Preview: Panic Room
Various Mixed Reality titles in 2024 have changed how I view MR in gaming. When I stumbled upon Panic Room in the Meta Quest Store, I was curious about the kinds of thrills it might bring into my home. After trying out the scenarios it offers, I can’t help but think about whether I actually felt any real panic.
Release Date: December 12th 2024
Developer: GameDigits Ltd
Publisher: 2080 Games
Price: £3.99
Previewed On: Meta Quest 3
* Access Provided For Review *
Panic Room aims to deliver a dose of Mixed Reality thrills right in your living space. Currently in early access, it features two fear simulators that focus on different phobias: spiders and demons.
The initial fear simulator features an overwhelming number of spiders. In this scenario, you need to protect your actual home from a swarm of hundreds of spiders of various sizes. They invade through openings that appear in your walls, starting with just a few but quickly multiplying all over. You begin with only bricks to throw at them, but as you progress, you’ll gain access to nail guns and eventually shotguns. Be careful, though—if you miss, you’ll cause real damage to your walls, creating even more entry points for the spiders. While I don’t typically fear spiders, this experience definitely gave me that unsettling, itchy feeling while I played.
Demons draws significant inspiration from the memorable scene in The Ring that left many feeling uneasy. In this experience, you’ll set a TV on your selected wall, and soon you’ll hear the sound of rain, accompanied by leaks dripping from your ceiling. The TV flickers back to life just as a demon begins to emerge from the screen. This moment is followed by several jump scares that add another layer of fright. Personally, as someone who isn’t a fan of jump scares in horror games and films, this particular approach didn’t resonate with me.
As mentioned, currently, these are the only fears featured in the game, but the team is eager to enhance these demo-style experiences and incorporate additional fears based on community feedback as the game progresses through early access.
Panic Room guides you through the initial setup for the MR. You’ll start by positioning a table in the center of your play area and placing the TV for the Demon experience on your chosen wall. What really stood out to me during this setup was the variety of lighting options available. You can select a skull that complements the lighting in your room, ensuring you achieve the most immersive experience possible.
Panic Room has a lot of potential in its early access phase, featuring two demo-like experiences for a fair price of £3.99. I’m definitely curious to see how it evolves during this period. Will we see longer scenarios for future frights, and how many more will be introduced? If they can pull this off, it could resemble the fantastic Face Your Fears but in Mixed Reality, making the experience feel more immersive than ever. At this price, it’s definitely a great choice if you want to impress your friends and family with MR while enjoying the fun of watching them get scared.