Narcosis definition is - a state of stupor, unconsciousness, or arrested activity produced by the influence of narcotics or other chemical or physical agents. A state of stupor, unconsciousness, or arrested activity produced by the influence of narcotics or other chemical or physical agents See the full definition. This first-person survival story unfolds from inside a “walking coffin” — a half-ton, high-tech deep-sea dive suit — following an industrial catastrophe. Influenced and inspired by a growing appetite for unconventional horror and narrative-driven games, Narcosis is rooted in reality, but steeped in the surreal.

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I’ve been mulling what to say about Narcosis all day. It defies easy summaries, really, because it is no one thing. I suppose we can start with the very basics – the points any good marketer would stick to. Narcosis is thus a horror exploration game with a heavy focus on narrative. There is some very light platforming here and there using the limited thrust capabilities of your suit, and a negligible amount of combat meant to underscore your limitations. There is not much more to juggle with this game. You are set deep on the ocean floor without preamble, an unknown character in an unknown world. You remain an unknown person until the end of the game, and that works well. The focus was never really on you, anyway.

At its heart, Narcosis is a lot of being alone with your thoughts. You are stuck navigating the high pressure of the deep sea in a half-ton metal suit, which necessarily limits the pace of your motion. Global warming moves faster than walking in the suit that keeps you safe, which makes every moment tense as you race to the next oxygen tank or refill station. Without a careful eye on oxygen levels, you suffocate. There is no stopping to consider your next action, nor is there time to make mistakes. There is only the relentless march forward – or death.

Death abounds in Narcosis, the underwater command centers turned to catacombs by an unexpected earthquake. The bodies of staff and marine life alike litter the ocean floor and office halls. Doki doki universe stampy. Nature has spared no one in this disaster, and she seems in no mood to spare you. Throughout your journey to reach the surface, you must battle the raging cold, hostile aquatic life, volcanic craters, and a slow loss of sanity bred by isolation and hardship. At times, visions seem to guide you. Others bring fatal suffering. Very little distinguishes the two, and at no point can you trust your own senses.

Speaking of trusting your own senses, I played Narcosis in VR. It is always a little disappointing to jump into a game built for PC and ported to VR, but Narcosis seems to be just the opposite. Having jumped into both the VR and standard versions of the game, I feel like Narcosis was built with VR at the absolute forefront of the developers’ minds. The suffocating enclosure of your aquatic suit is perfectly translated to the headset, sharing a control panel and limited field of vision with its real counterpart. Adding to the realism is condensation that appears on the glass every few seconds in time to the sound of your character breathing. As you play, your own breath syncs up to the character, tripling the claustrophobic effect of the suit and enhancing the terror of the game with every step.

Don’t get me wrong, Narcosis is still good outside of VR. Developer Honor Code didn’t stop at breath on your faceplate. The movement of water and creatures around you, the behavior of gases trapped in the sea, the way blood streams through and stains the water around it- all are handled beautifully by the game’s engine and coding. Platformer fans will enjoy the ever-changing challenges of navigating broken bases and a cavernous ocean floor. Horror fans will enjoy the slow demise of sanity and the twists in the story’s end. Players who enjoy slice-of-life stories will like the way the narration is broken across the game, tied to critical points as you progress. What I am not sure of is who, exactly, will appreciate the entire game for what it is.

I am not sure what to name the sub-sub-category I want to talk about here. It can be defined thus: Slice-of-life exploration games with strong horror elements and adult themes, usually featuring puzzle solving and some light platforming. Narcosis goes here, beside its brethren from Firewatch and Lifeless Planet. All three games are slow, methodical, fairly linear, and rely on suggestion more than outright horror. It takes a taste for restrained horror to appreciate what they are doing. Stretching the outer limits of the group, Life is Strange might fit in here. They’re horrifying in a very real, tangible way that many modern players seem not to enjoy. The dark depths of these games are the monsters of our nature, not mere allusions to those faults the way zombies and plagues might be. Appreciating them takes something of a dry wit and willingness to see the hard, broken edges of the world we live in.

