When I first started upSwitchback VR, I wasn’t sure how you’d make a The Dark Pictures game in virtual reality. Around five hours later as the credits rolled, I still didn’t quite know. The answer seems to be to make Until Dawn: Rush of Blood again. It’s an enjoyable experience (if you enjoy being attacked by burned killer dolls, doctors jamming needles into you, and creepy mannequins), but it never quite feels like TDPA, even as it takes you on a tour of its history. Those after an isolated horror experience will have their bloodlust satiated, but if you’re hoping for an extension of the world’s mythology, you’ll have to settle for fleeting references.
Switchback is an old fashioned rail shooter (quite literally given you’re on a rollercoaster), a genre that doesn’t lend itself to the meaningful choices and evolving narratives the series is known for. At various times you’ll choose which track the cart you’re riding in goes down, but you’re often guessing what will come next and, even when making an informed choice, that’s hardly the panicked, ethical dilemma of whether or not to cut Ashley Tisdale’s rope as she slips over a cliff into a pool of vampire blood whilst invading Iraq on behalf of the US military. All of the intended nuance of past Supermassive games is discarded in favour of thrills.
Related:Playing No Man’s Sky In VR Made Me Like No Man’s Sky
My wife watched me play, and The Dark Pictures Anthology is a personal favourite of hers because of its approachability for casual players. But halfway through the second level, she told me it looked more likeResident Evil, and I had to agree with her. It’s an action shooter that trades in jump scares, set pieces, and clever use of its environments. By the end, she was still interested in playing herself - as a rail shooter with no chance of going ‘the wrong way’ it keeps the casual appeal - but that was born more of her affection for the series and the gimmick ofVR. It’s not what fans will be looking for, I imagine, but they’ll still have some fun along the way.
As for what fansmightbe looking for, that would be the Curator, who pops up randomly across the campaign. Sometimes he’ll be in plain sight, walking towards you, at other times, hidden in your periphery, but unfortunately he never interacts or offers anything meaningful. It’s a nice touch, but one that only serves to highlight how much this deviates from the regular games.
Then there’s the game’s overall structure. Maybe I banged my head during one of the several dozen carriage crashes (or three hard crashes) I experienced during my time with Switchback, but I just didn’t get it. The first level opens with you sitting on a subway train with four other passengers, with music playing and a phone call from your sister, which acts as a narrative connection between the two parts. You then are on a ghost train roller coaster which acts as a tutorial, then eight levels based on the four existing TDPA games (two from each, in release order), and a boss level at the end. Why? I couldn’t tell you.
One thing that links the two narratives during your playthrough is that there is a passenger to save in each pair of levels. I failed to solve one of the puzzles in time, and correctly solved another, so that’s fair enough. But with the other two, I either missed the puzzle completely and didn’t realise until I saw my cart turn away from it, or I did solve it, but thanks to the on rails system, left the area before the animation was fully finished, so it counted as a fail.
The game doesn’t establish these characters as people, so the stakes are low, though it does impact the final level in limited ways. It doesn’t give you that sense of having to live with your failures because you’re barely in control of them. Why base it on a franchise so intertwined with impactful decisions if that’s not going to work in VR?
There’s also a fifth passenger, who takes the form of the central demon who tries to drag you down into Hell, having claimed the lives of the four other passengers. This is Supermassive’s scariest villain to date - a Ruby Rose-style androgynous goth in wet look leggings and a waistcoat who is mad at you. Belial appears randomly throughout the game, and I initially thought they were another passenger to save, before realising they were a portent of doom. This is the one place where we see the usual developed characters and sharp dialogue we’ve come to expect from The Dark Pictures, and easily its highest point.
But okay, enough about what Switchback is not. It is a solid action shooter with varied levels that celebrate its legacy while offering something new, and by offering a host of excellent enemies. There are some foes with more individual character, like the twisted pin-up sailor girl, who has been used heavily in the marketing, and an array of fodder that mostly stays fresh. Some enemies swarm all at once and must be handled quickly, some only attack when provoked, asking you to keep your cool, and some will only approach when you don’t look at them (or, more terrifying, when you blink), meaning you have to constantly be aware of how each enemy reacts and plan accordingly. It’s much better than just producing bullet sponges, although the later levels suffer from that.
It’s not just enemies, though - the game is part shooting gallery, offering points for shooting old skulls, barrels, or any other fodder by the sides of the tracks. This fills the slower sections and offers replayability to beat your high score, but just randomly blasting your way through quiet sections can upset the tone. You can also unlock limited ammo weapons, and that can negate these parts as you try to conserve resources. These can also land you in strange situations - in one level, I had to blow a bloodsucker off my face by shooting my own nose with a flare gun. Somehow, I survived.
Switchback VR is a steady rail shooter that offers decent variety and an interesting tour through some old levels, but never tries to earn The Dark Pictures name. The choices don’t matter, the Curator is just a creepy Where’s Wally?, and the stakes or even setup for rescuing characters was lost on me. However, it’s reliably spooky, action-packed, and has the best designed villain in the series. It’s a rail shooter obsessed with its own past, so it makes sense that it’s two steps forward and one step back.
Score: 3/5. A PS VR2 code was provided for this review.
Next:PS VR2 Has Too Many Exclusives And Not Enough
