Slide into your local dungeon and salt the earth with the blood of Tyr’s followers, because it’s time to delve back into Asgard’s Wrath. Like an arrow in the dark, Asgard’s Wrath was the top-notch 30+ hour action RPG for the Oculus Rift platform that nobody saw coming late last year, fully-fledged in all its VR glory and containing more detail than some of the biggest non-VR releases around. And, as it turns out, playing an hour of Asgard’s Wrath is still a pretty fancy way to burn some calories for a nice, clean, fun-packed VR workout.
Aside from a lengthy story campaign that’s rife with plenty of opportunities for you to get down and dirty with all kinds of Norse mythology-themed monsters, Asgard’s Wrath boasts several replayable arena challenges as well. There, you can spend Hogni’s Hearts to fight wave after wave of monsters in exchange for valuable item rewards.
Sayonara Gym, Hello Asgard’s Wrath Arena
We’re setting the arena challenges as the main focus of this weapons guide because VR Fitness Insider is, after all, a fitness website and not just about fun gaming. We still like fun games, however, and we’ve found that it’s both possible (and quite fun) to keep an Asgard’s Wrath arena fight going for several minutes or several hours, depending on how long you manage to stay alive.
I managed to last for 43 minutes in one session, at the end of which my heart was racing and I’d clearly given myself something of a workout. Oddly enough, I was also covered in that wet, salty, yet utterly horrific substance that some call “sweat”. It’s strange that Facebook would let VR fans play a game in their headset that poses such potential danger, but I digress.
Now that you know the Asgard’s Wrath arena is a good place to host a VR fitness workout, you may be wondering which weapons are most useful in the Asgard’s Wrath arena. Read on to find out.
General Weapons
There are plenty of different types of weapons in Asgard’s Wrath that each of the different Heroes can use, regardless of their specialty. These can be stored in your inventory and sold or stashed away to make space, but they do have a durability rating. This means that they break after a certain amount of use.
We haven’t covered each of the total types of weapons in Asgard’s Wrath—yes, there are even more—but these are the most common you’ll find early on in the game.
Swords
Swords are the most common variety of weapons you’ll find in Asgard’s Wrath. Pick up any old sword and swing it to do slashing damage against your opponent. You can dual-wield swords, but you cannot hold a sword (or any other melee weapon) with two hands. Use your sword to parry incoming attacks, or throw it to impale an enemy at a distance.
Shields
Shields are both a tool to block incoming attacks, especially ranged attacks, as well as an improvised weapon in and of themselves. You can shield bash opponents to do a decent amount of damage and stop their attacks before they have a chance to hit you.
Daggers
Daggers do plenty of damage on their own, but you can generally carry up to 10 of the same type of dagger, which makes them great for throwing.
Throwing Axes
As with daggers, the throwing axes you find lying around in Asgard’s Wrath are fantastic in both melee combat and in ranged combat when thrown.
Maces
Maces are like swords in terms of how you handle them in combat, but they do bludgeoning damage rather than slashing damage. They’re great for breaking through an opponent’s armor.
Bows
Bows feel wonderful to use in Asgard’s Wrath. You can find bows almost everywhere you look, and with them, you can land kills from a distance with ease. You can also load your bows up with different types of arrows, dealing fire, ice, or even poison damage.
Bombs
You can find and lob various types of bombs. This is perfect for stretching out that throwing arm, but it’s even better for dealing massive damage to baddies in the arena. Bring out the bombs! Are we the baddies now? Yes, we sure are.
Ingrid’s Special Weapons
Heroic Throwing Axe
Ingrid’s sleek throwing axe does a great job of cleaving through armor and doing wild amounts of damage to foes once you’ve fully upgraded it at the blacksmith. After you’ve thrown it, hold your hand out and hold down the grip until a red reticle appears over the axe. Whirl your hand around to recall the axe back to you, causing it to slice through anything in between it and you.
Once the axe is upgraded, you can also activate a special ability that makes it explode when thrown. Just hit the trigger button before you let it fly.
Frodi’s Special Weapons
Vindsaga (Staff)
Frodi’s staff does some cool things. For one, you can make it shoot spells at a distance, and then you can also clobber your opponents with it afterward. Once upgraded, you can hold it with two hands and smack it down on the ground to create a shockwave. Vindsaga runs out of juice every few spells, so remember to let it drink the souls of fallen opponents (by holding it over their corpses) every once in a while so it can regain its power.
Summoner
Frodi’s “Summoner” is kind of like a portable battery that carries souls. Similarly to how you’d charge Vindsaga up, let the Summoner drink souls from corpses, then store it away in one of your holsters for quick access.
The Summoner passively stores souls in the background, so you can quickly restore Vindsaga’s power when you’ve run out of fresh corpses. When you’re ready to use it, throw it down on the ground and let it feed Vindsaga those juicy souls on the fly.
Stikkan’s Special Weapons
Dark Repeater
Stikkan’s crossbow, the Dark Repeater, shoots bolts way faster than you can say “Quiver!”. We’re not sure why you’d want to say “Quiver!” while you’re busy wreaking havoc on the forces of Hel, but by the time you did finish saying that, you’d be halfway done with the battle anyway.
Hraenathra’s Fangs
Stikkan is a favorite Asgard’s Wrath character because he gets two dual-bladed spears called Hraenathra’s Fangs. When they’re not busy being dual-bladed spears, they detach and turn into dual daggers connected by a very dangerous looking laser rope. We don’t need to explain how much fun it is to muck around with these Fangs in the arena; they’re the most fun, in fact. But we encourage that you try them for yourself.
Risi’s Special Weapons
Fist-Launcher
Risi can wreck opponents with his bare fists pretty easily. He also has a (fist-mounted?) fist-launching weapon. Just activate it by pointing and tapping the trigger. Because Risi is a mad genius, you can upgrade his fist-launcher at the blacksmith to make it explode on impact. We recommend you use this one until you, erm, find a sword or something.
Sledge of Hrungnir
The Sledge of Hrungnir is a massive bludgeoning weapon that propels everything it touches into the air. Armor? No problem, the Sledge of Hrungnir eats armor for breakfast. It’s also bound to grant you the most survivability in the arena out of any other weapon, except maybe the fist-launcher.
You can find Asgard’s Wrath on the Oculus Store for $40. It is currently an Oculus Rift exclusive.