Wraith: The Oblivion - Afterlife

Wraith: The Oblivion - Afterlife
Information
VR/AR	Virtual Reality
Developer	Fast Travel Games
Publisher	Fast Travel Games
Platform	Meta Quest, Oculus Rift (Platform), SteamVR, PlayStation VR, Pico
Device	Oculus Quest, Meta Quest 2, Oculus Rift, Oculus Rift S, HTC Vive, Valve Index, Windows Mixed Reality, PlayStation VR, Pico 4, Pico 4 Pro, Pico Neo 3 Link
Type	Game
Genre	Horror, Adventure, Stealth
Input Device	Tracked motion controllers, PlayStation Move (PlayStation VR)
Play Area	Seated, Standing
Game Mode	Single-player
Release Date	April 22, 2021 (Quest and Rift)
Price	US$29.99 at launch
App Store	Meta Horizon Store, Steam, PlayStation Store, Pico Store
Website	https://www.fasttravelgames.com/games/wraithafterlife

See also: VR Apps and VR Games

Wraith: The Oblivion - Afterlife is a single-player horror and exploration game for virtual reality headsets, developed and published by the Stockholm studio Fast Travel Games. It is set in the World of Darkness, the shared fictional universe that also contains Vampire: The Masquerade and Werewolf: The Apocalypse. The player is Ed Miller, a photographer who dies during a seance and returns as a Wraith, a restless spirit, to find out how he died by exploring the Barclay Mansion while avoiding hostile spirits called Spectres. It was the first VR game set in the World of Darkness and the first video game based on the Wraiths.

The game was announced on 9 June 2020 and released on 22 April 2021 for Oculus Quest and Oculus Rift, followed by SteamVR on 25 May 2021 and PlayStation VR on 27 October 2021. A version for Pico headsets was released later. The game was selected for the out-of-competition "Best of VR Expanded" selection of Venice VR Expanded at the 78th Venice International Film Festival in 2021. Its PC version holds a Metacritic score of 76 based on 15 critic reviews.

Reviewed 4 October 2026. Developer and publisher, announcement, platform release dates and prices, gameplay and story details, updates, Venice selection, review scores, quotes and Metacritic/OpenCritic figures against all cited sources. About review dates.

Gameplay

Wraith: The Oblivion - Afterlife is played in first person and is built around exploration, puzzle solving and stealth rather than combat. The player gradually learns Wraith abilities. Fast Travel Games creative director Erik Odeldahl listed three of them: Sharpened Senses, which tracks the current objective and the movement of other spirits; Wraithgrasp, which picks up heavy objects at a distance; and Insubstantiality, which lets the player walk through solid walls. According to UploadVR's review, Sharpened Senses indicates the objective's direction when the player points toward it and also highlights important objects and nearby enemies.

Ed also finds items. His camera reveals past events (memories) in the mansion, and a flashlight has "more than one use", in Odeldahl's words. UploadVR noted that the flashlight burns roots that block doors and is the player's only defense against Spectres. Road to VR described the camera flash as both a light source and a way to blind enemies briefly, with its use limited by a resource called Pathos. Ed's health is measured as Corpus; if it runs out, or a Spectre catches him, the game ends and he is banished to Oblivion. Collected clues can be reviewed in a hub the game calls the Memory Palace.

The mansion is patrolled by Spectres, spirits of "wrath and vengeance". Each has its own backstory and connection to the main mystery, and the player has few ways to defend against them. The store description says players pass through walls to avoid detection and hide in lockers and behind surfaces. Road to VR's review noted that enemies do not spawn randomly, and that progress is saved only at manual save points. The game's guide and narrator is the Shadow, which Odeldahl described as "a manifestation of your dark subconscious" whose advice the player may not want to trust.

Fast Travel Games describes the game as a "6+ hour single-player narrative adventure". Road to VR put its length at six to eight hours. Comfort settings include smooth locomotion, a "projected avatar" movement mode in which the camera moves only after the player lets go of the stick, adjustable vision blur, snap turning and a vignette, and the game can be played seated or standing.

Story

Ed Miller is a Los Angeles photographer hired to photograph a seance at the Barclay Mansion, the Hollywood home of Howard Barclay. He dies during the seance along with the other guests and wakes as a Wraith with no memory of how he died. Fast Travel Games describes the mansion as "an opulent residence filled with Hollywood decadence, occult research, and terrifying monsters", where the remains of a premiere party can still be seen. As Ed explores, he watches past events replay and uncovers both his own death and a larger mystery. Odeldahl wrote that the story and setting were created from scratch and that players need no prior knowledge of the World of Darkness.

