The Invisible Hours is a game that originally required the PlayStation VR to play, but a patch has since released that allows you to play the game without using the headset. This can only be described loosely as a game since it is more of an interactive experience. You are pretty much a silent observer and watch events unfold in front of you. It is heavily story reliant and that’s pretty much the only thing going for it as there is no gameplay other than deciding on where to go and who to follow.
The game starts off with Gustav arriving on an island. He, along with six others, was invited by Nikola Tesla, with the promise that he can undo their mistakes. Gustav was a detective and upon his arrival, he finds Tesla lying dead on the ground. He takes it upon himself to try and track down the murderer among the other guests, including big names like Thomas Edison. The key gimmick of the game is that there are seven different perspectives that you can follow at any time. While you are watching one scene, things are happening concurrently in other areas of the mansion, which may provide additional clue on who the murderer is. You’re able to move around the mansion, fast forward and rewind time, and explore.
The concurrent multiple viewpoints sound good and interesting but as a side effect, if you stick to one character, there will be sections where they do absolutely nothing. They’ll either stand there or sit there in silence in slow motion, and it is quite awkward. While you can take it as a cue to move to another place, at the same time, it feels rough and felt like they were dragging the scenes longer in order to fill in the time. If you stick to one character, it will feel like the story is underdeveloped and that the revelation came too fast without much buildup, yet the whole point of the game is to watch each character before moving onto the next chapter.
Despite the negatives, having the various viewpoints of the characters and multiple plot threads happening works quite well. The interactions between the characters unveil plenty of little bits and pieces about those characters that keep it interesting. Each character has something suspicious and their own ulterior motives. To aid in tracking all the scenes of the characters, if you pause the game, a map of the mansion shows up. The map locates where all the characters are at any given time. While it is limited to the ones you had already seen the scenes off, it helps keep track of where everyone is, relative to what is currently happening.
The game only has four main chapters, plus two small ones that serve as the endings. If you follow on character through the whole way in each chapter, then it’ll only take an hour before you see an ending. As you are supposed to go around and watch all the perspectives, it’ll boost the play time to around 5-8 hours. In addition to the story, there are a bunch of collectibles spread around the mansion. Being able to explore the mansion, especially rooms where the story did not take place in, is quite interesting and fun. The secret ending gives another dimension to the story and it ends up being a bit more complex than at initial glance, making the story fairly worthwhile in the end as it takes on an unexpected direction.
When playing in VR, you can use either the DualShock 4 or two Move controllers. Getting the game to recognize the Move controllers is finicky and they offer nothing above what the DualShock 4 can do. You can move via teleporting, which helps immensely with VR sickness. Unfortunately, the graphics are sub-par. It is extremely blurry and hard to make out the details on the characters models, which were already simple.
Playing in non-VR mode makes everything sharper but also highlights how this was a VR developed game first and foremost. The controls translate well but the details on the character models are scarce and there are odd proportion issues. Overall, The Invisible Hours is an enjoyable game. It is not the best game out there, whether VR or not, but it contains surprising twists in its story that is only evident if you put in the effort to watch all the viewpoints.
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