Psychological horror Mystery and detective horror

A Chair in a Room: Greenwater

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Wake in the Greenwater Institute with no memory, and dig through your own past in room-scale VR.

Platforms: PC, VR, PlayStation
Stores: Steam
Price: Paid
Rated: Very Positive on Steam (83% of 615 reviews); 3.75 of 5 on the PlayStation Store (109 ratings) and 3.7 of 5 on Meta (23); 8/10 from UploadVR
Length: about 3 hours (six chapters of 20 to 30 minutes, plus a short bonus story)
Players: 1
Made by: Wolf & Wood Interactive
Released: 2016

No. 28 of the asylum horror games · No. 28 of the religious horror games · No. 11 of the swamp horror games

Get it on Steam Meta (Rift and Link PC VR)PlayStation Store (PS VR)

What frightens You wake as patient no. 6079 in the Greenwater Institute with no memory of who you are, and walk back through your memories of derelict towns, run-down motels and swamps in the American South, while dark visions make you doubt your own mind and only the doctor's medication keeps them away.
Content: blood, violence, strong language, jumpscares, themes of family abuse and drug addiction.

A Chair in a Room: Greenwater is a VR horror mystery by Wolf & Wood set in the American Deep South. You play patient no. 6079 at the Greenwater Institute and relive your memories, through motels, derelict towns and swamps, to find out what you did to end up there. The fear builds slowly, from dread and dark visions more than fights.

About A Chair in a Room: Greenwater

A Chair in a Room: Greenwater is a horror game for VR headsets by Wolf & Wood, a one-man studio: UploadVR's review credits the writing, programming and art to Ryan Bousfield, with others on the voice acting. It grew out of a much shorter demo for the Oculus DK1 and Google Cardboard and came out on Steam in 2016. It reached PlayStation VR on 23 April 2019 and is also sold on Meta's store for Rift and Link PC VR. It cannot be played without a headset: Steam marks it VR Only.

A wristband reading patient no. 6079 is all you know when the story starts in the Greenwater Institute. Dark visions call your lucidity into question, and only the doctor's supply of medication holds back the ones who want to haunt you. Your cell holds souvenirs but no memories; hidden notes and objects lead you back into the events that put you there.

Between chapters you return to your room, which works as a hub: place the right object and you are pulled into one of your memories. Drawing on Southern Gothic, those memories take you through derelict towns, run-down motels and murky swamps, in an investigation of institutional corruption, religious immorality and murder. UploadVR describes an ambiguous story about family abuse, drug addiction and mental instability.

It was built for room scale. The game adapts to the size of your play space so you can walk around with your own legs, and the remastered version adds free movement, crouching and free rotation next to teleporting and the original flexible room-scale mode. Reviewers found the puzzles straightforward; the fear comes from stalking dread, from turning around in a dark storeroom with a flickering flashlight, and from a share of jump scares. Finishing the story unlocks a short bonus chapter, The Missing Girl.

The six chapters run about 20 to 30 minutes each, and HowLongToBeat puts the main story at about 3 hours. It suits players who want a slow, unsettling story in VR more than combat. Reviewers noted that the ending can leave you with more questions than answers.

How to play A Chair in a Room: Greenwater

Buy it on Steam for a SteamVR or Oculus PC headset, on Meta's store for Rift and Link PC VR, or on the PlayStation Store for PS VR, which needs the PlayStation Camera.
Settle in the calibration room and choose how to move: room scale, teleport or free movement.
Call the elevator to begin as patient no. 6079 in the Greenwater Institute.
Search your cell and each memory, picking up objects and reading notes, papers and photos for clues.
Back in your room between chapters, place the right object to enter the next memory.

Screenshots

A figure in white stands in the dark behind a serving hatch in a tiled institute wall, a paper cup on the sill

A figure seen through the window of a cell door, with FEAR scratched above a slot holding spilled pills

A lantern, a missing-child milk carton, a lodge postcard and a newspaper warning of a storm on a dim wooden table

VR hands hold an inkblot card and a psychiatric report at a desk with a rotary phone

A wall of news clippings about a missing girl and a map with red pins behind a cracked oval mirror

A Holy Bible on a wooden chair in a dim panelled room, a torn page on the tiled floor

Two porcelain doll heads and hospital wristbands on a dark shelf in cold blue light

Tips

Play a chapter at a time; each lasts about 20 to 30 minutes.
If your play space is large enough, walk rather than teleport: the game adapts to the room, and moving your own body is where it is most frightening.
Turn objects over in your hands; notes and pictures often carry what you need next.
Finish the story to unlock The Missing Girl, a short bonus chapter where you shake your flashlight to recharge it.

Questions

Can I play A Chair in a Room: Greenwater without VR?

No. It is VR only on Steam, and the PlayStation version needs PlayStation VR and the PlayStation Camera.

How long is A Chair in a Room: Greenwater?

HowLongToBeat puts the main story at about 3 hours. The store splits it into six chapters of about 20 to 30 minutes, and a short bonus chapter unlocks at the end.

Is it on Meta Quest?

Meta's store sells it as a PC VR game for Rift and Link, so a Quest needs to be connected to a PC; there is no standalone Quest version listed.

Can I play it on PS5?

The PlayStation Store sells the PS4 version and says it is playable on PS5, though some PS4 features may be missing. It still needs PlayStation VR and the camera.

How scary is it?

It leans on slow dread more than shocks, but it does have jump scares, and room-scale VR makes the dark rooms hard to walk into. It is rated Teen by the ESRB for blood, language and violence.