Cold VR (2025)

Cold VR takes the concept of SuperHot, where time moves when you do, and reverses the idea. Instead time slows down as you move, when you stop, time flows normally. However, time will always move, and it’s up to you to clear out an infested program that is constantly trying to kill you.

For a single developer, Cold VR is an excellent first attempt, but does have some glaring issues. The narrative felt interesting at first, but without many actual points to tie everything together, it really is mostly a hodgepodge of random levels that don’t create a narrative that seems coherent. From the outset, I was a “nameless character who doesn’t talk” and found myself in a simulation world. Immediately I was greeted with a fun FMV (Full Motion Video) cutscene of a single developer trying to get me to jump into the VR network and help him. The actor really gives his full effort in the acting department, and with a single developer adding in FMV to their game, everything works fine.

The gameplay dropped me into several tutorials that were ultimately unnecessary as I have been playing games my entire life and don’t need to be told how to pick up weapons or how to do basic combat. I also got stuck for a handful of minutes just trying to get up some stairs thanks to a switch that actually doesn’t tell you, that you need to wait for it to go all the way up, and never actually shows up beyond the tutorial, being basically pointless and a huge point of frustration.

The levels are mostly well designed combat arenas. Some being hallways, some that are large rooms with lots of boxes or other types of cover and even a pirate ship, but ultimately these are just random in sequence and have no actual for it to be one location or another, there is no narrative reason why I was inside a train car in one level and the next atop a mast on a pirate ship. While the levels don’t make sense together, they are fun and enjoyable to play around in.

Probably the biggest issue I had was with the “backroom” sections of the game, in the middle of playing, a menu pops up saying that the next level was more horror themed and I could skip it if I wanted. I jumped in and the level felt like an early VR Horror Game experience, everything is black, a flashlight is the only thing I can hold and carry and I have to walk in near darkness to find a way out. Then a sudden jump scare. It felt very cheap and didn’t belong in the game. Exiting that area, I am thrust into a dark red “hell” like level, with loud droning buzzing and wailing. I’m told to find the exit and I proceed to wander around a maze for around 10 minutes. Just bored out of my mind with no indication of where I was supposed to go.

The maze levels needed to have some sort of indicator of what to do, or where to go. Something on the wall that could have helped me understand my location and if I passed there or not. Since I was constantly moving and could not keep track of where I had already been while being chased by enemies that would reset the level by just being touched… It was way too much and immediately killed my enthusiasm and momentum of the game.After a few attempts I decided to skip those levels all together.

The game then progresses in a sequence of normal levels, a backroom level and then a cutscene keeping the simple narrative that you are helping out the developer to solve “something”, what that something is, kinda doesn’t really get explained. There is a NPC that I only saw once in a level walking through a door, and I assume I was chasing him down. You meet up with them a couple times and in the end you have a final encounter. Trust the NPC or trust the FMV developer. I won’t spoil my choice, but it was nice to see I had a decision that I could make. And once the decision is made, the game kinda just ends. I never saw the credits (maybe it was a bug, there were several of them), but it just dropped me into the main playable menu…

I like the idea of “Playable menus” like a hub area that you get dropped into and can walk around and interact with not just the game world, weapons and other things, but also select levels, or change options. It’s a rad concept that I think works very well in VR and is an idea I’m sure we all had as kids. However I think it could have used a bit more polish and clarity to the design of everything. Certain options I didn’t understand, having a menu to just choose which levels to jump into without experiencing the story all felt a bit like it should have been hidden, or exposed only after completing the game.

Like with any game, there are good and bad things, I think the bad things in Cold VR are extremely visible and noticeable, but do not detract from the overall game. It needs much more polish to the menu system and a narrative thread connecting scenes together would go a long way to make the story coherent, but the game itself is abstract enough to make it work. Skipping or even ditching the Backroom levels entirely would be a very wise choice, but to make them work, it needed some sort of helpful indicator to guide the player to the exit. A phone on the wall, or a floor number on the wall to make it it easy to map out in the mind’s eye of the location, or even a voice saying “Hot” or “Cold” that gets louder or quieter the closer the player is to the exit (like a hot/cold indicator that would really work well with the title of the game).

It’s important to remember, this game is a small indie game made by a single individual and it is an excellent first game. Is it perfect? No. far from it, but that’s the beauty of indie games, and games as a medium, it’s an experience and every player will have their own experience. I loved most of my time with the game. I was frustrated with a few sections, but I will always remember the experience most of all. And that is something that is invaluable today, I think Cold VR takes the SuperHot formula, reverses it and puts its own unique spin on it, and I can’t wait to see his next game, I’ll be there on launch day!