The VOID’s Nicodemus is a VR horror experience (review)

Our last encounter with The VOID was when we played its “Stars Wars: Secrets of the Empire” and “Ralph Breaks VR.” Both experiences were great and really opened us up to the future possibilities of VR. Now we’ve returned to play “Nicodemus,” a horror VR experience exclusively created by The VOID and Ninja Theory (DMC: Devil May Cry, Heavenly Sword).

Nicodemus tells the story of the Chicago World’s Fair in the summer of 1893. It’s at that fair where a demonstration in electro-spiritualism brought a mysterious creature into our world. After reports of multiple guests disappearing, the World’s Fair closed down. But one night on January 4, 1894, strange and mysterious lights were seen at one of the abandoned exhibit halls. You’re part of an exploration team who are sent back to that night in 1894 to investigate and discover what lurks inside these abandoned halls.

Of course, this wasn’t our first foray into the world of VR, but it was our first true horror VR game that we played. When we entered the virtual world of Nicodemus, each player was assigned a random character. Each one was designed to have a turn-of-the-century Victorian look. That means big dresses for the women and fitted suits for the men. Our game starts off with our team standing inside a small trolly system, which gives us enough time to get ourselves familiar with our surroundings and appreciate the game design.

Suddenly our team of four becomes two teams of two, and this is where the fun begins. As we traverse down a long corridor on a rickety trolly system, the lights suddenly turn off and on, and we immediately see a floating body bag. The lights go dark once again and at this time you pretty much can expect what will happen next. Like a cliche horror movie, the body suddenly appears right in front of your face, and as much as you can prepare for it, it still managed to scare the hell out of us.

After the brief stint on the trolley system, we were free to explore the rest of the abandoned halls. For the near 20 minutes that you’re spending in Nicodemus, there are parts where you’ll get to do some hands-on challenges. This gives you a chance to really experience the immersion that the VOID provides. Though you’re in a VR world, there are moments where you get to physically interact with objects to give you that feeling that you’re really there in those decrepit halls.

What Nicodemus does really well is constantly giving you that eerie feeling as if you were truly in a horror movie. As impressive as the visuals were, the sound design itself does a great job of lending a helping hand to make things extra spooky. It also doesn’t help that you can hear the screams from your other teammates off in the distance to really creep you out. Add the sudden vibrations from the haptic vests and you’ll be fully engulfed in terror.

Final Reaction

It’s no mystery that horror movies can make even the toughest men and women flinch in fear. But when you add a VR element to that horror movie, well the outcome can be slightly unpredictable. We’ve done several other horror experiences, so when we came into Nicodemus, we felt as if we were prepared to handle anything that they were willing to throw at us, but we were wrong. From the visuals to the sound design, down to the haptic vests and physical interaction, everything in Nicodemus plays perfectly well with each other to give you a thrilling 20-minute experience. It will chill you straight down to the bone, and the scares are plentiful and well orchestrated, especially those in your face moments. If you scare easily, then you might just find yourself crawled up in a ball on the floor. We’ve scratched the surface on the possibilities of VR, and Nicodemus has shown us that if it’s done properly, then you can create a horror experience that will satisfy almost any horror fan.

Score: 5/5 Atoms