Over five years ago, I reviewed Layers of Fear from Bloober Team, it’s hard to believe it has been that long. In the interim, Bloober released a full-blown sequel and has recently released the games on Switch, as well as releasing the first game on PSVR just a few weeks ago. I was provided with a review code for Layers of Fear for PSVR and was happy, although delayed, in finally getting to experience this compelling horror title in VR.
It’s reasonable to expect that the original gameplay of Layers of Fear would be intact with the VR version, and that is the case here. Though old, and with server problems having stripped out the previously used inline images and formatting, I’ll point you to my original review of Layers of Fear on PS4, as all of that still stands and has relevance to the VR review. Primary differences with the original version and the VR release are in the presentation quality, the controls, and the sense of immersion, obviously. For the record, I played Layers of Fear VR (LoFVR) on my PS5 using a v2 PSVR headset, two Sony PS Move controllers (required), and with Sony’s in-ear headphones.
To play LoFVR, you need to have a pair of PS Move controllers. When you first start the game, you’re immediately asked if you want to play standing or sitting, which is a nice option to have. I chose to play sitting, for the very practical reason of it being more comfortable to play, not only for the sake of preventing (or at least delaying) motion sickness that I tend to get from playing first person VR games, but also just in a general comfort sense. Furthermore, playing VR while sitting negates the struggle with the PSVR cables getting in your way or detracting from the immersion. Anyway, one user interface gaff I would point out here was that, while selecting to between the two checkboxes of Standing and Sitting was easy enough (aiming a white line at the box and pressing the rear button on the Move controller), it actually took me a minute to realize that I needed to hold my aim on the selection for a five second countdown to advance to the next screen. It’s a minor, one-time gripe, but this could have been made more clear.
The following screen asks players if they want to enable Visions, which is a comfort preference. As you may know, from reading my original review or otherwise, you play a painter who is gradually losing his mind more and more throughout the game. If you enable Visions, there are times when your view will become blurry or warped and other strange effects. It adds to the psychological tension to be sure, but it might also add to your physical discomfort, so it’s nice that players have the option to disable them. I found that having them enabled but playing while sitting down (and even taking an extended ‘blink’ during some of these visions) was sufficient enough for me to ‘get through them’ and experience what I surmise would be the developer’s, well, vision, for the game.
Speaking of visions and visuals, there’s no escaping the fact that the visual quality of LoFVR is a significant step back from the non-VR version. Whatever the reason may be, and I assume it’s a purely technical move to obtain a smooth framerate on PSVR, the graphic fidelity of LoFVR is pretty rough. It does detract from the experience somewhat, though I wouldn’t call it a deal breaker for sure. It’s just a lot lower resolution and lacks a visual punch that I was expecting. The in-game visual cues for object interaction are the same as they were in the original game, but with as many drawers and doors as there are you’ll encounter a pretty hefty dose of clipping while opening doors that swing into the room/towards the player, too. On the other hand, the aural experience is impressive, making me glad I picked up a set of the PSVR earbuds. LoF uses a spooky soundscape to its advantage and it rings in very nicely in VR with earbuds.
As far as controls, having to use the Move controllers exclusively was an interesting choice. There is a whole lot of walking and object interaction in LoFVR, it’s really all you do. Walking is done by pressing the Motion button on one controller, with three face buttons on said controller corresponding to strafe left, right, and backwards. The rear button on both controllers, which are your hands in the game, are used to interact — basically to grab something, be it a key or some kind of door handle. You can also turn using the face buttons on this controller.
The two biggest faults I found with using the Move controllers was that walking and interacting are more tedious and ‘in the way’ than they should be. To walk, there’s actually a lot of buttons to press between walking in each direction and turning. It made rounding corners of walls cumbersome and awkward, and it felt very robotic. Additionally, the interactions — I thought the developers could have been a little bit looser with the spatial precision required to interact with objects. If you want to reach for that door handle, you have to really reach for it, which often leads to clipping as your hand clips into the handle, for example. But there’s also a bit of a learning curve to getting the distancing right, which had me reaching out in vain a lot before making a successful ‘grab.’ And when you’re opening a drawer, cabinet door, or room door that opens back into the room you’re in now (which is often the case), this action can blend these faults into a surprisingly awkward control sequence where you have walk backwards to make room for the door to open. I think that had the developers allowed standard controllers to be used, it would have smoothed out walking and interacting a lot better, even if you still were having to press face buttons because the buttons on a standard controller are much easier and more familiar to interact with than the smaller and more awkwardly place Move face buttons.
Even with the reduction in graphical fidelity and the controller shortcomings, I still found LoFVR compelling to replay after five years from having played the original. The story is pretty good, but moreover I really liked the ever-changing mansion and Twilight Zone weirdness of it all. That kind of atmosphere and design lend themselves well to VR play, and to that end the game is interesting on PSVR, despite its shortcomings. Plus, at only $20, LoFVR is relatively light on the wallet for a few hours of spooky VR.
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