Madison VR Review | TheSixthAxis

Madison VR is, as you might expect, the virtual reality version of Madison, a psychological horror game that originally launched in the summer of 2022. We did try and review the game back then but due to a bug that deleted our save file we could not, so it’s nice to have a second – ahem – stab at it.

The game opens with our protagonist, Luca, waking up covered in blood with his father banging on his door, seemingly in a rage because Luca has gone all Masterchef on the rest of the family and butchered them in to steaks. A couple of photos seem to back up this idea, but is that what is really going on? It’s up to you to work out the true story as you explore a house and other areas over the course of around seven hours.

What this actually entails is puzzles – lots and lots of puzzles – some of them fairly obvious, some very obscure that will have you scratching your head. Pictures need to placed, candlesticks moved, and so many, many things need unlocking with keys or other items. The twist here is that Luca has an old Polaroid style camera and this is used extensively to solve the mysteries. For example, what might look like a blank wall can be photographed and the picture will show it is not blank but has a number, part of a code for a padlock.

Madison has been acclaimed as “The scariest horror game ever” and a lot of those scares come from using the camera. Taking a picture may just take a picture as you would expect, but less expected is when you take a picture and the flash reveals a horrific demon that screams at you from behind a door. Fortunately the developers have teased out these scares really well. In an early section of the game has you in a flooded basement and must to use a radio signal to work out where to take a photo. I honestly thought I was making a hash of the puzzle as I had the right spot, took a photo and nothing, the signal just moved somewhere else. Eventually I was getting bored and frustrated so lined up one more photo and casually took the photo, only to have a demon scream and run straight at me. I actually lost my balance in shock, and I’d recommend playing the game seated rather standing because of this!

Luca is unarmed and there’s a few section where you have to run away and avoid a demon, but once again the camera comes into play as you can use the flash – demons do not like bright lights. You also have, for no reason that I can think of other than it makes the game longer, limited inventory space. Technically it’s ten items, but since you can’t discard the camera, journal, and photos, it’s actually seven. This means backtracking through the house to a safe where you can store items whenever you need to retrieve the ones you need for a specific puzzle.

The game has clearly been inspired by the legendary P.T., as it’s fairly compact but rooms move and change while you are looking in the other direction, and while there are some excellent scares, others are less effective. The sound design does a lot of work, screams and orchestral stabs when something is trying to eat your face, and clunks, bangs and distant thumps echoing through the house as you wander around.

While there were initially some really terrible issues with the VR controls when first playing for this review – just grasping a door handle was a chore that took many attempts – it seems the day one patch has fixed these fundamental issues, However there are still some problems with the VR implementation.

The game allows you to set how you turn, with either jumps of 45 degrees or smooth movement, but there’s no teleport option and no way to set the speed you move. I had to check the controls a few times to make sure I was actually pressing the run button as it is at best a moderate stroll and that really destroys some of the immersion when you are casually sauntering away from a demon rather than running at full speed. Most annoyingly the text that tells you a door is locked does not move with your view and is therefore out of your sight when you are looking down at the door handles. However, top marks for full use of the PSVR 2’s haptic feedback, in particular the headset vibration which pulses and thrums when Luca has headaches, and also for the random trills on the Sense controllers for no reason whatsoever – a really clever way of keeping you on edge.

One final note, the end of the game does feature a depiction of self harm and in VR the effect is quite extreme, if that is triggering for you, then I suggest you play something else.