The Inpatient Review - Gives an unprecedented oppressive feeling

The success of a device such as the PlayStation VR is largely determined by the content developed for it. It has recently become clear that Sony, but also developers, are investing a lot in VR. Various games receive a VR overhaul or a special VR version, such as DOOM and The Last Guardian (even if only a demo). Until Dawn developer Supermassive stood at the cradle of the PlayStation VR with its launch game Rush of Blood, but now wants to use The Inpatient to bring a real Until Dawn experience to the device and give everyone the necessary nightmares. Nightmares certainly gives The Inpatient, whether or not in the wrong way.

Unpredictable prequel

Just like in Until Dawn you decide (sometimes unconsciously) how the story goes. According to the Butterfly effect in the game, your reactions in a conversation and choices you make, and sometimes even your speed of action or what you do not, all influence the course of the story. After the roughly two and a half hours that the game lasts, everyone will have a different story and a different ending. Sometimes the difference is a little nuance, but other choices really make a big difference and give a drastically different end, although not every ending is just as satisfying and you sometimes seem to miss info. Strangely enough, the 'better' endings in particular are less conclusive. The good thing is that they all connect to Until Dawn.

But maybe The Inpatient does too much on Until Dawn. Developer Supermassive Games is very much assuming that you played Until Dawn and slightly little. As a result, the game is a feast of recognition when Until Dawn is still in the memory, but it loses some shine if you can not recall all the details after more than two and a half years - let alone if you have never played Until Dawn. Moreover, in the beginning the game is too long for a somewhat misleading line, so in the beginning also the seasoned Until Dawn player has no suspicions where the game actually wants to go. It makes the build-up of The Inpatient strange and unpredictable.

Welcome back to Blackwood Sanitorium

With a franchise like Until Dawn Supermassive Games basically has all the ingredients for a good VR horror experience in the soup kitchen and the studio has decided to throw a lot of it into the mix. Starting with the setting: Blackwood Sanatorium, the institution where a large portion of Until Dawn took place. In The Inpatient we return to this always cozy place, although it looks a lot nicer at first. Since The Inpatient takes place sixty years before Until Dawn, Blackwood is not completely crazy yet, although it does not take long before the atmosphere goes downhill. Your first experience consists of a questionable regression therapy in a rather underexposed examination room.

The Inpatient is therefore pretty good from the starting blocks. The feeling of ignorance and the, at that moment, inexplicable flashbacks make you feel pretty confident about your identity and the reason for being admitted to Blackwood. Just like in Until Dawn, The Inpatient relies heavily on the Butterfly Effect, the choice system where each action influences future scenarios. The choices that are presented to you at the beginning stage allow you to either fully cooperate or distrust your distrust. Especially when you suddenly have to share the room with another patient, experiences around the treatments are completely in line with your thoughts. To make matters worse, you get to deal with gruesome nightmares that literally scare you to death. Within the hour I have been quite well up, despite the predictability of the cliché jumpscares. The disturbing images, combined with very convincing sound effects, made me feel that The Inpatient would be a VR horror game that I had long hoped for.

The nightmare starts here

Unfortunately, this long awaited horror experience ebbs away after an hour and The Inpatient quickly lapses into a taunting walking simulator in which space is created for half-elaborate characters that do not bind you. Like with Until Dawn, Supermassive Games opts for a plot twist that swaps suspense for survival gameplay in which the Butterfly Effect provides the possible deaths. That twist would not be gamebreaking in itself if it started after a few hours, but the story of The Inpatient thus changes after an hour. Now that is not entirely strange since Until Dawn about halfway of setting changed. The Inpatient does that too. Indeed, The Inpatient lasts only two hours. When you realize that you have just paid forty euros for a two-hour game,

The absurdly short length and the pitiful twist of the story are only half of the nightmare. The Inpatient suffers from another painful ailment: horrendous Dual Shock control. The game can be controlled with both the Dual Shock 4 controller and the PlayStation Move controllers and the latter is clearly preferred by Supermassive Games, something you will find out immediately when you have the freedom to walk and pick up and operate objects. . During the development process, it was decided to add the 180 degree spin option by tapping your stick down. Unfortunately, the sensitivity of your left hand lever is adjusted so that you are back-to-front at the slightest touch. Fortunately, the pacing of the game is so painfully slow that it never has drastic consequences, but it works damn on the nerves. Pressing something as simple as a lift button also takes more effort than you would like and picking up and rotating an object is completely different. The times that I hit my PlayStation VR with my controller are no longer counted on two hands.

Supermassive still deserves some praise

It's a shame to have to conclude that Supermassive Games from The Inpatient could not make the game that it could have been. The studio also knows again to prove that it is thinking about ways to innovate. However disappointing the whole experience was for me, I have to compliment the developer for the immersion it manages to generate with The Inpatient. We all know that VR from now on has its restrictions in terms of graphics and also in The Inpatient we do not get out of it. We would all like to have very sharp full HD images projected on our retinas, but that is not the case with this hardware. Nevertheless, Supermassive Games has worked hard to make dialogues as credible as possible by paying a lot of attention to motion capture and facial animations. They all look very nice, provided that your conversation partner is not too far behind in the background. Then it quickly becomes a bit gritty.

The most beautiful piece of innovation, however, is not in the graphic splendor. The option to use the dialogues with your voice adds the most to the immersion in my opinion. Given that most choices in the game consist of choosing a path or answering questions, personal answering these questions is a pretty cool addition. Fortunately, the answers consist of a single sentence, so you do not have to keep a whole monologue. The sentences also consist of fairly simple English. If you only manage coal English or do not feel like talking, you can of course also choose with your controller. This is fortunately much easier than all other controls.

Conclusion

The Inpatient has everything to be a topper of a VR horror game that is worthy of the Until Dawn stamp, but developer Supermassive fails to make it an unforgettable experience. The controls cause a lot of frustration and the meager duration of two hours causes you with bad luck afterwards you shoot directly to the antidepressants. The voice control, the relatively neat visuals and the strong start unfortunately do not make these mistakes. The well-known Butterfly Effect provides a high replay value and the option to more than two hours of gameplay, although the mediocre final chord made me realize that I did not need it anymore. Pity.

Pros

➕ The first hour is horrible
➕ The voice control is a very nice addition
➕ Connect nicely to Until Dawn

Cons

➖ The second (and last) hour is as weak as a dishcloth
➖ Story swallows (depending on your choices)
➖ The control is a drama, especially with the Dualshock 4
➖ The Inpatient is a bit pricey for the duration of two hours

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