Out of Sight VR Review-In-Progress: A Sight to Behold

Out of Sight’s “second-person” perspective proves it’s already a great fit for VR, even with more polish to come.

We all know VR is at its best when you can immerse yourself in the experience, but sometimes immersion doesn’t necessarily mean taking on the role of the protagonist. Occasionally, the games that take advantage of the player as an observer in the world can help ground things even more than if we see things through the character’s eyes. Out of Sight VR takes this train of thought to its inevitable conclusion.

Within moments, Out of Sight VR makes it clear that something isn’t quite right in this mansion – and Sophie wants to make a break for it before it may be too late. Unfortunately, she’s blind – yet for some reason, tonight her Teddy Bear can see for her. As her bear, you’re her one and only lifeline to freedom. The result is a fascinating and engaging horror game where you’re not the one in danger.

Out of Sight is a game all about perspective. When you’re being straddled, the game controls almost in first-person – only betrayed by the fact you can quite clearly see Sophie clinging to you for dear life if you look down. Since Sophie can’t pick up or interact with objects with you in her grasp guiding her along the way, you have to request to be placed down on marked blankets for her to solve puzzles. This, of course, presents some problems.

While Sophie won’t be able to see in front of herself when Teddy is placed down, the game shifts into something of an isometric perspective. This happens during puzzle rooms, where Sophie will have to push, climb and activate switches to progress. Early in the game, Teddy gains access to an ability that allows you to stare at certain locks, to destroy them – usually requiring Sophie to flip some switch to get them within your sight. During these segments, the game plays out in a sort of isometric perspective from whichever perch you’ve placed Teddy at. Teddy himself doesn’t do much the majority of the time; but since Sophie can only see what he sees, it’s imperative that you ensure he can give you a good enough view of the room.

Things start out simple enough, but before long you’ll be taking advantage of Teddy’s unique perspective in a myriad of ways. To unlock a gate, you’ll need to set several levers to the right position. Yet, the “correct position” isn’t immediately obvious; you’ll have to send Teddy on a little expedition to get a peek at how exactly the lock works. Maybe you’ll have to fiddle with a set of contraptions to scoop up a new vantage point for your bear, so you can juggle knowing where to go, while still being able to reach your one and only hope. While things never get too difficult, the puzzles remain interesting enough. It makes good use of the game’s shifting perspectives to feel engaging.

As far as horror goes, Out of Sight VR is squarely within the “atmospheric” category. Although there aren’t too many jump scares, what the game does have in spades is some excellent spooky vibes, which is certainly enhanced by being played in VR. Whether it’s hearing or seeing something just out of the corner of your eyes, or forgetting to look down leading to some instant regret.

In-between puzzle rooms you’ll find some light stealth segments; sometimes you’ll need to evade the gaze of Sophie’s caretakers, while others will have you avoiding mousetraps, dangling bells and the like that might alert someone to your presence. With either, you’ll regularly be darting in and out of the walls as you slowly progress through the mansion. Visually, the game looks rather stunning, even if many of the areas do look overly similar at times.

One thing that’s probably important to note is that while Out of Sight works quite well in VR – it’s not exclusive to it. This means that the game itself doesn’t quite feel as seamlessly VR as a game built for the ground up may feel; in fact, it does very much feel like you could play the entire game with a standard, non-VR controller. More or less, the only tracked movements right now are being able to shift Teddy’s arms, but this doesn’t do anything for the actual gameplay. However, this is something that the team has singled out as a target to be changed with additional control modes by the full release.

Out of Sight VR – Final Verdict

Though it’s in Early Access for now, Out of Sight VR is still a complete game that takes about three hours or so for a complete playthrough. While it’s certainly on the shorter side, the game makes great use of its run time, and can easily be completed in a single session if you so choose.

The current state of the game is still quite good, and very enjoyable – we’re interested to see how the game evolves, maybe to see exactly how those additionally planned control modes work out in the long-run. Stay tuned for our final impressions later this year, once Flat2VR Studios feels confident that Out of Sight VR is ready for its final 1.0 release.

UploadVR uses a 5-Star rating system for our game reviews – you can read a breakdown of each star rating in our review guidelines. As a review-in-progress, this is currently unscored, and we’ll revisit this review at full release.