Examining the best escape room game in VR.
Use your wits to solve puzzles and escape the rooms before you.
The Room VR: A Dark Matter, by Fireproof Games (Ghost Town), is still one of – if not the best – virtual reality (VR) escape rooms.
We’ve spoken about this game a lot since VirtualRealities was launched in 2023. However, until now this blueprint for how escape room games can and should be made in the VR space, has remained nothing more than a mention of what’s possible.
Today we dive into what makes this game stand above the rest.
In The Room VR, you are a police detective in the early 1900s, tasked with solving the mysterious disappearance of a professor. As the game starts, you’re walked through a short tutorial that gives you a rundown on the very simplistic controls.
The game only allows for teleportation and snap turning; this is because it’s easier for the player to be situated in a specific position when they are at each puzzle. While it’s a downside to not be able to freely roam the spaces, this movement style makes complete sense. When you teleport between puzzles, you’re placed in a very specific position in front of each respective puzzle placed around each room. This allows for better interactions with each, as free movement may end with a player in an awkward position around each element.
You do get a special set of “lenses” that allows you to change your perspective and solve puzzles in new ways – you can see inside objects, see things invisible to your regular sight, and even shrink down to go inside objects. This can be accessed by the ‘A’ or ‘X’ buttons and then grabbing the switch to activate.
There are also clues which you can leave on or off, and can be activated by pulling the tabs down from the same menu which accesses your lens.
The game consists of three rooms plus the initial tutorial level; the three different rooms include ancient Egyptian museum display, catholic church, and witches den. Like any real-life escape room, the settings in which the players are placed are themed – with puzzles in the space all connected and revolving around the commonalities of the room. These are all quite short if you’re adept at puzzle solving – you can probably get through the whole game in just under three hours.
Of course, there is challenge to the game – it wouldn’t be interesting to play if there wasn’t. But those who take the time to examine what they see before them – and think with logic and common sense as they work to solve the riddles – will find themselves successfully moving through the game.
It’s short considering you could pay $40 full price on the PlayStation store; however, the game length is pretty bottom of the barrel in terms of complaints.
The Room VR is great and doesn’t really have faults.
Graphically the game stands out as you might expect. The PlayStation VR2 (PSVR2) version is the obvious winner, with haptics, graphics and technological advancements of the headset being used to make the game better. But if you have a Quest headset, the game does look remarkably well done if you have a Quest 3. Graphics will of course be lower resolution compared to the more powerful PSVR2, but you’re not missing out on much if you have to choose one version over another.
Now let’s talk about gameplay before we call it a day.
Fireproof really wanted the VR player to be able to interact with the world as normally as they would if they weren’t in headset. Mechanics feel fluid and natural as you grab and interact with the game world around you in much the casual way you would if you were getting a glass of water.
Grab items as you normally would, turn and interact with the world as you might expect, the physics may not be perfect as you may find your hand at an awkward angle after turning a key, but the game expects you to undergo these movement sets with an item in much the way you would the real world.
What stands out in this game is the puzzle detail.
Much like a real escape room, the puzzles you solve are interconnected and sometimes you can’t progress until you solve something else.
There’s a sense of accomplishment when you solve a puzzle without the use of a hint, and being able to make it through the game is feat in its own right.
Overall, playing this game is to know what an excellent escape room game is. While only The House of Da Vinci can really compete with this game, the escape room genre is strong in VR, and The Room VR will remain as one of the best examples of what works.
Maybe Fireproof will release another in the series in the near future.
The Room VR: A Dark Matter, was reviewed on the PSVR2 and Quest 3, after purchasing from the PlayStation store & redeeming from Horizon+, respectively.
