Wraith: The Oblivion – Afterlife

Wraith: The Oblivion – Afterlife is a horror game, and is played with a virtual reality (VR) headset. The game is narrative-driven, and is focused on exploration in a first-person perspective.[1][2]

The game is set in the modern Barclay Mansion in the World of Darkness, an urban fantasy setting shared with games like Vampire: The Masquerade and Werewolf: The Apocalypse, where monsters secretly exist within human society.[1][3] It has the player take the role of a wraith[1] – a dead person's spirit – who uncovers mysteries of the afterlife.[4]

Afterlife is developed by the Swedish studio Fast Travel Games, and is directed by Erik Odeldahl,[1] designed by Daniel Kihlgren Kallander, and programmed by Casper Renman.[5] It is based on White Wolf Publishing's 1994 tabletop role-playing game Wraith: The Oblivion;[1] it is the first time Wraith: The Oblivion is adapted into a video game, and the first World of Darkness VR game.[3] It is however still designed to be accessible to players who are new to Wraith: The Oblivion and World of Darkness, intended to be enjoyable by fans of story-driven horror in general and serving as an introduction to the setting.[5]

Odeldahl was influenced by horror games like Amnesia: The Dark Descent (2010) and Alien: Isolation (2014), and felt that their type of horror would work well in a VR game;[1] the developers described the horror design as psychological and "under-your-skin" rather than reliant on jump scares.[5] Odeldahl had wanted to create this in the form of a World of Darkness game, and thought that Wraith: The Oblivion was particularly well suited, due to its mystique and the richness of its setting.[1] Although Paradox Interactive, the owner of the World of Darkness series, were the ones who approached Fast Travel Games about developing a Wraith: The Oblivion game, Odeldahl had thought about adaptaing Wraith before, and had written a concept document for a Wraith video game adaptation when Fast Travel Games was formed, although Afterlife ended up using a different concept.[5] As he saw Wraith: The Oblivion as being about personal horror, this was also used as the starting point for Afterlife's story,[5] with the game seeking to explore what it means to be human by letting the player take the perspective of a monster.[1]

The game was announced in June 2020 with a teaser trailer, and is planned to be fully unveiled at Gamescom in August 2020 with a gameplay trailer. It is set for release for multiple VR platforms at an as of yet unannounced date.[1]

Destructoid liked the game's concept, hoping that the developers would succeed in realizing it,[2] and Rock, Paper, Shotgun considered it a game of interest for those who can handle horror games in VR.[6] FZ looked forward to the game, calling VR horror an effective concept.[7]