The Inpatient
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Rating Summary
Based on 49 critic reviews
OpenCritic Rating
Top Critic Average
Critics Recommend
Score Distribution
Unscored Reviews
Now as you can tell, I am not going to spoil anything for anyone. If you love Until Dawn and Until Dawn: Rush of Blood and you really enjoy the Until Dawn universe, then do yourself a favor and go play this now as it could only really be brought to life in Virtual Reality. If you are new to the Until Dawn universe, you just might find your inner persona that has been locked up and looking to be freed by playing The Inpatient.
The Inpatient is a slow, unengaging walk through hallways with mechanical characters and irrelevant choices. It’s an incredibly disappointing execution of a nice idea that could have become so much more. When we have full games that operate successfully in VR, games that utilise the headset to inform mechanics, and games that present believable, engaging worlds, I can’t recommend The Inpatient.
Top Critic
PlayStation 4's prequel to horror adventure Until Dawn is a bleak tale of psychological stress that quickly becomes a haunted house fairground ride
Scored Reviews
Top Critic
Playing off the wonderful formula of Until Dawn, but polishing whatever rust was there, it succeeds in nearly every task it sets out to do. It is chilling without being cheesy. Horrifying without being overt. Disturbing without being grotesque.
Top Critic
The Inpatient is one of PSVR's best. It's a shining example of presence and engagement. The visuals impress and it uses a ton of clever tricks to fully immerse the player in the experience of living out Blackwood Sanatorium's final days, making me feel like I was actually there. There are fun Easter eggs for those who have played Until Dawn, but The Inpatient can still be enjoyed without. The overall plot does fall flat in the final act as the scares give way to a less-than-exciting conclusion, but the branching possibilities means that even after two playthroughs, untold stories of the sanatorium still await me.
Top Critic
The Inpatient is one of the best horror games that Virtual Reality has nowadays. Supermassive Games has created a great example of how to create an immersive story and has brought it to life for PlayStation VR. googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-ldb4'); });
Review in Spanish | Read full review
The replay value of this game lives as far as your sanity can take you.
Top Critic
A rare prequel that actually enhances its predecessor, The Inpatient takes a subtle but effective approach to psychological horror in VR.
The Inpatient works quite well by adapting the formula of Until Dawn into a VR title. I just wish it did not play things so safely.
The Inpatient gets inside your head with its atmosphere, presentation and lore only to end as soon as it starts in earnest...
Another confident entry in the Until Dawn universe placing you "IN" the patient by implementing clever techniques while leaving other areas with lingering symptoms
Top Critic
The Inpatient is a first-person horror game for PlayStation VR that takes place decades before the events of Until Dawn. Although the story takes place during an important time in which the origins of the enemy from the original game are explained, The Inpatient touches superficially on those events, focusing more on a psychological terror and in its own narrative - you are a patient in Blackwood Sanatorium, suffering from amnesia and blackouts, trying to understand how and why you are there. While the game has great graphics and good moments of horror and tension, sometimes it gets tedious and is relatively short, not justifying the high launch price.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Top Critic
For my first playthrough I'd had a few tall glasses of water and the experience of stepping into the sanatorium was akin to actually visiting a real place rather than simply strapping on a headset; I felt like I was an actual presence within this world and, coupled with the voice commands, I found myself fully inhabiting my character. Subsequent playthroughs inevitably lost that sense of wonder but, in terms of narrative resolution, I found that my decisions led to a far more satisfying outcome than my first time through.
The Inpatient's opening hour will require you to keep a change of pants with you as you encounter more jump scares and intense moments than you can shake a Move controller at. However, the final hour feels rushed and creates a very different atmosphere very quickly. There are plenty of different paths which unlock various trophies so replaying the game is a must but the question is, would you want too?
Top Critic
Supermassive Games has aimed for something truly ambitious in the horror sector with The Inpatient. While there are some fine ideas in play, this brief psychological experience could've used a little bit more time in therapy.
The Inpatient ends up as poorly thought out walking simulator that not once manages to get out of Until Dawns shadow. There's not enough character development or horror elements in the short playtime of 2-3 hours to keep you motivated for a second playthrough of the game. If you enjoyed Until Dawn you'll still get a little bit of closure out of the story.
Review in German | Read full review
Top Critic
Despite being developed for the same team that made Until Dawn, The Inpatient lacks of a thrilling story and nice motion controllers that can turn it into a memorable experience for the PlayStation VR.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Top Critic
Despite providing some interesting backstory for the Until Dawn universe, my enjoyment of The Inpatient is held back by dull characters and inconsistent scares.
Top Critic
The Inpatient is a much quieter game than Until Dawn. It adopts a straight-faced tone, opting for psychological horror rather than grisly thrills. There's nothing wrong with that approach, but coming off the last game, it took some adjusting. I couldn't help but wish it was more, well, exciting. It's a technical marvel, but at times the experience feels hollow and uneventful. In the end, even though I'm glad to return to this universe, The Inpatient comes across as a bit of a missed opportunity.
Top Critic
Interesting yet limited VR game that puts you inside of an inmate on Blackwood Sanitorium, to experience a cinematic story that you can alter, but with little to none interactivity.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Top Critic
The Inpatient has a solid core that is coupled with a gimmick that detracts from it.
