The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR

Be ready to have a horror filled thrill ride.

Given the attention to detail, exceptional level design, near-unending variety, but most importantly, its inventive approach to ‘scare tactics’, The Dark Pictures: Switchback is an absolute must-play for fans of the genre and those looking for a real fright. Go in with open eyes, let the distinct worlds and the many unsettling inhabitants enrapture you, and you may well be left trembling in no time at all.

The action-packed madness on wheels features the most terrifyingly beautiful jumpscares in VR, albeit marred by technical issues.

Switchback VR delivers what it sets out to do with an on-rails shooter that is low on the story but high on the shooting action. While the fun may not last for a long time and the genuine scares are few and far between, it is still a good demonstration of what the PS VR2 brings to the table. Just like Until Dawn: Rush of Blood set the stage back in 2016, hopefully, this will only be the beginning when it comes to exploiting the full potential of PS VR2.

It’s a decent enough arcade shooter, and if you look at it that way, the length and mood of the game make sense. However, it doesn’t make as much sense as a game with the Dark Pictures moniker. As widely varied as the quality of those games have been, they take the time to tell a story. Switchback doesn’t. It focuses on the gunplay, action, and thrills. While it does a decent enough job of that, the performance issues bring even that end down a bit. If you’re a fan of Supermassive’s brand of horror, it would be hard for me to recommend this over their other games. If you want to play something more like a modern light gun horror that makes decent use of the PS VR2’s technology, then you could do worse than Switchback, but you could also do better.

The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR offers cheap chills and thrills along with eye-catching lighting effects, but not much else.

Until Dawn continues to elude Supermassive, and now even Rush of Blood appears out of reach. Switchback VR is a scruffy game that fails to match up to its well-liked PSVR predecessor, delivering low-budget visuals, lousy combat encounters, and some pretty low-energy level design. There are a handful of memorable moments, and some may find fun in the jump scares – but this should and could have been so much more.

Fan de Rush of Blood, j'attendais ce deuxième opus avec impatience, et j'ai adoré. Bien plus long que le précédent, avec des tas d'embranchement mais surtout des personnages à sauver (auront une importance pour la fin), des défis par dizaines bien pensés, et surtout des tas de bonnes idées de gameplay en font un titre incontournable. Il utilise le eye tracking à la perfection (des ennemis n'agissant que si on cligne des yeux), une ambiance excellente et des niveaux vraiment différents. Vive le PSVR2 qui n'a jamais aucune perte de localisation (rush of blood finissait toujours par partir en sucette). Techniquement il est largement plus abouti que son aîné avec des effets de brumes ou des personnages hyper détaillés. Mes seuls reproches: 1/ les séquences scénaristiques entre les niveaux hyper flous (pas compris pourquoi c'était si moche) et sans grand intérêt 2/ le dernier boss de Rush of blood était bien plus impressionnant et sympa J'ai du mal à comprendre les critiques qui lui sont faites. Pour les fans de trains fantômes, foncez.

A fun roller coaster ride after you complete all the first season of games of dark pictures. Somethings are not really canon like, but can't say this is a bad one. Sometimes puzzles feel like are out of gameplay and as an example, Little Hope was the scariest game for me, Didn't feel so scarier here. Maybe the scarier are based on Man of Medan.

An enjoyable experience and a great party game to play with others. Graphics are a bit muddy compared to other PSVR2 titles, audio is decent and the gameplay is fun. Has a few good jump scares but nothing really scary. All in all, a fun experience, maybe wait until it goes on sale.

This game is such a massive disappointment. It is shocking. Clearly a PSVR 1 title in production that was changed to PSVR 2 at the last minute. The visuals and gameplay are last gen, bar a thrilling but short set piece that uses eye tracking for blinking. The resolution is terrible, graphical quality of all assets is low, there’s occasional frame rate stuttering, there is regular pop-in which ruins the immersion. There’s terrible loading times watching a spinning coin between levels which is very last gen. The graphics seem to also lack HDR color range, another telling sign of last gen. Navigating the menus while starting the game is buggy and frustrating. This game had so much potential but it is sadly worse than it’s predecessor - rush of blood. The developers should come clean about what happened here and commit to improving and updating the game to a respectable standard for psvr2. Until then, avoid.

Gameplay : Good Visuals : PS3 visuals no joke ( waiting for an update to change my mind ) Sound : Fine its clearly not designed for the PS5 with that much loading screens & poor visuals I was really hyped for this one what a let down