VR gaming has been around for years at this point, and in that time there have been hundreds of horror games. But Into the Dead: Crimson Heights, revealed at IGN Live, claims to be the first hyper reality horror game.
This is the fourth Into the Dead game, after a couple of mobile games and a side-scrolling spinoff back in 2025, Our Darkest Days. But this is the first time the nascent franchise will be coming to VR, or rather ‘hyper reality’.
What seems to seperate HR from VR here is the Meta Quest 3‘s ability to scan your surroundings, using a camera in the visor. In the trailer, it looks like the game world is being painted on top of the player’s home, with objects like desks and couches repainted to make it look like they belong in the world.
It’s a cool idea, to be sure, but I can’t help but wonder just how accurate the Meta Quest’s sensors actually are. While I’d love to turn my apartment into a zombie apocalyptic playground, I just know there’d be an errant wire somewhere that’d lead to me falling directly on my face. But, hey, that has to be something that the developer, PikPok, has taken into consideration, so maybe people will be able to avoid catastrophic falls in real life, while fighting zombies in hyper reality.
If you want to see what a ‘hyper reality’ game is like, Into the Dead: Crimson Heights will be available on the Meta Store sometime in 2027. Until then, you’ll just have to keep making do with regular, non-hyper reality.
Jackie Thomas is the Hardware and Buying Guides Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. You can follow her @Jackiecobra