Top Critic
The Inpatient's interesting premise and ideas cannot save a game plagued by a badly paced plot and a boring gameplay.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Top Critic
The Inpatient is a nice adventure from the developers of the Until Dawn saga, that offers a great use of the voice commands and PlayStation Move controllers in order to deliver a thrilling story, with a dark atmosphere and a few great jump-scares. Despite that, the short duration and the expensive price are two disappointing flaws that you should consider before spending almost 40 bucks for a story that you can complete in 2-to-3 hours.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Top Critic
The Inpatient is technically impressive and sometimes scary, but it´s rythm is too slow, and you can finish the main story within a couple of hours. It has different endings and collectibles, but we felt no urge to go back to the game once finished.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Top Critic
There's two sides to The Inpatient: the first two thirds are tense, intriguing, and gives games like Resident Evil 7 a run for their money, but then the final third is ponderous, dialogue heavy, and has very little in the way of scares. With a play time of three to four hours it's a decent length for a VR game and does have replay value with it's alternate story paths. Despite it's flaws, The Inpatient is still much better than many of the VR horror games available, so it's worth checking out if you have an expensive fancy hat from Sony.
Top Critic
An entertaining if ultimately shallow instalment in the Until Dawn series, being the most visually stunning PSVR title to date isn't quite enough for The Inpatient to overcome its sluggish pace and reductive game design.
Top Critic
The Inpatient is a boring VR adventure with rough graphics, slow plot, strange controls, weak direction and a terrible localization that violates the logical connections of the game.
Review in Russian | Read full review
Top Critic
The Inpatient is an interesting VR experience. It's immersive, absorbing and sometimes very creepy and effective, but it also feels like only half the game it could have been. With more real interaction and more for the player to see and do, we might have had a new highlight in the PSVR line-up. As it is, it's another intriguing but short-lived experience, which hints at a richer, more ambitious tale of terror than the one it ultimately delivers.
Top Critic
The Inpatient is a fittingly terrifying visit to the sanitorium that set Until Dawn in motion and does a good job pivoting from campy slasher tropes to more psychological horror. Its choices lack the same punch though, and despite its shorter runtime, The Inpatient does a worse job of convincing you to play through it multiple times. Despite that, it's captivating world and solid opening remain engrossing, even if its upended near its closure.
Top Critic
The Inpatient has a great premise and concept but unfortunately falls flat. Everything that it tries to do has been done better by either its own predecessor or its competition. For someone just getting into virtual reality, it offers a great little" haunted house" experience, but ultimately lacks the substance to please anyone else.
Top Critic
The Inpatient is a psychological horror that, while technically above standard, is devoid of anything noteworthy.
Top Critic
The Inpatient has very good moments of immersive horror and high production values. On the other hand a bad history, irrelevant characters, imprecise controls and almost nonexistent game mechanics leave us with a forgettable VR experience.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Top Critic
After a promising start The Inpatient turns out as a flop in almost all areas.
Review in German | Read full review
Top Critic
Though The Inpatient shines in a few areas, it falls short of what made Until Dawn one of finest horror games of this generation.
An underwhelming, scarcely two-hour horror romp that not only fails to make the most of its brief length, but also makes numerous choices directly antithetical to the dread-infused atmosphere it sometimes manages to muster.
If Sumermassive could have tripled the length of one sitting it could have been something special as the setting is fascinating. Unfortunately it's short, repetitive and not the PlayStation VR hit we need.
Top Critic
Despite an incredible opening hour, the second half of the game really falls off a cliff, and never quite recovers. If you have PSVR and like Until Dawn, it's a no-brainer, but it's not the "more Until Dawn" we all really want.
Top Critic
Top Critic
The Inpatient is perhaps the first big disappointment of this 2018, at least for VR enthusiasts. Great graphics and sound, but everything else leaves something to be desired.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Top Critic
The Inpatient's strong opening is undone by a rushed finale, and while the various plot permutations add replayability, they come at the cost of a fulfilling narrative. As a PlayStation VR experience, this is a fine-looking spook-'em-up with some neat innovations that help create a tactile world, but the story is far too fragmented and, frankly, flat to do justice to the universe it's inspired by.
Top Critic
Despite some visual qualities, an elaborate atmosphere and some good jump-scares, The Inpatient is too short and ultimately disappointing in terms of gameplay and story.
Review in French | Read full review
Top Critic
The Inpatient's short duration and lack of entertainment value doesn't warrant its forty dollar price tag. For fans of Until Dawn, it does a decent job of filling in important information prior to the events of the original game. For everyone else, it's a dull experience that never quite feels like it's going anywhere worthwhile. Horror and VR are a natural fit, but with The Inpatient, it's clear that the pairing doesn't always work quite the way it should.
Top Critic
While The Inpatient tries, it manages to be little other than extremely boring. Long scenes of walking slowly while having exposition dumped on you does not make for an entertaining narrative.
Combining the well received Until Dawn and PSVR yet again, this time not on rails, The Inpatient seemed like a great idea in thought, but it ends up being a disappointment for the most part. The Inpatient itself is only about two hours long for one playthrough and the story and alternate outcomes really do little to make you want to come back for more.
The Inpatient is a very slow paced experience that ends when it really gets interesting. It's short play time and limited gameplay possibilities makes it a missed opportunity.
Review in German | Read full review
Top Critic
One of the most technically impressive PlayStation VR games so far but a disappointingly drab and unfocused prequel to Until Dawn, that takes itself far too seriously.
Top Critic
A below average VR experience, with jump-scares reliant horror and an uninteresting story and plot choices. It might appeal to some Until Dawn fans, but there are far better VR experiences elsewhere.
Review in Arabic | Read full review
Top Critic
Supermassive Games' virtual reality thriller fails to make the most of both its intriguing premise and its chosen medium
Top Critic
The Inpatient is one of the most disappointing games ever made. Even when detached from the excellent Until Dawn, on its own it's a shallow walking sim with glossy production values. This might be okay for a one and done play-through, if acquired for free, and even then it is hard to justify the cost of the time spent playing this husk of a game. This is at best a glorified and expensive demo reel for talented 3D artists and VR programmers - not really a game worth playing at all.
