VR Gaming

50 Days Of PS VR #30: 'Statik' Could Be VR's 'Portal'

, & Jamie Feltham

13 September 2016

50 Days Of PS VR #30: 'Statik' Could Be VR's 'Portal'

One month to go before the launch of the PS VR! We’re counting down to the release of Sony’s VR headset on October 13th by highlighting one game a day for its anticipated release. Today we’re solving weird and wonderful puzzles with Tarsier Studios’ Statik.

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If your hands are bound to a gamepad in the real world, what does that mean for the virtual one? Does that limit your ability to interact with the environment, or does it present some new opportunities to create games unlike anything we’ve seen before? These are questions that Tarsier Studios is addressing with its innovative new puzzler, Statik, which is a unique game on its way to PlayStation VR.

In Statik, your hands are bound together. Not by handcuffs or rope, but instead by a series of boxes that are fitted with various contraptions. Players are cast as a lab experiment of sorts, being tested on by the mysterious Dr. Ingen. Every day you’ll wake up to find another of these devices fitted to your hands, and you’ll have to solve the puzzles that each presents.

What’s most interesting about Statik is that its puzzles seem genuinely inventive. Its strange devices tick with activity, with strange compartments opening and closing, switches moving back and forth and panels spinning around endlessly. It reminds us of Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes, only you don’t have any friends to help solve these; you’re all on your own. You use the DualShock 4’s position tracking to manipulate the given box, instilling a sense of immersion that you might have only expected to get when using more elaborate controllers like PlayStation Move.

Statik also looks interesting on the story front. We don’t know Dr. Ingen and his assistant’s intentions, though the way the trailer above pixelates the former’s face certainly doesn’t suggest they’re up to any good.

In Statik, we’re looking for an inventive and surprising puzzler that shows the kind of innovation we’ve seen from games like Portal and Braid in the past decade. We also want it to prove that, with the right design, gamepad games can be just as immersive as bigger experiences that offer two position-tracked controllers and room scale support. Those are lofty expectations to live up to, but the concept alone has that potential. Even if you aren’t a fan of puzzle games, we recommend you keep an eye on this one.

We don’t know when Statik is launching just yet, but we’re certainly excited to learn more about it as we head toward PlayStation VR’s launch on October 13th and beyond.