Dare You Play This? The 'Paranormal Activity VR' Game Looks Absolutely Terrifying
Horror games look to be entering a whole new level of pant-soiling scares when it comes to virtual reality. Because that extra layer of immersion is enough to really get you creeped out. As you can see from the videos of people playing the demo version of the upcoming Paranormal Activity VR due out this summer on Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and Sony PlayStation VR.
The game, from developer VRWERX, was previewed earlier this year at the SXSW Gaming Expo in Austin, Texas and it was pretty much terrifying anyone who played it. The game is based on the movie franchise and lets players explore a spooky house similar to the ones in the films.
You progress through the game by finding objects to use, for instance a key to open a door, batteries for a flashlight. And so you explore the house, getting progressively petrified as you come across writing in blood on the walls, or supernatural characters, all adding to an atmosphere pregnant with the eerie sensation of the classic 'jump scare.'
Essentially you're playing the character who ends up on the found footage and for an idea on how scary the experience is, IGN locked a bunch of people in a room with a Vive VR headset and filmed their reactions. You can see those in the video above—and pretend like you wouldn't act the same, when deep down you know you'd be shrieking like a scared child.
“It was really important for us to capture the essence of the Paranormal Activity universe,” Alex Barder, co-managing partner of VRWERX, told Fortune. “This game is a continuation of the franchise; a next chapter spawning from this fantastic mythology.”