Shattered review for Meta Quest 3

Gaming is constantly evolving, from upgrades to graphics and resolution to increases in just what kind of stories can be told through the medium. When VR was introduced, it was a niche but impressive leap forward. As its popularity has grown and it has gained more mainstream appeal (and availability) those experiences have grown along with it.

While escape rooms can be a lot of fun, they are also a lot of work. You have to physically locate one, then find a group of people to attend it with you, then schedule the event, and once you go and start the experience, you are stuck there until it concludes. Bringing an escape room style adventure to VR isn’t new for Shattered, but the manner in which they implement it is. Instead of a group, you are tackling this yourself. Instead of being locked in an unfamiliar environment, you are escaping your OWN room through the clever use of AR to bring game elements into your world around you.

Horror in VR is another experience that is dramatically elevated through the technology, with things being inherently scarier in a VR headset. Shattered blends the best elements of horror and escape rooms to excellent effect. The first time I turned around and saw something standing in my own bedroom was a stomach-turning experience that I cannot properly describe.

Shattered is a deceptively deep puzzle game at the core. Reminiscent of Myst or Riven, with all of the clues coming from the environment or from reading notes you recover. The core gameplay takes place in whatever room of your house you choose, but portals to the game world open up and require you to pull items through and place them in your own world. Interacting with these items works surprisingly well, and the Quest did a great job of mapping my room so that interacting with things that I had to mount on my wall did not have me accidentally punching said wall with my controller.

A solid hint system allows you to get help if you are stuck, but the hints themselves are rarely giveaways. They still require a good deal of thought, and keep Shattered feeling engaging and challenging. I had to use the hint system a handful of times, and found it walked an excellent tightrope between being helpful without making things too easy.

Shattered is visually impressive in how it engages with your real-life environment. Key lockers mounted on the wall look almost real, chests placed on your floor might cause you to stumble if you aren’t paying attention and try to avoid “running into them.”  The blending of in-game objects and real-life objects never grows tiresome and manages to impress and startle all the way through the game.

Overall, Shattered is an excellent game that succeeds as both an escape room and a VR title. Shattered offers the perfect blend of VR horror and AR interaction, elevating itself above its contemporaries and bringing something unique and special to the table. I look forward to playing more, and sharing this experience with friends in the future.

Note: Oculus Publishing provided us with a Shattered code for review purposes.