Escape Simulator demonstrates how VR can additional improve flatscreen video games. Learn on for our full impressions.
Between older hits like I Count on You To Die and more moderen video games equivalent to Rooms of Realities, we have seen loads of nice VR escape room experiences throughout the years. As a substitute of watching this unfold behind a flatscreen monitor, VR straight elevates these puzzle video games additional by putting you “inside” these rooms for elevated immersion. Escape Simulator is not fairly the identical; it was initially a flatscreen recreation and Pine Studio’s new VR Mode highlights this distinction nicely.
VR Mode not too long ago arrived as a free replace on Steam, so VR gamers can entry all the base recreation, custom-built neighborhood rooms, and paid DLC packs. The sport’s flatscreen roots are instantly evident from the principle menu, although that is not a nasty factor. You are initially positioned in a totally immersive setting, and the principle menu is handled like a theatre mode. After customizing my character with a pirate outfit, I set to work.
Escape Simulator enables you to play solo or with as much as 8 gamers in on-line co-op, each with VR and flatscreen gamers. Between an Egyptian labyrinth or futuristic spaceship packs, Portal’s Aperture Science Laboratories DLC or free extras like Treasure Island, there’s some nice location selection complemented by cartoonishly vibrant visuals.
The primary room packs characteristic 5 levels every with regularly rising issue. As an escape room expertise, your final objective is to seek out the door key and safe your freedom. Being too particular would possibly spoil how you can remedy sure eventualities, which vary from discovering lock mixtures, deciphering riddles, filling out jigsaw puzzles, and even translating hieroglyphics.
Every room is stuffed with interactable gadgets and this helps Escape Simulator really feel like a pure match for VR. A simple management scheme delivers pleasing interactivity while you seize objects with the triggers. Pulling up a list menu with a fast button press and putting objects away is not essentially essentially the most immersive technique of merchandise administration, neither is magnetically grabbing gadgets, however this is not a recreation striving for realism.
I discovered myself stumped on various events, although Escape Simulator alleviates potential frustrations with a assist button that gives clues. These regularly get extra direct till you run out of hints. It is these moments the place multiplayer shines since you’ll be able to actively focus on methods with associates, and fixing puzzles with a co-op companion feels nice.
There is a vary of VR consolation settings, too. Seated and standing mode are each supported, and you’ll swap between synthetic stick-based locomotion and teleportation. Snap and clean digicam turning are current with adjustable angles and velocity, respectively. Controller haptics can be switched off or have their depth adjusted.
To this point, I’ve solely spent two hours on Escape Simulator VR, so I have not accomplished the bottom recreation or tried any neighborhood rooms. Nonetheless, what I’ve seen has left me significantly impressed. If you happen to’re after a brand new PC VR recreation with associates, Pine Studio’s puzzler is value a glance.
Escape Simulator VR is on the market on Steam for $19.99, and you’ll obtain a free VR demo.
