Wraith: The Oblivion - Afterlife review: This is how it runs on Quest 2

Our Verdict

Wraith: The Oblivion - Afterlife is the kickoff VR entry in the Earth of Darkness series. The rich world will draw you lot in for a terrifying experience that is occasionally betrayed by its game mechanics.

For

Well-crafted environments
Compelling storyline
Some excellent moments of pure terror
Effective inventory and tool management

Against

Lack of challenges
Some frustrating gameplay mechanics

Laptop Magazine Verdict

Wraith: The Oblivion - Afterlife is the commencement VR entry in the World of Darkness series. The rich globe will draw you lot in for a terrifying experience that is occasionally betrayed by its game mechanics.

Pros

+
Well-crafted environments
+
Compelling storyline
+
Some excellent moments of pure terror
+
Effective inventory and tool management
+
+

Cons

-
Lack of challenges
-
Some frustrating gameplay mechanics
-

After reading about my colleague's literally sickening experience playing a preview of Wraith: The Oblivion - Afterlife (WTOA), it was with a bit of trepidation that I took on reviewing the fledgling horror attempt from Fast Travel Games. I accept a love/hate human relationship with the horror genre, but I'm mainly put off by those that opt for pure gore. Tension-building atmospheric horror is another story entirely and that is certainly what this developer is aiming for.

When information technology comes to the overall look and feel of the game, WTOA hits that target; the creepy artful oozes unsettlingly over every environment and character. Nevertheless, a few game mechanics pulled me out from the gripping surroundings, an unfortunate upshot for a game that excels when you are fully immersed in its environment. Survival horror fans will want to give this game a spin, as the roughly eight to 10 hours of gameplay can make for a spine-tingling weekend of gaming, but this won't win over new players to the genre.

Wraith: The Oblivion - Afterlife: toll and availability

WTOA is bachelor starting today for $30 on Quest 2 and on the Oculus Rift through the Oculus platform. If you want to choice it upward through Steam, y'all'll need to look i more month until May 25. You can so purchase information technology there for HTC Vive, Valve Index or Oculus Rift. It's also coming to PSVR in 2022, merely in that location is no house release date notwithstanding.

Wraith: The Oblivion - Afterlife gameplay screenshot — (Prototype credit: Fast Travel Games)

Wraith: The Oblivion - Afterlife: plot (minor spoilers)

I'm not going to requite you a full rundown of the plot, as the story is a significant part of the experience with WTOA. But I'll share the initial setup and full general concept to help yous determine if it's correct for you lot. The game offers trigger warnings at the outset for photosensitivity, death and suicide. Fans of Vampire: The Masquerade and/or Werewolf: The Apocalypse might be interested to know that this game takes identify in the same Globe of Darkness universe, but it doesn't require knowledge of those games.

The game starts with you lot lying dead on the footing ( no yous didn't manage to lose already),. Y'all notice yourself in the afterlife every bit a Wraith, and while it looks like your postal code is closer to hell than heaven, information technology's not clear at this stage where exactly you are. Winding your way through a barren rocky mural, you have a few initial run-ins with what we'll call ghosts which begin to make full in some details for yous.

Following along the trail serves as a brief tutorial on the basics of move. This is where your first supernatural power is introduced which allows y'all to pull objects into your manus from a curt altitude (congratulations undead Padawan!), if only you could also utilise a lightsaber then this game would be much easier.

As you lot achieve the end of the trail, you lot enter the grounds of the Barclay mansion. Now the game is properly underway. You discover quickly that you lot are (or were) Ed Miller, a photographer hired to capture photos of a séance for Mr. Barclay. Needless to say, things must not have gone well.

Similar many things in the game, you learn this information from the ghosts that are triggered past your mere presence or past your Relic camera, the get-go item you obtain. I say ghosts because of their appearance, but really, they are more than like memories, simply playing out moments from the past. Other details come to you from another spirit that typically speaks as a disembodied vocalism in your caput, but at times pops his horrifying visage into view. The odds and ends you find throughout the mansion and grounds volition assist consummate the picture of what'southward going on. When you find these items, they are added to the "Memory Palace" which you can visit from set points.

I don't want to requite away too much of the plot so I'll terminate there. While the game is very much survival horror, the whodunit motivation is underlying it all as you try to get to the bottom of what happened to you and anybody else in this mansion. Along the way, you will run across a variety of dissimilar Spectres that, unlike the ghosts, notice yous and will "impale" you (transport you lot to Oblivion). You proceeds additional abilities equally you lot become, allowing you lot to track important objects and spirits and to pass through walls. Finally, new tools like your flash and voice recorder (amidst others) volition help you defend yourself and unlock more than clues around Barclay mansion.

The game takes place in modern times (you died in late 2022), although the old Hollywood artful of the mansion and many of the characters make it experience like a 1950s period slice at times. I'grand a sucker for that setting, and it is rendered fantastically with well-considered details throughout. Eerie though it may be, wandering effectually the mansion purely to have it in tin can be enjoyable when you don't have a Spectre stalking y'all.

Wraith: The Oblivion - Afterlife: gameplay

The bones gameplay of WTOA is pretty unproblematic; you explore the grounds of the Barclay mansion, which involves moving throughout the building and its surrounding gardens, while avoiding being sent to Oblivion past the Spectres and trying to solve your murder.

