The first session: what happens in the first 30 minutes of HAUNTED

Short verdict: the first session with HAUNTED: Are You Alone? is tightly built. Between launching the app and your first real fight there are only a few menus, a phone call and a witch you’re not allowed to look at. If you want to know what you’re letting yourself in for on launch day, here’s the run-through up to the end of Chapter I. No spoilers beyond that.

Step 1: The warning

Before you see anything, there’s text. HAUNTED shows a two-page content warning on every app launch. It names sudden loud noises, flashing lights and dimmed lighting, gore and intense jump scares. It also says plainly who shouldn’t play: children, pregnant women, and people with epilepsy, heart conditions or anxiety disorders.

By the fifth launch that might feel like a nuisance. On day one it’s the right call. The game is PEGI 18, and the warning is honestly worded.

Step 2: Choosing a room

After that comes the only other screen before the game itself: room selection. Every room you’ve scanned on Quest appears in a list. Tap Scan a new room to open Space Setup.

It’s worth taking care here. The game uses walls, floor and ceiling as the level. According to the studio, any room size works. You’ll be turning, leaning in, crouching, crawling and swinging. So clear the space first.

Step 3: The floating menu

The main menu floats in your real room. It offers New game, Continue and later New Game+, plus Chapters, Games and Settings. Settings include switching rooms and the Hide my room mode, among other things.

Notable: chapter select is fully open from the start. If you just want a taste on the first evening, you could jump straight in. We’d still recommend New game. The story is built around a sequence.

Step 4: The prologue

The prologue is called “She’s In Your Room Now”. It opens with ten quiet seconds in your ordinary room. Then an old rotary phone on the floor behind you starts ringing, louder each time.

Ignore it and it creeps closer, eventually answering itself on speaker. A little girl whispers. She’s hiding under her bed while footsteps drag across her room. Then the same footsteps start in your real room, in sync with the phone, closing in from behind.

We won’t give away what happens next in detail. Just this much: by the end of the prologue you’re holding an axe. It stays your weapon until Chapter II.

This is where the game’s strongest tech shows. Sound comes from real positions in the room. Footsteps behind you sound behind you. That sounds simple, and it lands harder than any graphics.

Step 5: Chapter I, “Don’t Look”

The witch stands in the corner furthest from you. Head down, wet black hair. She flickers like a broken video signal and is never visible for more than about a second and a half.

The chapter’s rule is simple and mean: look away and she reappears closer. Hold your gaze too long and she snaps her head up and screams. The game reads your gaze from head orientation, not eye tracking. So looking away means turning your head.

After that, sneaking turns into fighting. The witch flickers around you. A crack of bone and a whisper give away where she’ll appear next. Three axe hits, in slow motion, decide the chapter.

What shipped

• A fast start with no tutorial baggage. The only screens before the game are the warning and room selection.
• Spatial audio as the main tool of terror.
• A first mechanic you grasp in one sentence and still dread.
• Hands or Touch controllers as input, with strong haptics on controllers.

What’s missing

• No seated mode. The store lists only room-scale and standing.
• English only. The girl on the phone speaks English, and the store doesn’t list subtitles in other languages.
• No second player. If you want to play as a pair, you have to pass the headset around.

If it doesn’t go well

Die in a chapter and the game-over screen offers Help — an explanation of how to get through it. From the third death in the same chapter, Skip chapter appears too. With the witch, whose rule works against instinct, that’s a fair lifeline.

What to watch next

After Chapter I, the game changes its mechanic with every chapter. Whether that pace carries the whole story is what our day-one main report settles. And whether the first 30 minutes make you want to come back is what the week-one check tests.

Buy, wait or skip?

Buy if the first few minutes above have you curious and you’re an adult. Wait if you’re not sure you can handle jump scares in your own room. Skip if the warning applies to you. Store page: HAUNTED: Are You Alone?

Launch Score

8.8 out of 10, as the editors’ opinion. The opening is clear, quick and effective. Marks off for missing languages and the requirement to stand.