Day One Logged T+

HAUNTED, day one: your living room is the nightmare

The day-one report on HAUNTED: Are You Alone? 0.2.0: what's in the build, what's missing, and whether it's worth buying at launch.

Status: Logged Type: review Phase: Day one Read: 4 min

A single floor lamp in a dark, empty living room, with a pale hand reaching out of the wall behind it

Verdict up front: HAUNTED: Are You Alone? is a compact, loud mixed-reality horror game that turns your real room into the level. According to the Meta Horizon Store, it launched on 9 October 2026 in version 0.2.0, for £3.99 in the UK store (as of 10 October 2026). The story lasts about half an hour. Add three endless arcade modes and two secret chapters. For adult horror fans with a Quest: buy now. For anyone who wants plenty of playtime per pound: wait for the month-one verdict.

What it’s about

The premise fits in one sentence. A witch has lived in this house for a hundred years, every family that moved in kept her, and now she’s found you. A little girl gets in touch over an old rotary phone and guides you through the night.

The hook is the play space. HAUNTED uses the room you scanned with Quest Space Setup. Walls, floor and ceiling are the level. Arms break out of your walls, a hole opens in your floor, a hellhound hangs from your ceiling. According to the studio, any room size works.

What shipped

The launch build is surprisingly complete for the price. At its core are three areas:

  • Story: prologue, seven chapters (The Witch, The Hands, The Doll, The Hole, The Darkness, The Mirror, The Puppy), a finale and an epilogue. According to the studio, 25 to 35 minutes.
  • Chapter select: all chapters are open from the start. Reached chapters are marked.
  • Games: three arcade modes, Grave Rush, Arm Cutter and Skull Hunt, with coins, high scores and a shop called Bone Market.

Each story chapter brings its own mechanic. With the witch, you mustn’t look too long. With the hands, you swing an axe at arms coming out of the wall. The doll first copies your movements. In the fourth chapter you hold a torch and a revolver. That’s the build’s strongest point: no chapter repeats the last.

Your body is the controller. You turn, lean forward, crouch and crawl. You play with your hands or touch controllers. Sound comes from real positions in the room: footsteps behind you, knocking in the wall, voices under the floor. Plus strong haptics on every scare, grab and hit.

Accessibility was considered too. The camera is never moved by the game. After every death, the game-over screen offers Help. From the third death in a chapter, Skip chapter appears. Getting stuck is practically impossible.

What’s missing

A day-one report has to name the gaps too:

  • English only. The store lists no other language.
  • No multiplayer. HAUNTED is a single-player game in a scanned room.
  • No sitting. The store lists room-scale and standing. The story demands crouching and crawling.
  • No store ratings. On 10 October 2026 the page had zero user ratings. So there’s no crowd to make the decision for you.
  • Short story. Half an hour is one evening, not a weekend. The arcade modes make up for it, but they don’t replace a longer campaign.

Then there’s the target audience. HAUNTED is PEGI 18 with an ‘Extreme Violence’ note. On start-up, a two-page content warning appears every time: loud sudden noises, flashing lights and darkness, gore, intense jump scares. According to the studio, the game is not suitable for children, pregnant people, or people with epilepsy, heart conditions or anxiety disorders.

Tech on launch day

The store lists Quest 2, Quest Pro, Quest 3 and Quest 3S. Installation needs about 410 MB, required storage is around 563 MB. No internet needed, and according to the store there are no in-game ads. According to the studio’s privacy policy, the microphone is not used and progress is saved locally.

The game determines gaze direction from head orientation, not eye tracking. That matters for the witch in the first chapter: looking away means turning your head.

What to watch next

  • First user ratings: how do players rate the length and scare factor?
  • Replay value: do the three arcade modes still hold up after a week? We’ll check in the week-one check-in.
  • Updates: version 0.2.0 is the starting point. What comes next is open. We don’t invent patch contents and will only report when an update lands.
  • New Game+: after the credits, you can replay the story with changed menu text and dialogue.

Buy, wait or skip?

Buy now if you’re an adult, like horror and have a Quest with free floor space. For £3.99 you get a dense story, three score modes and secrets painted onto your real floor.

Wait if you expect more than one evening of story. Our month-one verdict will show whether the arcade modes carry.

Skip if you’re in one of the groups named in the warning or can only play sitting down.

To the store page: HAUNTED: Are You Alone? on the Meta Horizon Store.

Launch Score

8.9 out of 10, as the editors’ opinion. The idea of turning your own room into the scene of the crime is consistently executed, the chapters are varied and the price is low. It loses points for the short story, the lack of localisation and the fact that there are no user voices at all yet.

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