Here They Lie

Here They Lie
Information
VR/AR	Virtual Reality
Developer	Tangentlemen, SIE Santa Monica Studio
Publisher	Sony Interactive Entertainment
Platform	PlayStation VR
Device	PlayStation VR
Operating System	PlayStation 4
Type	Game
Genre	Horror, Adventure
Input Device	DualShock 4
Game Mode	Single-player
Release Date	October 13, 2016
Price	US$19.99
App Store	PlayStation Store

See also: VR Apps and VR Games

Here They Lie is a first-person psychological horror game developed by the independent studio Tangentlemen in collaboration with Sony's Santa Monica Studio and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation VR headset on PlayStation 4. It was released on 13 October 2016, the day PlayStation VR launched in North America, and was one of the headset's launch titles.

The player walks through a mostly black-and-white, decaying city and its tunnels in search of Dana, a woman in a yellow dress, while avoiding the creatures that live there. It was one of the first PlayStation VR games to let players move with full, smooth artificial locomotion on the DualShock 4 controller, and several reviewers reported motion sickness. A February 2017 update made the game playable without a headset and added PlayStation 4 Pro enhancements. The game holds a "mixed or average" Metascore of 62 on Metacritic, based on 35 critic reviews.

Reviewed 11 October 2026. Developer and studio background, announcement, launch date and price, February 2017 update contents, PlayStation Plus offer dates, current US and Hong Kong PlayStation Store listings, gameplay and comfort details, quotes, and the Metacritic score and individual review scores checked against the cited PlayStation Blog, PlayStation Store, UploadVR, Road to VR, MCV, Siliconera, PlayStation Universe, TheSixthAxis, Game Informer and Metacritic pages. About review dates.

Gameplay

Here They Lie is played from a first-person view with a DualShock 4 controller. The player character is an unnamed protagonist searching for Dana, a woman who has disappeared. The game is divided into a series of levels with different themes. The player walks, can jog by holding a button, opens doors, and explores side paths in the maze-like city to find boxes and cabinets containing short stories or photographs, along with batteries for a flashlight. When enemies appear, the player either waits for them to pass or runs from them. UploadVR described it as "a game that consists entirely of travel and observation".

The locations are rendered mostly in fuzzy black and white. Color is used sparingly, for example the yellow of Dana's dress and red blood. In TheSixthAxis's review, the game begins in a relatively normal setting, a train station, before the city "slowly degrades and warps" around the player; the inhabitants the player later meets wear large animal-head masks. The game includes stealth sections and a small number of moral choices; UploadVR found that the choices "do not seem to make much of a difference in the long run". Game Informer noted that when the player dies in a stealth section, the enemy that caused the death usually disappears, so the player can carry on. After a death, the player passes through a corridor of flying planks and timber that assembles around them and emerges from a door in the level that the player passed a few moments earlier.

Sound is used to guide and unsettle the player. In a PlayStation Blog preview, Sid Shuman wrote that the game's use of PlayStation VR's 3D audio produced "trails of sonic breadcrumbs" that led him to the next scare. UploadVR singled out the clicking of certain enemies and their shriek when they spot the player.

Movement and comfort

The player moves with the left analog stick, and the walking direction follows head movement. The right stick performs comfort turns that rotate the view in 45-degree increments, a form of snap turning. UploadVR wrote that despite this option, "even an experienced VR-user" may find the simulated movement unsettling to the stomach, and its reviewer took breaks a few times after feeling simulation sickness. At each checkpoint between levels the game saves and shows a title card styled like a silent-film intertitle that suggests taking a break; according to UploadVR these come roughly every 30 minutes of a 3-to-4-hour game. TheSixthAxis's reviewer reported no motion sickness and took around five hours to finish the game.

Development

The formation of Tangentlemen was reported in March 2014; its founders had come together to develop and ship Spark Unlimited's Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z. According to the studio's website as reported by MCV, Toby Gard, the creator of Tomb Raider, and Cory Davis, known for his work at TimeGate Studios and Monolith, took the roles of co-creative directors; John Garcia-Shelton, who had worked on the Medal of Honor and Call of Duty series, was general manager and head of production; and Rich Smith, a former senior artist at Infinity Ward and Respawn Entertainment, was art director. Siliconera noted Davis as the creative director of Spec Ops: The Line and reported that the team was working out of Garcia-Shelton's garage. At its founding, Gard said the studio was formed "to take some creative risks". Its first project, described as "an existential, surreal horror trip" with the working name Daedalus, was then still in the concept phase.

