Full review of the horror exploration game Wraith: The Oblivion – Afterlife from Fast Travel Games on PSVR.
Wraith The Oblivion Afterlife from Fast Travel Games, aside from having possibly one of the more confusing titles in recent gaming history, submerges you into a world of darkness and tasks you with solving the mystery of your own death, but is it scarily good or dead on arrival? Let’s find out.
Firstly many thanks to the developer for providing me with a review key for the game but as always the opinions presented here are entirely my own.
Fast Travel previously bought us the sci-fi based Apex Construct and the adorable Curious Tale of the Stolen Pets, but with Wraith they’re taking us into the horror genre. This is a part of the World of Darkness series, an established tabletop RPG universe which includes Vampire The Masquerade and Werewolf The Apocalypse, both of which have been adapted into flat-screen video games over the years.
Based in the glamorous world of Hollywood moguls and rising film stars you play as photographer Ed Miller and the game starts with the unusual premise that you’re already sort-of but not-completely dead and currently existing as a Wraith, halfway between the world of the living and the dead. Set entirely in the expansive Barclay Mansion you gradually uncover the details of a seance-gone-wrong and progress the story to find out what happened to you and those around you. This is revealed in a series of flashback-style scenes which play out in front of you as you roam around. It’s a murder mystery of sorts, and the way the scenes unfold around you in a slightly theatrical fashion reminded me of that other PSVR classic The Invisible Hours, although things here are somewhat darker. At various points you’re also aided and goaded in equal measure by the Shadow, a manifestation of your darker subconscious who always seems to know slightly more than they’re letting on.
As you explore the mansion you also expose more backstory by discovering objects and documents laying around, although finding those is mostly optional. There are some key tasks to achieve to progress the story, many of which are essentially object fetch quests. Throughout the game you gradually develop new supernatural skills such as the ability to walk through walls, and the wraith grasp, a force-like ability to move certain objects with the power of your mind. The various documents and key story elements you find are stored within the so-called Memory Palace, which you can revisit from save points dotted around the mansion, so you can always refer back to things or see what you’re still missing if you’re a bit of a collector.
A lot of the tension comes not from jump-scares but from the general ambience of the mansion and the perceived or imagined threats within it but occasionally you’ll encounter gruesome Spectres who are obstructing your path. There’s no combat to speak of, so you’ll need to avoid them and use stealth to get around them to the next location. You can also distract them, to a degree, by strategically throwing bottles or rocks to get them to head off in another direction, or hide in cupboards until they’ve passed you by. Initially this is heart-poundingly scary while you try desperately not to be spotted as you soon realise that once they’ve seen you it’s very difficult to escape them and they will kill you, even deader than you already are, within a matter of seconds. Unfortunately this also becomes a source of major frustration, especially with your first encounters while you’re learning how best to deal with them. Your running speed is more like a brisk walk and is generally not fast enough for you to outrun pursuers and every time you’re caught it results in 30 seconds of blank screen waiting for it to reload and return you to your last save point. At times you’ll end up doing this repeatedly and the initial feelings of fear are quickly replaced with boredom and annoyance. There are really only 4 or 5 different enemies overall as well, each of which you’ll encounter a couple of times through the game, aside from those you’ll basically be alone apart from the occasional appearance of the ghostly characters playing out another scene from the past.
In-between Spectre encounters you’ll spend most of your time exploring the mansion and doing a lot of backtracking, either to find objects or save points. In the absence of a map or compass one power you have is the ability to use your arm to indicate which way you should be going by holding down the Move button and pointing the arm in different directions until it glows and pulses. It’s a nice idea but in practise isn’t all that helpful and sometimes feels like it leads you in circles without being clear where you need to go.
There are also some other minor frustrations such as opening doors and not being sure whether they open inwards or outwards, and with certain control schemes it can be tricky to hold onto the door handles whilst simultaneously navigating backwards to pull them open, especially if you’re being chased at the time. This can add to the tension but again it’s more frustrating than scary. It’s less of an issue once you learn to walk through walls but even then you can only walk through certain walls so will still find yourself wrestling with doors on occasion.
In addition to your acquired skills you have some other tools at your disposal. A camera, which can be used to trigger various memories found around the mansion, a camera flash which can be used to light up dark areas and temporarily blind some Spectres giving you valuable seconds to escape, and a dictaphone which can be used to access some voice-activated security systems. Using the latter can be particularly tense as it takes several seconds to activate systems and all-the-while the noise is likely to attract Spectres to your location.
The game features some decent graphics with the Barclay Mansion presented in all its ominous, art-deco glory. Everything looks generally dark and dingy with a limited colour palette, but that’s to be expected due to the nature of the game. There are some nice effects, like the water ripples bouncing off the walls around the swimming pool, and the use of light and shadow when using the flash. Graphics appear fairly sharp with PS4 Pro enhancements but could possibly benefit from some further PS5 enhancements to make it even sharper. The human characters are nicely stylized albeit with minimal animation, and some of the creatures you meet are truly terrifying in the way they lurch about the mansion and attack you, but there are some clipping issues which make the enemies somewhat less scary when you suddenly see them protruding through a wall or cupboard door.
Sound design and ambience is excellent with plenty of bumps and creaks all around you, and blood-curdling screams and wails from the various Spectres, along with some truly disturbing bone-crunching sounds whenever you’re caught. The voice acting is generally good, if a bit hammed up, and there are some suitably exaggerated vocal effects on the Shadow’s otherworldly voice as they deliver their deadpan lines.
Controls are limited to the 2 Move controllers. Things are quite well mapped and there are a decent amount of options in terms of customising your movement method and comfort options, including several locomotion and rotation types. As mentioned, the running speed feels particularly slow and sadly can’t be customised, but I suspect this was an intentional choice so as to not make it too easy to escape your demise. The game can be played seated or standing, but playing seated makes it a bit trickier to duck behind things as this is done by physical movement rather than having a crouch button.
All in all Wraith serves up a fairly interesting story line in atmospheric surroundings and provides some tense, creepy moments. If you’re ok with the slow-burn progression and the non-combat based stealth gameplay then you should get some enjoyment from this game but be prepared to put up with a few frustrations along the way. There’s not a whole lot of replayability here, aside from finding all the collectibles, so you’re only likely to get one or two playthroughs out of it. However, the decent presentation and length of the game, which although padded out by repetition and backtracking clocks in around 8 hours, makes it a fair proposition at the £20 asking price and a visit to Barclay Mansion could be just what you’re looking for this Halloween.
