Transference

Transference opens onto a darkened street void of any human activity. When wearing a VR headset, most players will likely turn their head to the left or right and then in the opposite direction in an attempt to get a sense of space. Behind is the deep black of nothingness, front-facing is a three-story apartment building dulled by the bright pink neon glow of a sign saying “Harmony.” Tucked into the bottom floor at the corner of two streets is a music store, “Music is the key” spelled out on the awning. A short live action FMV has just played delivered by Raymond Hayes, speaking to the player and implying they were a colleague of his. Raymond has somehow found a way to capture human consciousness and cage it inside of a computer. He invites the player to come and see this unbelievable work. We leave the darkened street, onto the sidewalk and through the threshold into a rapidly unfolding nightmare.

Developed as a collaboration between Ubisoft Montreal and SpectreVision, the film production company Elijah Wood is involved with, is a stark contrast to Ubisoft’s other bodies of work. Absent are the jovial Rabbids, the militaristic grit of Tom Clancy’s, and the open world playgrounds. I would nestle Transference in with the experimental Child of Light and Valiant Hearts–two games that showed the gargantuan publisher could push out quality indie fare.

Yet Transference doesn’t come across as a game touted by a high-profile Hollywood talent, or even one with a massive budget. This is a game where players find themselves in a swirling, digital detritus of a father, mother, and son and their broken home. Once crossing the entryway of the apartment complex, the path is blocked by a wall of black. Red letters claim a file is missing and a directory path with “Sounds” in it hints at the way forward. Raymond’s square mailbox becomes garbled as if its very reality can’t be processed by the player’s eyes.

Touching the mailbox will open it, revealing a piece of paper with letters written like keys on a music scale. Each key corresponds to a mailbox and pushing the buttons on the mailbox in the correct order solves the puzzle. Like a digital curtain being raised, the corruption is gone and players can advance into the stairwell of the apartment.

I describe Transference‘s first puzzle in such a direct way because I think it is best to defuse their importance in the overall experience. Mechanically speaking, Transference is more a “game” than something like Gone Home which only tested players’ problem-solving skills in the most arbitrary ways. The handful of puzzles in Transference are not complicated and only require a small amount of focus. A distant voice will often whisper a broad hint while the surroundings will give way to obvious clues. Those looking for Transference to act as a modern day horror equivalent of older point-and-click adventure games will be left wanting. There are no inventory screens and no combining of items. Problems will be solved in the same room of the house they were found in.

The one regret some may have over the game’s difficulty will be in the lost opportunity of using the Hayes apartment building as an interconnected mystery. Katherine and her husband’s bedroom might be locked in one instance because the focus is on Benjamin’s room. The most head-scratching a player will probably do is determining when to flip a light switch to literally switch between realities, perspectives, or minds… whichever is your final interpretation. One puzzle requires players to tune two different radios in two different versions of the kitchen to unlock a door leading outside. I originally was under the assumption that more would be required on my part to work some logic between rooms and possibly bring items between each family member’s mind to reach a solution. However, this is just not the case.

Lamentations over difficulty aside, a lack of complex meaningful puzzles means that the momentum through the story isn’t suddenly impeded in order to sit and think. One could argue that games like Silent Hill or Resident Evil had their fair share of scares and solutions but at four to five hours, Transference‘s core appeal would suffer from unfocused, casual puzzles.

Once my nervous trek through the apartment had come to a close, I wasn’t left wishing my brain had been challenged more. Instead, I was bothered and disturbed by the events that had transpired. Praise should be given for the restraint in the amount of jump scares–as they are paced evenly throughout the game–because the real terror is derived from the puzzle pieces that are slowly put into place over time.

The walls of the Hayes apartment are covered in black crayon obviously done by Benjamin. He loves his dog, is scared of some dark creature, and doesn’t think his mother loves him. Right out of the gate players are provided with this information that puts into question what is happening with this family. Is something wrong with Katherine to make Benjamin so scared of her? Does Raymond hope to guard his son from danger? Players will pick up audio and video logs that continue to chip away at this outwardly greeting card family.

What’s most important to understand is that different details are revealed with each perspective shift. With the solving of a puzzle or the shift of a light switch, the focus is put on a different family member to reveal more about their individual issues. At the core is Raymond’s obsession with his work. To what lengths will he go to transfer human consciousness into digital form? Why is the massive freezer in the garage locked up? What’s in the basement?

To answer these questions would wipe away any satisfaction in discovering the clues and the answers. Fans of movies where a family member becomes possessed or the house is haunted may guess a few of the story beats. But as the game spins faster towards its conclusion, not everything is obvious and there is some room left for interpretation. Players may see the irony in the fact that Raymond uses “Harmony Labs” for his body of work, signaling a deeper meaning into things that seemed to have little importance. There are even hints of otherworldy forces at work. But it still is not enough to make one’s head spin. The live action segments enforce that this is a simulation while providing a few intentionally uncomfortable moments for the viewer.

Transference can be played without a VR device but I would strongly advise against it. Not only are those jump scares much more vivid, the truly excellent sound and visual design become much more pronounced. The tight hallways of the apartment will echo with sound and often crash down on the player like a monsoon. It’s claustrophobic in the best way as it further draws players into the narrative of what is and isn’t real.

VR is a tricky thing as developers try to find the balance between gimmicks, time, and budget. Some of the best VR games I’ve played have allowed the experience to go on for a handful of hours. Transference could have gone on longer and perhaps featured a slightly larger environment with some truly weird puzzles that encapsulated it’s themes. Still, the product players are left with is actually quite unique in how taut and focused it is. Ubisoft and SpectreVision have stripped away much of the excess and left players with a movie-like experience that could be completed in one sitting and revisited multiple times to piece it all together. It always feel strange to say that a game which can make you feel so unsettled can be entertaining but luckily, Transference does just that.