Propagation: Paradise Hotel

About Propagation: Paradise Hotel

Paradise Hotel is the first chapter of a new story from WanadevStudio, the studio in Lyon, France, that made the free VR experience Propagation VR. It came out on Steam for PC VR and on Meta Quest on 4 May 2023, and it is also sold on the PlayStation Store for PS VR2 and on the PICO Store.

You play Emily Diaz, one of two sisters who work at the hotel. The building has been holding out against an outbreak for a few days, and the game opens with you shut in the kitchen with a security guard who shows you how to use a gun. When a radio message says your sister Ashley is alive, you set out through the hotel to find her: lobbies, guest rooms, offices and corridors, opened up as you find keys and keycards and solve puzzles.

It follows the old Resident Evil formula closely, and reviewers say so. You raid drawers and cupboards for three things: health, ammunition and batteries for your flashlight. The pistol sits on your hip, a bigger gun on your back, supplies in a waist bag and the flashlight in your breast pocket, so most things are done with your hands. The inventory itself is a menu you open with a button, with tabs for a journal, documents and a map.

Its horror is in the dark and the closeness that VR brings. The infected lurch out of doorways and down long carpeted corridors, ammunition is not endless and every reload is done by your own hands while something comes at you. The game moves between quiet exploring, stealth and sudden fights, with survivors to meet along the way. 6DOF Reviews found the combat not very hard but praised the sound and music, and found the voice acting weak in places.

It suits VR players who want something closer to Resident Evil than to an arcade shooter. The voices are in English only, with subtitles in ten more languages, and the PICO Store notes that very few players report motion sickness.

How to play Propagation: Paradise Hotel

1. Start in the hotel kitchen and learn to handle the pistol.
2. Use your flashlight to explore the dark rooms and corridors.
3. Open drawers and cupboards for health spray, ammunition, batteries, keys and documents.
4. Check the inventory menu for your equipment, the waist bag, quest items, the journal and the map.
5. Reload your pistol by hand and aim for the head when the infected attack.
6. Choose when to sneak past enemies instead of fighting to save ammunition.
7. Solve the puzzles that open new parts of the hotel and follow the trail to your sister.

Tips

• Keep spare flashlight batteries; the hotel is very dark.
• Search every drawer and cupboard, ammunition is limited.
• Reload in quiet moments rather than in the middle of a fight.
• Read the notes and documents you find; some puzzles rest on clues in the text.
• Use teleport movement if free movement makes you feel unwell.

Questions