In the June 2016 announcement post, Davis wrote that Tangentlemen had "grown from a team of weirdos in a garage in Los Angeles into a collaboration with Sony's External Development team at Santa Monica Studio". He described the game as "a dark psychological horror experience" and said that, "with a focus on narrative, and the experience of dread", it was "not your typical survival horror game". The Hong Kong PlayStation Store listing describes it as created "by four industry vets and Sony's Santa Monica Studio". In his PlayStation Blog preview, Shuman compared the experience to a fever dream or, in the words of the game's senior art director in a PlayStation Blog interview, a "digital hallucination".

Release

Here They Lie was announced at E3 2016, with a release window of fall 2016 for PlayStation VR and PlayStation 4. In August 2016, a listing on the US PlayStation Store dated it to 13 October 2016, the launch day of PlayStation VR. It launched on that date at US$19.99.

On 21 February 2017 an update added a "Standard" version that can be played on a TV without a PlayStation VR headset; existing owners received it as a patch, and later buyers got both versions. The same update added 4K output (on a 4K display) and HDR support to the Standard version on PlayStation 4 Pro, and a higher-quality render mode for PlayStation VR on PlayStation 4 Pro with better shadows, post-processing effects, dynamic flashlight shadows and ambient occlusion. Other changes were a controller configuration screen, a chapter select screen, subtitles (Standard version only), improved anti-aliasing and lighting, improved head tracking, reworked texture streaming and extra VR tutorial screens.

From 7 August to 2 October 2018 the game was offered free to PlayStation Plus subscribers.

Date	Event	Notes
13 June 2016	Announcement (E3 2016)	Fall 2016 window for PlayStation VR and PlayStation 4
13 October 2016	Launch	PlayStation 4 with PlayStation VR; US$19.99
21 February 2017	Update	Non-VR Standard version; PlayStation 4 Pro 4K/HDR and enhanced VR rendering
7 August to 2 October 2018	PlayStation Plus	Free for PlayStation Plus subscribers

As of October 2026 the game is still sold on the US PlayStation Store as a PS4 title for US$19.99, listed as single-player, "PS VR headset enabled" and requiring the PlayStation Camera for its VR features; the listing states that the game is playable on PlayStation 5, although some PS4 features may be absent. An English/Chinese/Korean version is sold on the Hong Kong store.

Reception

On Metacritic, Here They Lie has a Metascore of 62 ("mixed or average") from 35 critic reviews: 6 positive, 26 mixed and 3 negative.

Publication	Score	Notes
Metacritic (aggregate)	62/100	35 critic reviews
TheSixthAxis	9/10	PlayStation VR version tested
Game Informer	8/10
GameSpot	80/100	Score as listed by Metacritic
Push Square	70/100	Score as listed by Metacritic
The Washington Post	70/100	Score as listed by Metacritic
Destructoid	60/100	Score as listed by Metacritic
Metro GameCentral	60/100	Score as listed by Metacritic
The Jimquisition	10/100	Score as listed by Metacritic

TheSixthAxis called it "by far the best game I have played on the system", praising its original moments and use of VR while listing "No idea what the story is" and easy stealth sections among its faults. Suriel Vazquez of Game Informer found the story of the main characters "unfulfilling" but wrote that the descent into the game's world was "worth taking" on its own, and that VR "definitely amplifies" the experience without being crucial to it. Metacritic's excerpt of GameSpot's review called it "one of the standout offerings among the PSVR's launch lineup".

UploadVR's review said that the game "has some memorable experiences" but "feels fuzzy and thrown together", and that its plot "doesn't ultimately add up to a satisfying conclusion". Metro GameCentral, as excerpted by Metacritic, called the game "daring and provocative, but also poorly written and technically inept". Several European reviews excerpted there, including those of Gameblog.fr, IGN Spain and SpazioGames, cited nausea or motion sickness as a main problem. The lowest score came from The Jimquisition, which wrote that the game was made "without anybody involved knowing how VR games should operate".