Switchback VR for PS VR2 is so scary I genuinely had concerns for my health

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I checked my watch’s heart rate data immediately after coming off a session of Switchback VR. 126. That’s not exercise territory, but it’s the highest it got that day and far above the resting rate. When your heart rate rises like this, it feels completely different to physical activity. You know it’s not normal. In the enclosed VR environment combined with the kind of stomach churns you’d expect at a theme park, I genuinely had to take a break for fear I’d keel over. Switchback VR is simply too scary for me to take in anything other than short bursts.

Switchback VR, a follow-up to Supermassive Games’ Rush of Blood, is an on-rails lightgun-style shooter, this time set in the Dark Pictures universe. More importantly, it’s a game that revels in making players shit their pants (hyperbolically, but perhaps also in reality in some cases – I can’t speak to everyone’s experience). It’s a game that pulls your attention one way only to snap your neck back with a jump scare likely to cause whiplash and panic about if you bought stain remover in your latest shop.

You’ll ride a theme park cart on an actual rail through a couple of levels for each of the four games in the Dark Pictures series to date. While there are some events that can have an impact on what plays out in front of you, the cause-and-effect nature of the core games in this franchise has essentially been thrown out in favour of terror-induced panicked shooting at a variety of horrid enemies. An ungodly cast of horrors will come at you from all angles, leap from doors, erupt from pools of blood, and generally just do all they can to mess you up. Some even react to blinks, moving to new locations when you open your eyes again – an experience I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.

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