VR does a number of things incredibly well, but the biggest surprise still after all these years of availability is how well music games adapted to the format. Whether it’s pure beat-bopping action like in Beat Saber or Synth Riders, something more fitness oriented like BoxVR, or a combination of the two in the choreography-focused Audio Trip, the lack of any input lag to speak of plus the more physical movements make for top-notch music gaming. There’s more ways to interact with music than just riding a note line, however, and in Maestro you’re given a conductor’s baton and an orchestra to direct to musical glory.
Why ride a beat when you can command a musical army?
Maestro was originally released as an App Lab game with the longer title Maestro: The Masterclass. It came with a tutorial and one full classical piece that didn’t hold back on using all the new skills, and although excellent it was maybe a bit short. On the plus side it was free, so the length was hard to complain about, but when an idea and execution sync up that strongly it needs more fairly quickly. While quickly didn’t happen, seeing as Masterclass was released back in 2022 and game development takes forever, the “more” part is finally on the way with today’s announcement of Maestro being developed into a full game.
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The mechanics of the game are best done via hand tracking, and there are several different motions used to direct the orchestra. The right hand is held in a pinch gesture to use the baton, swinging it as needed to set the tempo, while the left hand does everything else. Indicators on screen let you know where to direct attention, whether that’s a note-track for the baton swing indicating tempo and direction or a double-note track when you need to use both hands for extra emphasis. A circle generates when it’s time to point at a section of the orchestra to come into the piece, while a sinking bar lets you know when to hold a hand up to sustain a note and the dot at the end signals the change to a fist to dramatically end it on a hard stop. Finally, a rising orange bar or sinking blue bar let you know to slowly and constantly raise or lower your hand for the duration of the indicator to adjust a section’s intensity. The cues are all different enough that a quick round of the tutorial is all that’s needed to drill them into place, and then Masterclass' main piece brings with it the realization that doing everything at once with cues going off in different sections of the orchestra requires musical multitasking skills.
The new version of Maestro revealed its trailer today and it’s getting a fantastic visual boost to go with its expanded tracklist. The fifteen new songs are mostly classical but include a couple of unexpected tracks like Duke Ellington’s Caravan or Hank Levy’s Whiplash to add some variety to what’s already a killer playlist, and there’s promise of more music to be revealed. The full list so far is-
The Ride Of The Valkyries – Wagner
Carmina Burana – Orff
Danse Macabre – Saint Saens
From The New World – Dvorak
Messa Da Requiem – Verdi
The Dance Of The Knights – Prokofiev
The Rite Of Spring – Stravinsky
Night On A Bald Mountain – Mussorgsky
Caravan – Ellington
Whiplash – Levy
Sing Sing Sing – Prima
The 5th Symphony – Beethoven
Swan Lake – Tchaikovsky
Figaro’s Wedding – Mozart
The Hebrides – Mendelssohn
Maestro is coming to Steam and Quest this year at some point, and while that’s still an undefined variable the reveal trailer shows just how much work has been put into updating the game since its Masterclass release.
