Until Dawn in 2015 was a pleasant surprise that we finished in one Saturday night. That game reminded us of the great days when there were horror classics shown on TV weekends and I think with the successful use of the decision and consequences system Until Dawn became a classic of the horror genre. So we were intrigued by the VR game The Inpatient, which serves as the prequel story to Until Dawn.

What is the game about? The Inpatient cleverly expands or adds to the unforgettable story of Until Dawn. The link between the two games is subtly showing after half an hour of gameplay and by the end of the game you see a full circle, or how all the events reflect on the beginning of Until Dawn. The links between these two games are well-structured in a wider story, but this is probably the only compliment we can give to The Inpatient.

Unfortunately, this is a pretty bad, poor, and overall, a boring game. First and foremost – The Inpatient is not a horror game in the true sense of the word because there is no danger that your character will get hurt. The game trailers in that sense are deceiving the viewer and lead him to the wrong conclusions because in this game there is no hiding or running away from the enemy, no fighting, no survival or anything like that. You just have to walk (usually following other characters) and occasionally open a door or press a button. The only optional gameplay element is that you can read different documents to learn more about a certain background story.

The Inpatient wants to be classified as a horror adventure with its atmosphere and by using a few cheap jump scares. At no point is the sound used to raise tension, and the music is just passing, as if someone has released the top ballads of the fifties and removed the top two songs from it.

Like in Until Dawn, your decisions here have their consequences. But in The Inpatient this is always binary and dialogue based, which makes it less exciting. Moreover, there are only five or six such decisions in the game that are tied to characters that are so uninteresting that it does not matter to you what the consequences will be for them.

Gameplay in The Inpatient is like swimming through the mud. You are wandering around unattractive corridors, wondering why your character cannot run, trying to find something interesting, but just seeing awful controls. At times it was not possible for the character to go through the open door in The Inpatient. The character would get stuck to some invisible part, and the control system is such that in that case you cannot make a step back / left / right and go through the door as a normal man. No, here you have to turn the camera, go ahead, turn the camera back and try to go through the open door again. To make things are worse, the problems do not stop there.

In The Inpatient there is no clear indication which door can be opened and which cannot. If you come very close to the door that cannot be opened, the screen becomes completely dark for some reason – you literally do not see anything until you turn in the opposite direction. These screen blackouts are also a part of the story, but most often the result of technical constraint, or concealment of the game loading, or something else. The budget for this game was probably limited, so developers did not even try to animate some scenes. The result is that at the moment of action the main character loses consciousness so he does not see, but only hears what is happening around him.

It should be said that the creators of the game at least attempted to include recognition of voice commands, meaning that you can offer answers by speaking sentences that appear on your screen. Voice recognition generally works without any problems, but it actually has no meaningful application except being “cool”.

Since this game does not take its time with its duration, we should not take our time with the conclusion. At a cost of 40 euros, The Inpatient is an insult to PSVR owners, horror lovers and even fans of Until Dawn. Accidentally buying two copies of Resident Evil 7 instead of one would make you happier than playing this game. It is hard for us to remember when we last played a game as boring as this one, but to each their own.