Microsoft earned its share of oohs and ahhs when it showcased its Project XRay mixed reality game for HoloLens at its Windows 10 Devices event earlier this week, but aside from the novelty of robot spiders crawling out of your living room wall, the game itself does not appear to be a revolutionary step forward in gaming.

For one thing, if the early days of the Nintendo Wii taught us anything, it is that swinging around loose objects inside your home is not always the safest way to play a video game, and while there may not be a risk of hurling a controller through the display on HoloLens, there is still plenty of opportunity for collateral damage. It is clear from Microsoft’s presentation that Project XRay requires a lot of room to move around, which may not be a problem for the sort of people who will actually be able to afford HoloLens, but it is a limitation that is added by augmented reality rather than solved by it.

The game’s control scheme does seem interesting on the surface, but it is also not exactly a unique approach to shooters, as anyone who played Duck Hunt on the original Nintendo Entertainment System in the ’80s can tell you.

Photo by zigazou76

Light guns like the Nintendo Zapper were a novelty in the early days of gaming, but these days they have all but disappeared, and for a good reason. No one wants to hold their arms up the entire time they are playing a game. Microsoft touted Project XRay’s “holograms you can hold” feature as a major selling point, but the feature has the same drawback as a light gun: You actually have to hold it out in front of you the whole time you are playing.

Project XRay may be exciting for the future of laser tag, but aside from the gimmick of being able to “turn every room of your house into a personalized video game level,” it does not really offer much in terms of revolutionary new gameplay.

Screenshot via Microsoft Windows 10 Devices event | Microsoft.com