Narcosis Reviews
Narcosis tells a grounded, emotional, and surprising story, but you have to wade through a lot of plodding moments to see it through
Narcosis is a suffocating experience in the bottom of the ocean. An interesting game, but it feels a little incomplete in some ways, including its length.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
A great VR horror experience with clever narration and excellent audio. The game can be played tradizionally, without an HMD, but it loses 90% of its charm.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Narcosis' voice acting and writing might hold water but the outdated visuals, laughable horror, and poor gameplay weigh the game down and cause it to sink faster than a corpse with cinder block shoes.
Narcosis is neither a great nor terrible horror title — it's simply fine. The premise is so strong but the full experience only partially achieves that potential. Its place as a quick completion will attract many of this community, but if you need more than narrative from your games, look elsewhere. It delivers a brief but interesting story with a greatly memorable ending, but in several other ways, most notably atmosphere, Narcosis is dead in the water.
A good set of headphones or a full surround-sound system is highly recommended for Narcosis.
There's not much I can say about Narcosis. It was too short of an experience to really gather a lot for it. At the same time, this was made for VR and I'm sure if I had played it in VR it would have had a bigger effect on me. Unfortunately, while this is supposed to be a horror game, I never once jumped or was creeped out.
Narcosis isn't much of a game, but it is an amazing, immersive horror that everyone should experience.
Narcosis is a disturbing adventure which captures the player with its fascinating and unforgettable mood.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Narcosis is a frightening, cerebral game that taps into your basest instincts of fear and survival with a beautifully rendered environment and thoughtful story. The short length of the game and the actual mechanics keep it from being a masterpiece, but it is an excellent debut effort from Honor Code.
Narcosis provides a truly scary VR experience despite being a bit shallow in regards to its content and mechanics. Fans of horror games will definitely find something to enjoy.
Narcosis is a shining example of a virtual reality psychological thriller done right, and a is must play for any horror junkie.
Ultimately, Narcosis provides players with a compelling experience that's easy to recommend.
Narcosis feels designed for VR, and as such, it's a relatively short experience, lasting only a handful of hours. The game runs smoothly on Xbox One, and even without VR, I found the game unnerving. The fear of the pitch dark unknown on the ocean with all sorts of nightmarish creatures is enough to give me nightmares. Combine it with the disturbing imagery and the death of all your colleagues, and you have an intriguing premise with some great narrative set pieces.
It's hard to recommend Narcosis to anyone who wants something more than just a story. There's some interesting concepts here that could've translated to some great gameplay mechanics, but they feel under developed. The story and characterisation is great, but everything else pales in comparison. Narcosis is a great premise that unfortunately never really lives up to what sounded like high potential.
Narcosis is a non conventional, intense and well written survival horror game. The abyss is a fascinating setting and the character is forced to survive and fight from inside a heavy diving suit, constantly monitoring the oxigen level. However, gameplay is too slow, awkward and inaccurate.
Review in Italian | Read full review
As horror games go, Narcosis is a triumph, managing to get under your skin and stay there long after you've put the pad down.
Narcosis is a solid game with a great premise, some excellent voice acting and a great story. The problems I have are with the central premise, which is the pacing of being underwater, and the unwieldy aspects, which this evokes.
This review began before with a parallel to early man, so why stop now? Narcosis, in its own way, brings humanity's drive for survival to the forefront of the player's mind, showing that the will to live is truly a harrowing war of attrition. The game is unrelenting in its goal of putting you into the shoes of someone haunted by the depths of the sea, both figuratively and literally. The story is simple but well-written, with even the flavor text of the fallen co-workers showing humanity in a couple of sentences each. The visuals are good, the controls are formidable, and the audio is stunning. Sure, the gameplay and story can be a little slow, and the narration is somewhat gauche and not well mixed, but these are minor issues in an otherwise intriguing, original game that shows the potential of human helplessness in a visceral and highly informative way. Narcosis is a mystery that plays on how little we know about our own world, as the game aggressively reminds us with elements of supernatural terror.
Fans of survival horror should give this title a go, and this is especially true if you have the opportunity to experience it in virtual reality. It may not have ghosts and goblins, but Narcosis still provides a suitably haunting experience worth undertaking.