Stranger Things VR review: Looks great but fails to deliver a horror must-buy

You’d think a virtual reality tie-in with Netflix horror show Stranger Things would scare the living daylights out of anyone.

But this new game on the Meta Quest doesn’t hit the lofty heights of the American telly show and fails to deliver a quality scare-fest on the virtual headset.

The gimmick here is that you spend much of the game as the monster baddie from the show, Vecna.

That means growing your power in the Upside Down as you come face-to-face with the mind-battling hero of Stranger Things, Eleven.

If you know anything about the show you know these two were both groomed by the shady Dr Brenner as kids to use their mind powers to not only see into other’s minds but also take control.

You play Vecna and then eventually Eleven

The difference is Eleven went good and Vecna, or Henry when he was a kid, turned evil, with Eleven eventually banishing him to the show’s flipped version of hell complete with a horror body transformation.

The game has a really excellent cell-shaded, cartoon style artistic visual and uses a lot of vivid colours and shadow to make you feel uneasy and in another realm.

That’s the best thing about the game though, because what follows is an average VR play-through featuring lots of climbing, grabbing and throwing things, crushing Demogorgons, entering victims’ minds and generally battling to reach snapshot characters and bits of recognisable storyline from the programme from the baddies’ viewpoint.

There’s quite a bit of watching in this game, so it can feel like you’re just spectating an alternative version of Stranger Things in VR for much of the time, rather than massively interacting in its world.