Development

Fast Travel Games had previously made the VR adventure Apex Construct and the puzzle game The Curious Tale of the Stolen Pets, and co-developed Budget Cuts 2: Mission Insolvency with Neat Corp. UploadVR described the horror game as a change of direction for the studio. Odeldahl was the game's story and creative director, and Henrik Lundblad was concept artist and art director. When the game was announced, Odeldahl said: "I am a massive fan of games like Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Alien: Isolation and have always felt that the kind of narrative-driven, exploration-focused horror these titles deliver would be perfect for VR." In the festival's director's statement he said the team "wanted to move away from cheap jump scares and build a game around tension, atmosphere and dread."

The game was revealed with a teaser trailer on 9 June 2020, ahead of its appearance at the Upload VR Showcase: Summer Edition. UploadVR reported at the time that World of Darkness owner Paradox Interactive would publish it and that it was coming to "all major VR platforms". Sean Greaney, World of Darkness brand manager at Paradox Interactive, said: "By assuming the perspective of a monster, we can gain a better understanding of what it truly means to be human." Early development footage introduced by Odeldahl was shown at the showcase on 16 June 2020. The developer revealed the Shadow in January 2021, when the game was planned for spring 2021. The released game lists Fast Travel Games as both developer and publisher on its Steam and Pico store pages.

For the PlayStation VR version, Fast Travel Games added real-time shadows and higher-resolution textures and built a movement scheme for the PlayStation Move controllers, which that version requires.

Release

On 3 March 2021 the release dates were announced: 22 April 2021 on the Oculus Quest and Rift platforms, 25 May 2021 on SteamVR, and PlayStation VR later in 2021. The Oculus version cost US$29.99 at launch and supported cross-buy between Quest and Rift. The SteamVR release added 10 collectibles that give more context on the characters and story, a related achievement, and a video quality settings tab for PC VR. The PlayStation VR release was first planned for 7 October 2021 at US$29.99 and £24.99, then moved to 27 October.

Platform	Release date	Notes
Oculus Quest and Oculus Rift (Oculus Store)	22 April 2021	US$29.99 at launch, cross-buy
SteamVR (Steam)	25 May 2021	Launch update added 10 collectibles
PlayStation VR	27 October 2021	US$29.99, £24.99, €24.99; requires PlayStation Move
Pico 4, Pico 4 Pro, Pico Neo 3 Link	After October 2022	Listed as "coming soon" when the Pico 4 store launched

On 1 November 2021, an update added native support for the BHaptics TactSuit and Tactosy for arms on Meta Quest, Rift and SteamVR. It produces effects such as goosebumps when a Spectre notices the player, a stronger heartbeat during chases, and arm vibration while lifting heavy objects with Wraithgrasp. In the Steam version, the same update added new sprint inputs for Knuckles controllers and made sprint input more reliable on Windows Mixed Reality headsets. An earlier Steam patch reduced grip sensitivity after Valve Index players reported trouble grabbing and holding objects.

The Steam version supports English with full audio, plus interface and subtitles in French, Italian, German, Spanish (Spain and Latin America), Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Brazilian Portuguese and Russian. Its minimum PC requirements are an Intel Core i5-4590, 8 GB of RAM and a GeForce GTX 970 or AMD Radeon R9 290 graphics card. In October 2026, the Steam and Meta Horizon Store pages listed the game at US$9.99.

Reception

On Metacritic, the PC version has a score of 76 ("generally favorable") from 15 critic reviews: 13 positive, one mixed and one negative. The PlayStation 4 (PlayStation VR) listing has three critic reviews. OpenCritic gives a Top Critic Average of 78, and 75% of critics recommend the game.

Publication	Platform reviewed	Score
UploadVR	Quest 2	4/5
Road to VR	Quest 2 and PC via Link	7.5/10
IGN Italia	PC	8.2/10
GameSkinny	PC	90/100
Push Square	PlayStation VR	8/10
God is a Geek	PlayStation VR	8/10

UploadVR's Henry Stockdale called the game "a strong VR debut for the World of Darkness universe". He wrote that it "doesn't rely on cheap jump scares" and builds fear through atmosphere, and he praised the sound design and the Quest 2 presentation. He added that the slow pace "won't suit everyone". He also found item interactions clunky and noted that story scenes play out in real time, which can leave the player standing still for several minutes. The review said Fast Travel Games had acknowledged that cinematic cutscenes do not suit VR well. Scott Hayden of Road to VR liked the story and found the enemies unsettling, but he wrote that the manual save system frustrated him more than the game's difficulty did. He also found the enemies somewhat clunky, the voice acting reminiscent of a made-for-TV movie, and the graphics lacking dynamic lighting. Reviewing the PlayStation VR version, Push Square called it "one of the better PSVR horror experiences" and singled out its sound design and soundtrack, as quoted by Metacritic.

Festival selection

La Biennale di Venezia selected the game for the "Best of VR Expanded - Out of Competition" section of Venice VR Expanded, part of the 78th Venice International Film Festival (1-11 September 2021). The festival listed the game, directed by Odeldahl, with a running time of 480 minutes.

See also

• Vampire: The Masquerade - Justice, a later World of Darkness VR game by Fast Travel Games
• Horror