Blair Witch: VR Edition - PSVR Review

Blair Witch: VR Edition by developer and publisher Bloober Team—Sony PlayStation VR review written by Nick with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

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Blair Witch: VR Edition is a welcome addition to the PSVR, bringing an immersive, story-driven approach that provides plenty of tension and scares over the span of about a half dozen hours of gameplay. This is a rebuilt version of the popular 2019 release (See Izzy's Nintendo Switch Review) that does a lot of really good things in bringing the adventure to virtual reality.

The premise has you taking on the role of Ellis, who is in the Black Hills Forest looking for a boy who has gone missing. As a protagonist, Ellis is a good enough medium to immerse players into the storyline. There are things during the gameplay that can impact the ending, which certainly helps with replay value. Especially for a game like this where exploration and finding things is key.

Ellis is an ex-police officer, who makes for an unreliable protagonist. People around him are often quick to point out that he has issues of his own, and as such there is a sort of tug-of-war that occurs throughout the game that has us questioning whether or not what we have just seen was real or not. This, combined with the immersive visuals, audio and controls really help to sell the experience.

Thankfully, Blair Witch: VR Edition doesn’t beat you over the head with cheap jump scares. Certainly there are some, but they feel well-placed and help to provide tension without being a gimmick that replaces atmosphere for frustration. The audio design is fantastic – and really ratchets up the tension quite a bit as you hear whispered words and creepy sounds throughout the game’s roughly six hour duration.

Of course, the shift to virtual reality comes at a bit of a cost in terms of video fidelity when compared to high resolution screen outputs, but the developers do a nice job of hiding many of the imperfections in fog and shadows while creating just enough ‘did something just move’ tension along the way. You have a handful of tools such as your flashlight and a camcorder that plays in nicely with the ‘found footage’ aspects the Blair Witch has so long hung its hat on.

All of them pale compared to Bullet, your pupper companion. Seriously, just reaching out in VR to rub the lovable little guy’s head is cathartic in and itself, but he actually serves purpose to your adventure too. He can warn you of impending danger and help to find things in the environment I would have certainly otherwise missed. That said? He’s not some annoying companion talking your ear off with a bad accent or the like. He really is your best asset on this adventure. Did I mention petting him in VR? As a pet-lover, it’s worth noting twice. That being said, ol’ Bullet is probably the most frequent culprit when it comes to breaking the illusion of reality in this virtual environment, since he seems to clip into objects or moving weirdly when you use the whistle to call him to you / reset him.

I appreciate how well the move controls work for interacting with objects in the environment and manipulating the camcorder (which is used to solve many of the puzzles in the game). Blair Witch: VR Edition keeps a pretty brisk overall pace, never hitting you with so many monsters or puzzles that momentum feels lost, but with just enough variety that it feels like more than just an environmental walker with creepy sound effects.

For those worried about motion sickness, there are a handful of locomotion options that can help make the experience a bit more palatable for those prone to queasiness, but most of the game ran pretty smoothly for me while simply walking around the environment as intended. It helps that there are not many instances of tight passageways. Much of the game takes place in the woods where they seem impossibly large and creepy, despite obviously having limits to just how far you can go. The overall level design is pretty well done, and I didn’t seem to struggle with getting hung up while walking through environments, which is a common issue in VR that the team seemed to handle pretty well.

Summary

Blair Witch: VR Edition has to make a few gameplay compromises to make it work for virtual reality, but the end result is still worth it for fans of horror. Having played and enjoyed the prior console release about a year ago, I have to say that the sights and sounds of PSVR make for a compelling experience even if you have played it before. It helps that there’s a decent bit of replay value to be had here in finding different things along the way and experiencing a handful of different endings as a result.

Score: 8 /10

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Blair Witch - Switch Review

Blair Witch by developer and publisher Bloober Team—Nintendo Switch review written by Izzy with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

In the interest of full disclosure, let me begin by saying that I don’t know anything about video games, so I encourage you to take this review with a grain of salt, or a ring of salt, in keeping with the theme. In fact, I’ve barely touched a controller since my older brother begrudgingly allowed me to hop on as Player 2 back in the good ol’ Nintendo 64 days. What I DO know, however, is horror. If it’s scary, bone-chilling, gruesome, eerie, sinister, unnerving, spine-tingling nightmare fuel, there’s a good chance I’ve seen it. So when the opportunity came along to play through a game based in the Blair Witch Project universe, I said “Well, if I was ever going to play a game, it would be THAT game” and play it, I did. Almost obsessively, as I’m sure my video-game-obsessed-boyfriend would smugly tell you.

