Dark Trip is a psychedelic escape room game. Even before release, its adult themes have caused problems for the development studio, iTales VR, but those hurdles have now been surpassed and the game is set to launch in earnest this month.
What is Dark Trip?
iTales VR bill Dark Trip as ‘one of the most unique and bizarre VR experiences’. But escape room games are pretty common in VR. So what’s different here? In this game, you take on the role of a detective who eats pills to solve puzzles and relies on own hallucinations to investigate an eerie crime case.
You’re on the search for a missing woman, and are somehow forced to consume drugs during your mission. The boundaries between reality and hallucinations dissolve, immersing you in a Lovecraftian nightmare when in a small German town. Hired to investigate the case, the player discovers a seemingly abandoned laboratory. As you explore each room, you uncover evidence of twisted experiments through scattered notebooks of employees and disturbing accounts from test subjects. The gameplay revolves around solving intricate puzzles while piecing together the unsettling truth of the past.
Problems Before Launch…
According to iTales VR, Dark Trip encountered a fair bit of pushback from Steam ahead of launch. The below is an excerpt from a press release, repeated here verbatim:
“Around two weeks ago after more than two months of bureaucratic back-and-forth with Steam’s review team, Dark Trip finally secured its presence on the Steam platform. Despite the page being merely a “Coming Soon” listing, Steam reviewers insisted on a full demo build due to the game’s psychedelic narrative involving Nazi themes. Without a complete build for review, Steam refused to approve the page’s publication. The most absurd hurdle came when Steam demanded that iTales VR upload the build via SteamPipe – only for SteamPipe to malfunction until the page was first approved. This created a frustrating catch-22, which the developers ultimately circumvented by packaging the build into a password-protected archive and sending it via Google Drive to Steam’s review team.”
With this hurdle now overcome, Dark Trip is gearing up for a full release on both Meta Quest and SteamVR.
Dark Trip Release Details
After launching in Early Access on 13th February, 2025, the game has been steadily evolving with regular updates and new content. 24th April will see Dark Trip reach a major milestone, with the release of Episode 1 on Meta Store. This update introduces a fully featured experience, bringing the game closer to its final vision with polished mechanics, expanded gameplay, and immersive narrative elements.
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Episode 1 will include 10 rooms, each delivering roughly two hours of escape room gameplay. You’ll be solving puzzles by willingly shifting between sobriety and drug-induced hallucinations. Each room can be completed either sober or under the influence, offering drastically different puzzle dynamics and narrative perspectives.
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