I’m tied to a chair in a dilapidated, disgusting kitchen that wouldn’t be out of place in a Saw movie, my hands bound together and a tripod in front of me. In the corner of the room is a man lying on the floor who looks dead. Looking around the room it’s pretty obvious that this isn’t a place I want to be, so I start moving my hands in a feeble attempt to free myself. I knock over the tripod which grabs the attention of the body in the corner, who it turns out is very much alive. He finds a large knife, stumbles over to me and starts cutting the bindings on my hands, but fumbles and drops it. That’s when she stands up behind him…

The highly elusive Kitchen is almost a gaming urban legend at this point. A tech demo conceived by Capcom for the then-named Project Morpheus, word of mouth spread like wildfire following a highly secretive showing of the demo to a select few at this years E3. While talk of this supposedly terrifying experience was extensive, neither Sony nor Capcom have released any public footage of it, so only those who have had the opportunity to actually play it have any idea what it looks like. And after some begging I was one of those lucky(?) few.

Kitchen was hands-down my favourite experience of EGX 2015. The level of immersion was unparalleled, even amongst all the other VR experiences I’ve had over the past few years. Right from the word go as I was looking around this room, taking in the sights and sounds, wondering what horror I’ve possibly let myself in for, and I was transported to this place. Kitchen pulls a neat trick by having your hands bound together, almost like they’re the length of a PS4 controller apart, and combines flawlessly with the Dualshock 4’s motion sensors to allow movement.

Even before everything went horribly wrong there were moments in the demo that made me flinch and recoil. When the stranger was cutting my bindings with the biggest knife ever, I had to pull back, as the sharp end of the knife was waving perilously close to me face. When my newfound friend was inevitably stabbed right in front of me, the blood splatter that hit me in the face made me recoil as though I’d actually been hit by it. And when she got all up in my face it was the most uncomfortable, terrifying moment I’ve experienced in horror gaming in a long time.

I could launch into a detailed description of what I saw in the demo, but no words could describe what type of experience Kitchen actually is. Even if I described in 100% detail what I saw and what happened to me while I was inside the headset, I can’t transport you there and give you an idea of the level of immersion that Kitchen and the Playstation VR manages to achieve. The demo reinforced my belief that VR will be revolutionary for the horror genre when done right, and Kitchen is the perfect example of a horror experience on a VR platform.

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