Torn
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| Torn | |
|---|---|
| Information | |
| VR/AR | Virtual Reality |
| Developer | Aspyr |
| Publisher | Aspyr; Perp Games (PS VR physical edition) |
| Platform | SteamVR, Oculus Rift (Platform), PlayStation VR |
| Device | Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Valve Index, PlayStation VR |
| Operating System | Windows, PlayStation 4 |
| Type | Game |
| Genre | Adventure, Puzzle |
| Input Device | Tracked motion controllers, PlayStation Move |
| Game Mode | Single-player |
| Release Date | August 28, 2018 |
| Price | US$29.99 (list price) |
| App Store | Steam, Oculus Store, PlayStation Store |
| Website | https://www.aspyr.com/games/torn |
Torn is a single-player virtual reality narrative puzzle and adventure game developed and published by Aspyr, a studio in Austin, Texas.[1] It was released on 28 August 2018 for Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and PlayStation VR.[2][3] The player is Katherine Patterson, a video blogger who finds the abandoned mansion of the physicist Dr. Lawrence Talbot, missing for 64 years, and discovers that he is still alive, trapped without his body in another dimension he calls "The Parallel".[3][4]
Torn marked Aspyr's move into original games; Shacknews called it the first game developed in-house at Aspyr Studio.[5] In its March 2018 report on the announcement, Game Informer described Aspyr as a studio that focused exclusively on porting games and was now branching out to original titles.[6] The game was written by Neill Glancy and Susan O'Connor and scored by Garry Schyman, and Aspyr named the television series The Twilight Zone and Black Mirror as inspirations.[2][3][7] It was built in Unreal Engine 4.[8] Critics praised its visuals, story and score but found its puzzles simple and repetitive.[9] The game was a finalist for Immersive Reality Technical Achievement at the 22nd D.I.C.E. Awards.[10]
Gameplay
Torn is played from a first-person view in VR only; the Steam version requires SteamVR and tracked motion controllers, and the PlayStation 4 version requires a PlayStation VR headset, a PlayStation Camera and two PlayStation Move controllers.[3][4] Aspyr describes the game as opening as a narrative puzzle game, in which the player helps Talbot reactivate the machines in his mansion, before it "evolves into a dark, character-driven story" about Talbot and The Parallel.[3]
The main tool is Talbot's gravity tool, which lifts, drops, pushes and pulls objects.[5] Aspyr's store text says it can be used to fling pianos and to build towers of objects and knock them down.[3] Most puzzles involve moving circuit-shaped glyphs into matching slots to complete circuits that bring a room's machinery back to life.[11][8] Creative director Neill Glancy said that each room has three puzzles of increasing complexity, and that most players finish a room in about 15 to 20 minutes.[8] Besides the gravity tool, the only items the player carries are the keys collected through the game, eight in total, so there is no inventory system.[11]
The game alternates between the mansion and The Parallel. In the mansion, the player collects "Specks", small talking lights that are fragments of Talbot's mind and that also give hints and history about the house. Returning them to Talbot in The Parallel restores his memories and moves the plot forward. Talbot appears there as a fluid simulation that reacts to his recorded dialogue, and his recovered memories are shown as "memory constellations" drawn in the sky.[8] Road to VR's review describes Talbot as having been "morphed into a dancing point of light", and notes that the story also concerns his lost wife, Rina, who apparently met the same fate in his experiment to change matter to energy.[11]
According to Road to VR, the game has three locomotion schemes: blink teleportation, dash teleportation, and smooth forward walking relative to the head direction. It has snap turning at variable angles but no smooth turning, and the reviewer noted that head-relative walking also allows room-scale play with a suitable sensor or base station setup.[11] Reported completion times were about four hours in Road to VR's playthrough, about six hours in UploadVR's and seven hours in Shacknews' review.[11][5][12]
Development
Glancy, who had been lead designer on John Woo Presents Stranglehold, said in an interview published by Epic Games that Torn came out of an IP discovery process at Aspyr without a specific title in mind. VR was chosen as a new medium the team could learn from. Glancy had an HTC Vive at home, and the team studied early room-scale titles including Job Simulator and Valve's The Lab.[8] He described Torn as a project from "a small team with a small budget" and said the game had only one programmer.[8]
