I’m hunched over in a protective stance, arms raised and heart pounding. Something just sneaked up behind me and tried to whack my head off. I was caught off guard so completely that I moved to protect myself without thinking; I just reacted. This physical response to a virtual threat may seem surprising, maybe even cowardly — but it’s an honest one. The beating of my heart says so.
I’m playing through the opening chapters of Lies Beneath, a new survival horror game coming to Oculus Quest and the Rift Platform from developer Drifter. Set in the fictional town of Slumber, Alaska, Lies Beneath takes the inky styling of pulp comics and mashes it together with the supernatural terror of Japanese horror movies. The result is a new kind of graphic novel that invites you to step through its pages and become part of the narrative in a new, decidedly physical way. In the case of Lies Beneath, this means surviving a wilderness of bloodthirsty monsters and arcane mysteries.