The mechanics of the game as it pertains to the Spectres are what ultimately pulled me out of the game at times. The maddeningly slow pace of your character, even when using a push labeled "dart" does simulate a nightmare in which you are presumably running through molasses and/or have the legs of a toddler, but I constitute it detestable in a few instances. 1 come across that I got hung up on required at least fifteen attempts to get past. Later on try half-dozen or seven all terror was gone, replaced with an icy dread at the idea of having to go through the blasted thing again.

You take no method to defeat the Spectres, which is perfectly mutual for a truthful survival horror title. You tin merely evade. For the about part, this involves crouching and staying concealed. Walking or being spotted volition depict them to y'all immediately. If yous are out in the open, this is an immediate trip to Oblivion sending y'all back to the terminal salve betoken. The save points are a swirling tangle of items around a glowing globe and yous volition not want to miss them.

While yous are nonetheless concealed, you lot tin can draw the attention of a Spectre away from an surface area past hurling plant objects; small rocks and liquor bottles are readily available in many areas of the mansion grounds. This worked inconsistently in my experience with some Spectres far less interested in the noise. If you lot are faced by a charging Spectre, your merely options are to fire your Flash in its face or hurl an object at information technology but either method stuns the spirit for only three to four seconds. With your rate of movement, that won't go you far. This is truly a terminal resort and yous need to be within 10-15 feet of a door or a hiding place or all will be for aught.

Moving on to the investigative aspects of the game, in that location is logic to be applied at times, it is mostly a case of exploring the entirety of the mansion with a conscientious eye. Objects that demand to exist plant will glow which helps you lot spot them fifty-fifty if they are within a cabinet or set up of drawers. While not peculiarly challenging, piecing events together past viewing new memories and finding notes, newspapers, and other items that are then available in the Memory Palace is satisfying one time the story comes together.

If you are looking for challenging puzzles, wait somewhere else. There are occasionally safe combinations or key codes to find, only they are typically nearby. At times, some of your growing collection of tools are needed, such every bit a vox recorder to unlock more safes with a vocalism lock on them, merely that hardly requires a considerable leap in logic. In general, you lot'll never find yourself questioning what is required in a given state of affairs.

Beyond the ability to summon objects to your manus, you gain the power to locate objectives by a hotter and colder mechanic that has the veins in your arm glow brighter when pointing in the right management and an intensifying heartbeat indicates nearby Spectres. Your concluding ability is quite handy, allowing yous to move through walls via the aforementioned terrifying inky black portals that your demonic spirit companion uses.

The only power that feels inconsistent is your objective locating ability. Information technology isn't articulate on why it was but bachelor at sure times. This brings me to more than of an overarching complaint: a lack of caption for some elements in the game. The wink is a perfect example; it tin be used equally a simple flashlight and will also burn abroad the roots that block sure paths and objectives in the game, but as previously referenced, it tin also stun Spectres. sI don't recall that pedagogy and it's a pretty of import one. I call back and so much of the game being intuitive acquired a few misses on other features that are less obvious.

One terminal frustrating game mechanic is the doors. This feeds the fearfulness factor to some degree as fumbling with a door handle equally a hideous creature is shrieking and heading your way is unquestionably terrifying. Nonetheless, the door physics doesn't work well . Opening a door fully required a combination of moving through it or away from it as I pulled the handle, and closing felt similarly clumsy. I exercise feel as though I was getting the hang of it toward the end of my time with the game, but that is a trouble for a game that is a single eight-to-10-hour experience.

Wraith: The Oblivion - Afterlife: operation (Quest two)

Performance wasn't an issue for me during my hours playing WTOA, but there are certainly some of the telltale signs of a game that is at the edges of what the Quest is capable of. I would notice elements improving in clarity equally I drew nearer to them and lighting behaved oddly at times with darkness receding for no seemingly no reason.

The latter, in particular, is well subconscious equally a game mechanic and it works regardless of whether information technology is roofing for limitations or a deliberate determination. I'd be interested to run across how this handles differently on the PC version of the game free from the limitations of the Quest 2's processing power, but at no signal did I feel pulled out of the game by its performance.

Bottom Line

Wraith: The Oblivion - Afterlife creates a compelling and frequently terrifying earth that will have your palms sweating as you lot round the nighttime corners of the mansion and flee (probably unsuccessfully) from Spectres. While at that place are jump scares in the game ( despite the developer saying that wasn't a goal), the overall sense of foreboding and fleeing from Spectres is far more terrifying than the occasional jump scares.

Overall, I enjoyed WTOA as an experience, only I found myself wishing that a few dissimilar choices were made regarding both game mechanics and some of the gameplay itself. Movement and stealth were my biggest frustrations, and equally far as gameplay is concerned, additional challenges outside of the Spectre set pieces would have helped. That'south especially true in a few instances where I wasn't finding the next objective and my magic arm powers weren't active. During these frustrating moments, the unsettling ambiance started to give way to a bit of a monotonous walking sim.

Equally I said at the outset, fans of survival horror or those who merely enjoy a good scare will take a practiced time with this game. It's a genre that lends itself perfectly to VR and I suspect even the nigh hardened will savour some centre-pounding moments.

Sean Riley has been covering tech professionally for over a decade now. Most of that time was equally a freelancer covering varied topics including phones, wearables, tablets, smart home devices, laptops, AR, VR, mobile payments, fintech, and more than. Sean is the resident mobile expert at Laptop Magazine, specializing in phones and wearables, y'all'll find plenty of news, reviews, how-to, and opinion pieces on these subjects from him here. But Laptop Mag has too proven a perfect fit for that broad range of interests with reviews and news on the latest laptops, VR games, and computer accessories along with coverage on everything from NFTs to cybersecurity and more than.