In the end, it is that realistic horror that makes me love these games. Most horror you can put down; there will not be zombies jumping out at you when you turn off your console. Games like Narcosis do not simply pack away when you power down, though. How would you respond in a disaster? What would you risk? How would you live with your choices? Is surviving worth the guilt or memories? Is dying the better option? The horror of Narcosis is not in the game. It is inside each of us, latent and untested. As we go about our routines unaware, there are monsters all around us and within us, ready to take us down at the first hint of an opportunity. You need only look at any personal tragedy to find them, lurking in the dark corners of every self doubt, missed connection, or unmade call. That is what Narcosis does well, and many of you are not going to like it. Too ‘boring’, too ‘dry’, but for those who are willing to see it through, just enough of a question to break down a wall inside your own head.

Oculus and Steam PC codes provided by developer for the purpose of this review.
Specs: Intel Core i3-4130 @ 3.4 GHz, GeForce GTX 950 – 2G O, 16GB RAM, Oculus Rift VR Headset

Take a seat, grab your gamepad and Rift, and prepare for a journey a couple miles deep in the pacific ocean with Narcosis, a new VR experience from developer Honor Code. Having played several standing VR games in the last week, I have to say it was nice that Narcosis says at the outset it’s intended to be played sitting down. Anyway, being able to sit down was a nice change of pace for me, but I wasn’t sure what kind of survival horror experience I was about to get into.As it turns out, Narcosis doesn’t have a great deal of gameplay mechanics to it, but it’s compelling enough in other ways to make it well worth playing. You are an engineer or technician in a deep sea operation for the company known as Oceannova. Your part of a crew of about thirty people that one day are struck by the aftershocks of an earthquake which destroys underwater facilities and floods them.

At the time, you are in a deep sea diving suit, returning from a job in the field. What was a typical day is now completely up-ended and you must seek to survive, and see if any of your fellow crew managed to survive as well.Threats include running out of oxygen, long falls into the abyss, and some sea creatures like squid and large spider-crabs.

You have a knife at you disposal for slow slashes that you have to time well, but these aren’t going to help against the large spider-crabs that can poke right through that titanium suit of yours. You have to avoid those creatures when possible by keeping a wide berth around them or using your flares to distract them. Flares, which you can carry ten of, are useful for that and to help light your path, although I found myself using them sparingly and whenever I found re-supply crates I often only needed one or two to restock. Oxygen is also plentiful, but encountering a dead crew member or a dangerous sea creature raises your heart rate, which depletes your oxygen faster.

In any event, typically, there’s nothing to fear as oxygen refills and spare tanks are not too hard to find. ADR1FT on the other hand often made the race for oxygen a bit too high of a priority, I liked the more relaxed approach that Narcosis took with this aspect.Speaking of ADR1FT, Narcosis does remind one of it, but it also reminded me of SOMA. There are horror elements in Narcosis, including hallucinations, dead bodies, intimidating sea creatures, but there are no jump scares or very disturbing imagery or scenes, and that’s not to say this is a bad thing. I thought Narcosis did a fine job of virtually putting me deep down in the sea, building a sense of loneliness and peril, but not weighing me down with constantly dying or having to find oxygen too often. Side note, the interior of your diving suit’s HUD acts as a good way to reduce motion sickness and it also shows you your percent oxygen, compass heading, and number of flares.For the most part, Narcosis is a walking simulator, and I know that that phrase has a negative connotation with it, but I don’t intend it that way here.

Narcosis is fairly short, about four hours but with twenty collectible items to find (most of which I did not, some are surprisingly well hidden). These items, including ID tags for the crew members you encounter, add a nice gameplay element that encourages thoroughness and exploration — which, since you are not typically rushed to refill oxygen, is actually more conducive to doing. Your diving suit, I should mention, is also equipped with thrusters, the status of which is monitored on the HUD as well. These short-range bursts let you move forward or backwards quickly for a few seconds, clear short gaps, and go up small ‘jumps.’ The thrusters burn out quickly, but their cooldown timer is very short. Still, some jumps are designed to where you need full thrust power, and if you jump too soon, you’ll fall into the abyss and start at the last checkpoint.

Sometimes, these checkpoints are a bit too far apart for my liking, but for the most part, you’re going to progress through Narcosis at a steady clip.Presentation quality is quite good, with the protagonist’s voice-acting being especially notable. Your character at times will have a brief monologue, talking about life working for Oceannova, and the guy’s voice reminds me very much of Tom Hanks’ own voice. The dialog is brief, but well-written, and these spoken moments come up at good intervals to remind the player they’re on the right path. The graphics are also very good and the game is comfortable to play.Ultimately, Narcosis provides players with a compelling experience that’s easy to recommend.###.