The idea began with fluid simulation. The team tested NVIDIA's Flex physics in Unreal Engine and found that only a small amount of fluid could be rendered at the frame rates VR requires. Disabling gravity turned the fluid into a floating, tentacled shape. Given the rendering limits, Glancy said, the team decided that the small amount of liquid should represent a person's mind trapped in another realm. That realm was kept visually light to offset the GPU cost of the simulation, and the mansion was added as its counterpart.[8] Because the budget did not allow facial performance capture, the fluid was tuned to respond to voice audio; the team tested it with lines from films such as Dirty Harry and Taxi Driver.[8] The memory constellations were made from Tilt Brush illustrations.[8]
Writer Matt Soell spent two months turning an early story draft into a three-act structure, after which Susan O'Connor, whose earlier credits include BioShock and Tomb Raider, joined to complete the narrative.[8][2] Glancy said the team chose Unreal Engine because everyone had used it before, and cited its performance tools, NVIDIA Flex and GameWorks integration, and the Blueprint visual scripting system, which let non-programmers build interactive content.[8] Glancy also named the game's principal artist, Chip Patterson, a former professional architect.[8] Before release, Glancy told UploadVR that a big goal was "a very heavy physics integration system" so that the mansion could work as a sandbox.[1] UploadVR described the game as drawing on Myst as well as the two television series.[1]
Release
UploadVR published the debut trailer on 7 March 2018.[13] Game Informer's report the next day gave a spring 2018 release window on PS VR, Oculus and Vive.[6] On 19 July 2018, Road to VR reported that the game would launch on 28 August 2018.[2] UploadVR's review gave the launch price as about US$29.99.[12]
| Platform | Store | Release date | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oculus Rift | Oculus Store | 28 August 2018 | Listed in Meta's store as a PC VR title[11][14] |
| HTC Vive and other SteamVR headsets | Steam | 28 August 2018 | Aspyr lists HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and Valve Index in its PC requirements[3][15] |
| PlayStation VR (PlayStation 4) | PlayStation Store | 28 August 2018 | Requires PlayStation Camera and two PlayStation Move controllers[4] |
| PlayStation VR (physical) | Retail (Europe) | 26 October 2018 | Disc edition published by Perp Games; North American release announced to follow[7] |
The ESRB rated the game T for Fantasy Violence, Partial Nudity, Language and Alcohol Reference.[4][15] On Steam, Aspyr lists minimum PC requirements of 64-bit Windows 10, an Intel i5-4590 or AMD Ryzen 5 1400 processor, 8 GB of RAM, an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 or AMD Radeon R9 480 graphics card and 12 GB of storage.[3] The Steam version supports English (with full audio), French, Italian, German, Spanish, Japanese and Korean.[3] As of October 2026 the game is still sold on Steam, the PlayStation Store and Meta's PC VR store, each with a list price of US$29.99.[3][4][14]
Reception
On Metacritic, the PC version has a score of 74 based on five critic reviews, and the PlayStation 4 version has a score of 65 based on four.[9]
| Publication | Platform reviewed | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Shacknews | PC | 8[5][9] |
| Road to VR | Oculus Rift | 5.5/10[11] |
Charles Singletary Jr. of Shacknews scored it 8, listing the gravity tool interaction, the pacing and the orchestral score among its strengths. He wrote that O'Connor "knocks it out of the park" with the story, but said the most significant reveal felt "way to neatly gift-wrapped" and that, because the puzzles were not very complex, they depended on variety, which he found limited.[5] Road to VR's Scott Hayden called the game "a visual delight" with "extremely solid storytelling, voice acting, and set design", but wrote that this "is invariably damaged by the over reliance on a single puzzle type that will soon have your brain on autopilot due to its simplicity".[11] Jamie Feltham of UploadVR called it "one of VR's boldest adventures yet" and praised the mansion as one of VR's most authentic, lived-in environments. He criticized the mostly simple puzzles, the amount of exposition and an ending that has to be "explained in exact detail".[12]
Awards
