The question Shattered has to answer is this: how badly do I feel like I want to get out?
Shattered is an escape room from your living room. It’s innovative and convenient, but it is also risky. If I see my comforts at home, will I feel the urge to escape even if they are in the peripheral view?
The answer is yes — the detail is worth unpacking.
Puzzles have a long history in gaming — board, console, desktop, and VR.
Physical escape rooms add a tantalizing ingredient to the puzzle formula: Adrenaline. The claustrophobia and urgency of being locked in a room can be incredibly fun. But at their core, they thrive on urgency and the primal instinct to escape. But at their core, they thrive on urgency and the primal instinct to escape.Shattered draws obvious inspiration from escape rooms, and innovates by turning your living room into one using mixed reality: Fragments open portals in the walls, ceiling, and floor of your living room; you scan those scenes for objects to extract and manipulate. It is a game that spans multiple rooms, all connected through a single narrative. This is a great way to experience horror and wear a headset. It can be scary not knowing what might come at you. It’s scary to not know what might lurch at you from any direction. You’ll find creepy things scurrying around. You’ll sometimes get a flashlight and a blacklight to clear the fog of darkness, other times you’ll have to make do with whatever’s available.
So: Shattered
has done away with the timer and the friendly co-op and leans into its strengths: Multiple rooms, narrative storytelling, amped-up horror. On those fronts, a physical escape room can’t hold a candle.
But still, the risk: If I’m playing from my living room, with my sofa, coffee table, and dog still visible in my peripheral vision, do I want to get out
? From the first room: decidedly
yes. Jessica is in a strange bedroom. A guard who doesn’t care has closed the door. But… I love it. It’s a great game. The puzzle was tough, but I managed to solve it. It’s frustrating — it must be *right under my nose*. A moment like this would make me want to Google a guide, but I can’t do that with an early release game. A gamemaster would intervene in a real-life escape room at this stage for the sake of convenience. I’ll look forward post-release to an intrepid gamer writing up their tips, and can’t wait to dive back into the Shattered experience from there.Imagine the added pressure if Shattered introduced a ticking clock or co-op support! In the meantime, Quest puzzlers, horror fans, and escape room aficionados have plenty to enjoy.
Shattered is for the Meta Quest 3 family for $19.99.