Co-op survival tower defense The Lightkeepers, out this week on Quest 3, wraps multiple mechanics into a tight gameplay loop that plays much better than the quality of its individual elements would have you believe.
The Lightkeepers comes from developer Spectral Games (Medieval Dynasty: New Settlement) and combines strategic tower defense with scavenging and crafting in a familiar roguelite-adjacent style. By day, you and your friends scavenge the island around the lighthouse you are tasked to defend, with the option to take a boat to a nearby island for more resources. At night, you return to the lighthouse to prepare and defend it against waves of grotesque Lovecraft-inspired creatures. A watch on your left wrist lets you know how much time is left in the day and a foreboding tone with a few minutes left before nightfall is your final warning to get ready.
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What is it?: A co-op tower defense survival game
Platforms: Meta Quest 3/3S (played on Quest 3)
Release Date: September 10, 2026
Developer: Spectral Games SA
Price: $19.99
The loop feels similar to Bootstrap Island’s explore-by-day/survive-by-night and Drop Dead: The Cabin’s zombie-wave gameplay. The combination of elements here mostly works if you are able to get up to speed quickly. I played with James Tocchio and in our first run, we fumbled around trying to get our bearings. Between learning the basics of crafting, exploring the base island, and figuring out the hand-to-shoulder inventory, we did not even get to the separate island until our second run.
The inventory takes some getting used to, specifically on your shoulders. What you grab depends on which shoulder you reach for and which hand you reach with. Your right hand grabs your gun from your left shoulder and melee weapon from your right shoulder. The left hand pulls the backpack from the left shoulder and a lamp from the right. It is intuitive enough once you get it down, but you will likely fumble to start.
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Comfort
The Lightkeepers supports seated or standing gameplay with smooth and snap turning. There is some climbing involved and the lighthouse you defend has an optional zipline to quickly move between floors.
The constant motion may be troublesome for newer VR users.
The gameplay loop overall is very satisfying. You scavenge for items of various types (fuel, scrap metal, cloth, wood) on the base island or hop a boat and ride to a remote island. The remote island, even during daytime, is overrun with monsters that have to be cleared out before looting. The boat is controlled by the driver from an overhead viewpoint which was jarring at first, but ultimately did not matter enough to detract from the experience.
The same can be said for the game as a whole. Everything works together in harmony just well enough to be satisfying, even if individually, nothing truly stands out as exceptional. Visually, it is not great, a far cry from the jaw-dropping Bootstrap Island. The weapons are serviceable, but very basic. I have played multiple shooters with better feeling guns. The item-category-style looting is lifted straight fromThe Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners, but that had a wider variety of individual items. The combat feels floaty and could benefit from stronger haptics and sound design on impact. No single element of the game stands out as a wow factor, but the time limit does not afford you the luxury to stop and notice because you have workto do. Everything is good enough to keep you going, unless you have a specific preference. For instance, if you only play high-fidelity games, prefer physics-based combat, or highly realistic weapons, The Lightkeepers may rub you the wrong way. It is basic in its total execution, almost to a fault, by virtue of the number of moving parts in play at once.
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Lastly, plan on a grindy long-term experience. Runs have multiple difficulty levels and lengths, so you will need time invested and better gear to take on the more challenging runs. The single-shot pistol you start with is rough, most likely by design, and you will want a new gun quickly. The game has a wealth of unlockable weapons, gear, and cosmetics that unlock through a combination of in-game stat compiling (kill one hundred of one enemy type with a pistol), in-game currency accrued from runs, and paid microtransactions. Similar to the recently releasedKnights of Fiona and After the Fall, you will spend a lot of time in The Lightkeepers if you enjoy it out of the gates because there is plenty to play for.
The Lightkeepers releases September 10 for Quest 3 headsets.