You play as Ellis, a troubled cop and veteran, who is travelling into the infamous Black Hills forest to join a search party for a young boy named Peter. The first sign of trouble to come is made apparent by a phone call from your seemingly estranged girlfriend, Jess, who questions Ellis’ desire and capability to join in the search. From your subsequent contact with Sheriff Emmett Lanning prior to venturing into the woods, it’s clear Ellis is, for undisclosed reasons, somewhat of a Persona Non Grata presence in this investigation. Armed with nothing but a cellphone, flashlight, and your trusty companion, a dog named Bullet, you venture into the woods where you begin to decipher the mysteries of both Peter’s disappearance, and Ellis’ psyche.

The game is successful in this regard by disclosing that the choices you make, and the way your companion is treated will affect the eventual outcome. This actively contributes to the overall atmosphere of the game, as the self-doubt creeps in seemingly as quickly as the darkness by which you are enveloped. I found myself asking “When was the last time I pet Bullet?”, or “Is this real or is it just a vision?”, or, in a textbook definition of life imitating art, channelling Heather (one of the film’s protagonists) and experiencing the defeating mental anguish that comes with realizing that the log you’ve just come across is in fact the same log you walked by 20 minutes ago, and you are indeed very lost, and Oh God I’ve Doomed Ellis To Wander The Forests Of Burkitsville, Maryland Until His Inevitable Demise. Of all the places to die. Maryland? Really!? I’m sorry Ellis. I’m sorry Bullet.

Bullet! Your companion and Bonafide Best Doggo is your saving grace. Bullet serves not only as your literal guide dog through the forest, but he can also track the scent on items of Peter’s you collect on your journey, as well as search for nearby items that are crucial to the game’s progression. While there is much more to discuss in regards to the storyline, I find horror to be at its most impactful when the element of surprise is maintained. So I will leave you to unravel the remainder of the story (and the ending to which your choices lead) for yourself.

However, I did have some issues with Blair Witch that I feel could potentially put off more seasoned gamers. For one, there is very little to the actual game play (Editor's Note: Very much a walking simulator). Despite the opportunity for multiple endings, the playthrough is fairly linear in nature, which at times leaves you feeling like the illusion of choice is more important than the choices you’re actually making.

Prior to starting the game for the first time, you are prompted to adjust the brightness until a box on the screen is barely visible. This is purported to be for the overall atmosphere of the game, but in my experience, rather than affect the creepy factor, it affected the annoyance factor as I spent a truly ridiculous amount of time squinting at the TV and running into invisible walls by straying off a path I couldn’t make out in the darkness. Of course, this could be easily fixed by just adjusting the slider by a few notches upon replaying, so it’s not really a criticism, more of a suggestion. Turn it up. Eye strain is serious business.

Other than the mechanics that a novice like me occasionally struggled with, and without spoiling the story, I will say that there was nothing particularly interesting or original about Ellis as a protagonist. In fact, the game does a poor job of having any aspect that is anything more than a worn out trope. That’s not to say it’s inherently bad, just that it’s been done. Over and over and over again. By the time I reached the game’s final setting, and had been proven correct about where the overall story was headed, I was a little bored with it. Which is doubly unfortunate because the game’s final chapter is dragged out much longer than it needs to be.

What was supposed to be the culmination of the search for Peter, and Ellis’ slowly dwindling mental well-being ends up being an overproduced, drawn out fore into every haunted house, PTSD, horror cliche in existence. All that being said, I am, and remain, a huge fan of the Blair Witch movie. Even my boyfriend (who gets spooked by a slight breeze, and sleeps with the lights on for three weeks after a pile of clothes flung onto a chair casts a particularly nefarious looking shadow in the middle of the night) enjoyed both it, and the parts of the game he watched me play through his fingers.

What the game does borrow from, and contribute to, the Blair Witch mythos is exactly what made the movie such an effective piece of horror. For the overwhelming majority of it, there are no jump scares or cheap tricks. What you get instead is the terrifying sensation of being very lost, and very hunted in a forest that seemingly gets darker by the second, as you slowly start to question Ellis’ (and your own) sanity. For psychological horror fans like me, that alone is worth the price of admission. For video game fans, well, I’ll leave that to the experts.

Score: 7 / 10

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