simply turn around but if you do you’ll invariably end up with the cable wrapped around your legs at the end of each level.

An additional logistical challenge is that you’ll be swinging both arms wildly in every direction. It would be inadvisable to stand anywhere near your TV, and you’ll also need to be aware of low-hanging light fixtures. We managed to graze a knuckle savagely pummelling a lampshade, resulting in light bruising and a swift tactical relocation of the play area before resuming hostilities.

It is a good workout though, from using both arms to slash, punch and block, to ducking out of the way of forcefields that glide towards you from both sides or above. It only takes one area and a boss fight to find yourself starting to feel as though you’d just warmed up for an aerobics class. Rager’s a game that demands to be played standing up, its physicality fundamentally unsuited to seated play.

Its battles are hugely satisfying, the act of shattering aggressive attackers with elegantly timed slashes and parries, in time to loud dance music feels cool, even if you won’t necessarily look that way to neutral observers. It’s a dichotomy all too familiar to VR players, and at least in this case you can console yourself with the fact that you’re also getting slightly fitter, to help patch up any wounded dignity.

On easy mode Rager’s nine levels and three boss battles will slip by in an hour, although there are leaderboards to compete in, and two higher difficulty levels to take on. There’s also significant replay value just because it’s fun to play, although it remains a slim volume of content for its price, and there’s certainly way less to get your teeth into here than in Beat Saber, even before all its many DLC packs.

Rager is largely bug free though, our only crash occurring after the PlayStation 5 went into power saving mode after one of the game’s training sessions, when we briefly had to take care of stuff in the real world. It’s also come in for criticism online for using an AI voiceover. In its defence, the AI is voicing the character of an AI in the game, its gravelly robotic tones and peculiar intonation suiting its role as a rogue computer, even if it does mispronounce bass – as in the lower frequencies of its musical accompaniment – as if it were talking about sea bass.

There may not be much to it, and if you have a pathological hatred of dance music this won’t be for you, but its engaging rhythm action violence and dedication to getting you moving are a winning combination.

Formats: PlayStation VR2 (reviewed), PC VR, and Meta Quest
Price: £13.99
Publisher: Impact Inked
Developer: Insane Prey
Release Date: 5th March 2026
Age Rating: 7

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