What an amazingly heavy and moving experience. This is a must play for anyone who views games as art. Also a must play for anyone who wants to grow their empathetic understanding of those with psychosis and other similar mental health struggles.

I first attempted playing this in VR some months ago, but it was, I guess, too immersive for me to feel mentally ok playing it. It nearly caused me to have a full blown panic attack in my living room.

So I set it aside, not sure what to do. When the recent update came out adding DX12 and RT, I decided to give it another go, but this time I left the VR headset off, and put the headphones on.

I will say this - PLAN for yourself to take breaks. Even outside of VR, I had to take breathers.

That said, total playtime is probably about 10 hours. I think I picked up my prior savegame from chapter 2 or maybe 3, I had only played a few hours, and I finished it in another 7. Those 7 hours felt like an entire day.

Again, this is clearly both a labor of love, and something very meaningful and thought provoking. This is more than just a game. This is a piece of interactive empathy education, too.

As a life-long fan of story driven RPGs, this is such an amazing and refreshing take on the genre. Something that really allows the story to live without being encumbered by in depth combat (not that there is anything wrong with RPG combat but... this is more special because its almost singularly focused).

Playing this game brought me some of the joy i had with the old point and click adventure games like police quest and DOTT, but with the story depth, writing, interactivity, and world depth I love from things like Planescape Torment, Torment ToN, Pillars of Eternity, Tyranny, etc.

This felt like a living novel turned into a videogame. Every conversation was interesting. Every NPC mattered. Every character a part to play.

My ONLY negative takeaway was the clothing system. Not being able to see stats at a glance, or just view them without hovering items really made it a pain to change your build depending on the situation.

Update after Second Runthrough of the Game: So much to explore in this game emotionally. Still an absolute must play. Cannot wait for more story content from the developers.