| Year | Award | Category | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 22nd Annual D.I.C.E. Awards | Immersive Reality Technical Achievement | Finalist[10] |
| 2019 | G.A.N.G. Awards | Music of the Year | Finalist[16] |
| 2019 | G.A.N.G. Awards | Best Original Soundtrack Album (Garry Schyman) | Finalist[16] |
| 2019 | G.A.N.G. Awards | Best Music for an Indie Game (Garry Schyman) | Finalist[16] |
| 2019 | G.A.N.G. Awards | Best VR Audio | Finalist[16] |
| 2019 | ASCAP Composers' Choice Awards | 2018 Video Game Score of the Year (Garry Schyman) | Nominated[17] |
The other D.I.C.E. finalists in the category were Astro Bot Rescue Mission, Beat Saber, Dr. Grordbort's Invaders and Tónandi.[10] At the G.A.N.G. Awards, Torn did not win in any of its four categories; Moss won Best VR Audio.[16]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 David Jagneaux (2018-03-19). "How Torn Plans To Be Much More Than Just Another Static VR World". UploadVR. https://www.uploadvr.com/torn-plans-much-just-another-static-vr-world/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Scott Hayden (2018-07-19). "'Black Mirror' Inspired Sci-fi Mystery 'Torn' Confirmed for August Launch on PSVR, Rift & Vive". Road to VR. https://www.roadtovr.com/black-mirror-inspired-sci-fi-mystery-torn-confirmed-august-launch-psvr-rift-vive/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 "Torn on Steam". Steam. Valve. https://store.steampowered.com/app/557520/Torn/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 "Torn". PlayStation Store. Sony Interactive Entertainment. https://store.playstation.com/en-us/product/UP1032-CUSA09584_00-ASPYRTORNREL0001. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 Charles Singletary Jr. (2018-08-27). "Torn VR Review: Magnificent mind games". Shacknews. https://www.shacknews.com/article/106947/torn-vr-review-magnificent-mind-games. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Imran Khan (2018-03-08). "Aspyr Announces Torn, Twilight Zone-Inspired VR Mystery Game". Game Informer. https://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2018/03/08/aspyr-announces-torn-twilight-zone-inspired-vr-mystery-game.aspx. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 "Aspyr Studio and Perp Games have brought the secrets of Torn to retail". Perp Games. 2018-10-26. https://perpgames.com/2018/10/26/aspyr-studio-and-perp-games-have-brought-the-secrets-of-torn-to-retail/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ 8.00 8.01 8.02 8.03 8.04 8.05 8.06 8.07 8.08 8.09 8.10 8.11 Shawn Petraschuk (2018-08-28). "Aspyr Uses Unreal Engine 4 to Bring the Dark-Science Fiction Mystery 'Torn' to Life in VR". Unreal Engine. Epic Games. https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/developer-interviews/aspyr-uses-unreal-engine-4-to-bring-the-dark-science-fiction-mystery-torn-to-life-in-vr. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 "Torn (2018)". Metacritic. https://www.metacritic.com/game/torn-2018/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 "22nd D.I.C.E. Award Finalists Revealed". Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences. https://www.interactive.org/news/22nd_dice_award_finalists_revealed.asp. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 11.5 11.6 11.7 Scott Hayden (2018-08-31). "'Torn' Review: Masterful 'Black Mirror' Style Storytelling Tarnished by Repetitive Puzzles". Road to VR. https://www.roadtovr.com/torn-review-masterful-black-mirror-style-storytelling-tarnished-repetitive-puzzles/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 Jamie Feltham (2018-08-27). "Torn Review: A Weird And Wacky Delight Of A VR Puzzler". UploadVR. https://www.uploadvr.com/torn-review-a-weird-and-wacky-delight-of-a-vr-puzzler/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ David Jagneaux (2018-03-07). "Watch The Debut Trailer For Black Mirror-Inspired VR Game, Torn". UploadVR. https://www.uploadvr.com/trailer-black-mirror-vr-game-torn/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 "Torn on Oculus Rift". Meta Horizon Store. Meta Platforms. https://www.meta.com/experiences/pcvr/torn/1257633284291446/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 "Torn". Aspyr. https://www.aspyr.com/games/torn. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 16.3 16.4 "2019 G.A.N.G. Awards Winners". Game Audio Network Guild. https://www.audiogang.org/awards-archive-old/2019-awards/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ "Vote in the 2019 ASCAP Composers' Choice Awards!". ASCAP. https://www.ascap.com/news-events/awards/2019/composers-choice. Retrieved 2026-10-06.