PlayStation 4 Critic Reviews

Don’t Knock Twice is a short, play-it-once-and-forget kind of game whose purpose is to promote a film that might have flown below a radar or two. I enjoyed the genuinely unnerving moments of psychological terror that I thought brought the game within arms reach of Silent Hill. As a media tie-in, it’s not an especially bad game but the schtick doesn’t last as long as it should. The game does have two different endings but to ask the player to go through the whole game again just to see them is almost too much. If given a more polish and additional content, Don’t Knock Twice could have been a fantastic VR horror experience.

The atmosphere is what makes this game. The emotion of the plot succeeds in some places and stumbles in others. The puzzles can be frustrating at times, but not because they’re impossible to complete, more so because they seem like filler to extend gameplay time. Overall, the experiences are memorable for the feeling they create in the player, but not much else.

There’s just far too little to enjoy, and what is here feels like low-budget copy and paste of the last half decade of horror titles if you decide to play without the PSVR headset. Virtual reality escalates the atmosphere to a much more sustainable level, but there’s nothing about Don’t Knock Twice that makes it a must play horror game, inside of virtual reality or out.

I would have rated Don’t Knock Twice a little higher if the weird dwarf bug hadn’t forced me to switch to a television, but even setting that flaw aside, there’s not much special here. As a haunted house simulator it delivers a few high-quality scares, but never really challenges the player with its mysteries or makes them feel involved in the story. It’s creepy enough for anyone looking to be unnerved as Halloween season creeps closer, but that’s all it has to offer.

Don't Knock Twice doesn't share company with the likes of Layers of Fear so much as it does with the large number of “VR Experiences” flooding digital storefronts: quick and dirty cash-ins that feel more like tech demos than full-fledged games. Don't Knock Twice is more solidly constructed than some, but it's largely unambitious and forgettable. It seems content to be a ground-level thriller at a time and on a platform with plenty of hungry competition.

Too many jump scares and too little narrative make Don’t Knock Twice predictable and boring.

Don't Knock Twice is an awful tie-in, even played in VR. It lasts less than an hour, jump-scares are predictable and there aren't any gameplay elements despite some interaction with the environment.