Tech Review: Afterlife VR – "Expect pure B-movie hokum..."

Afterlife VR

PS5 (Split Light Studio)

Stick on a VR headset and a line-dancing simulator has the potential to terrify you – such is the nature of a fully immersive world. Inevitably, there are moments in horror game Afterlife VR where you run the risk of screaming the house down and/or soiling yourself.

You play a rookie police officer, summoned to investigate a disturbance at a local insane asylum where your sister happens to be institutionalised. Upon arrival, you find the place wrecked, the inmates running wild, and supernatural occurrences unfolding. A thoughtful perspective on mental illness this is not.

Instead, expect pure B-movie hokum, complete with terrible voice acting and sludge-like graphical frame rates. Yes, some of the jump scares – assisted by clever audio design, and rumbles in the VR headset and hand controls – will have you crying for mommy. But glitches abound; stealth sequences are poorly thought out; and the in-game physics are wonky.

It makes you wonder how effective virtual reality would be in a properly designed, produced and executed PSVR2 horror, like Silent Hill or Barbie.