Dying: Reborn

With its bleak atmosphere and intriguing story, Dying: Reborn is an acceptable effort, bringing the escape room experience to consoles in an interesting, if often disturbing fashion. The PSVR version, while a little more viscerally effective, just doesn’t feel like a complete experience to recommend. Add in some weird glitches that make examining items in VR exceedingly difficult, and the result is the opposite of Resident Evil 7 – this is a VR-enabled game that’s much more satisfying when played on a standard television.

Getting stuck in room-escape or point and click adventure games is par for the course sometimes, but what DYING: Reborn does not have going for it is other strong qualities to keep things interesting and “worth the effort.” It wasn’t long before I resorted to a walkthrough once, and then again as needed. I wasn’t compelled by the story, the characters, or the atmosphere. I didn’t feel any sense of tension or immersion with Mathew and his plight. The presentation of the game from graphics to on-screen font to voice-acting was very generic and lackluster too, making the whole experience a struggle and not very enjoyable. Without a walkthrough, I probably would not have pressed on because I just was not finding the experience worth my time and effort. If you really enjoy room escape games and puzzles, DYING: Reborn at $20 or less might be worth a look, but it’s hard to recommend otherwise.

Even if the voice acting sucks, even if the puzzles are blatantly obvious, I think there's a massive gulf between bad and unspeakably terrible. In fact, for the simple reason the game is completely playable, you could possibly even argue that Dying: Reborn (non-PSVR) edition is profoundly mediocre. That's not enough to make it worth checking out by any means, but it also means that the game doesn't really deserve the title of "Worst Game of 2017" quite yet.

Not buying this would be the ultimate lucky escape. [May 2017, p.92]

Dying: Reborn PSVR has some fun puzzles to solve, but it’s far too short on substance to recommend to anyone. By carving out sections of the non-VR game, Oasis Games has created something a little like the game’s disturbing fish-headed protagonist; a hollow Frankenstein’s monster, brought to life with left overs. PSVR players deserve better.

Dying: Reborn is a textbook example on how to set up the groundwork for an 'Escape Room' experience, but it largely feels unfinished and content is repeated in order to fill in those gaps.

Ultimately, Dying: Reborn is a halfway competent puzzler, but a failure as a horror game.

Despite this generous clutch of problems, there is an odd charm to the game. Its schlock is part of its allure, and each time I loaded the game, I felt as though I was returning to a well-thumbed piece of pulp horror trash or sliding an old VHS B-movie slasher into the machine – its cheap ghouls awash with scan lines. I found myself smirking way more than I was frustrated, but I can’t in good conscience say it’s worth picking up outside of the bargain bin you’d find the films it takes its cues from.

Credible as it is taken solely on its own, DYING: Reborn VR comes across as a cynically motivated cash grab rather than a genuinely developed standalone product. And in an age where what's considered acceptable for a VR game is changing, that renders the game's prospects dead on arrival.

Despite its interesting puzzles, DYING: Reborn struggles to be much more than a poor example of horror; the scares are few and far between, the plot and its characters are horribly played out and given how generic it can frequently be, it’s alarming how seriously it takes itself.

With a lot more polish and focus on making VR a primary component of the game, DYING: Reborn VR could have been a great room escape experience for the platform. Instead it feels like its a hasty cash grab intended to capitalize on VR hype by being sold as a separate, pared down experience and not adapting the full extent of DYING: Reborn.

Dying: Reborn is an interesting enough puzzle game that falls short of making any kind of impact at all. A cash-in game for the VR age, skipping this title would be recommended.

On a system bursting with great horror games, you can safely side-step Dying: Reborn. While we appreciate the attempt, the production values just aren't in place to create the tension that's intended here, and even though there are a couple of decent puzzles on display, there's not enough meat on this murder mystery's bones to make it worth the price of admission.

Dying: Reborn is the worst game I’ve played on the PSVR. It’s a broken, glitchy mess that not even a few admittedly well designed puzzles can make up for, and while the PSVR version may cost less, the heavy amount of cut content means you aren’t getting a deal, you’re just paying for a demo.

Perhaps the only good thing that can be said about Dying: Reborn is that you can easily get a Platinum trophy from it, provided you only backtrack after finishing the game. It's faster if you use a guide for the more obtuse puzzles, but the whole endeavor takes only a few hours to accomplish. If you aren't into Trophy hunting, however, there's nothing of value in this title. Poor puzzles that repeat often, dodgy presentation with worse audio, and a story with too many plot holes are all wrapped up in a price tag that's too expensive for what you're getting. On a system that already has plenty of good horror games, there should be no reason for anyone to pick up Dying: Reborn.