Layers of Fear VR

Rate it

Walk a painter's shifting mansion in VR as his mind comes apart.

Platforms: VR, PC, PlayStation
Price: Paid
Rated: Mostly Positive on Steam (72% of 275 reviews); Meta Quest store 4.1 of 5 from 371 ratings
Length: about 2 to 5 hours
Players: 1
Controls: VR headset with tracked controllers; smooth movement only, with no teleport option, and a comfort vignette in the menu.
Made by: Incuvo
Released: 2019

What frightens In VR you walk a Victorian mansion that rearranges itself behind your back, as a painter going mad tries to finish his masterpiece; doors lead to rooms that were not there, the walls bleed and the figures in the paintings move.
Content: jumpscares, blood, motion sickness (smooth movement only).

Layers of Fear VR is the VR version of Bloober Team's psychological horror game about a painter losing his mind. You walk through his Victorian mansion in first person, using your hands to open drawers and handle objects, while the house shifts around you and his past rises out of the walls.

About Layers of Fear VR

Layers of Fear VR is a VR adaptation of Layers of Fear, the 2016 game that made Bloober Team known for horror. It was made by Incuvo and published by Bloober Team, and came out on Steam for PC VR in December 2019, on Oculus Quest in July 2020 and on PlayStation VR in 2021.

You play a painter who has shut himself in his Victorian house to finish the masterpiece he has worked on for years. As you walk the rooms, gather the materials for the painting and find letters and objects from his life, the story of his family and what went wrong comes back in pieces.

The house is the horror. Turn around and the corridor you came from is a wall; open a door and the room behind it is upside down; look back at a painting and the face in it has changed. VR makes this closer and stranger: you reach out and open drawers with your own hands, crayons float in the air around you, and the scares happen right beside you. It plays like the original, with exploration and small puzzles and no combat.

Critics found the VR conversion rough in places, especially on Quest: movement is smooth turning and walking only, with no teleport, and several reviewers felt sick. Players rated it better than critics did. It suits VR owners who are comfortable with smooth movement and want slow psychological horror with many jumpscares. For a flat-screen version, see Layers of Fear (2023), which remakes the original and its sequel.

How to play Layers of Fear VR

Put on your headset and set the comfort options, such as the vignette, before you start moving.
Walk through the mansion with smooth movement and turning; there is no teleport.
Reach out to open doors, drawers and cabinets, and pick up letters and objects to learn the painter's story.
Solve the small puzzles that unlock the way on, and gather what the painting needs.
Keep going when the house changes around you; turning back often shows you something new.