Loading Human: Chapter 1 (PlayStation 4)

Loading Human is a science fiction adventure game designed specifically for virtual reality gameplay. The player takes a role of Prometheus, a young many and a son of a billionaire bent on achieving immortality. Your father, who is 100-something years old, and whose life is sustained by a cryo storage container which allows him to occasionally be awaken for a conversation or two, summoned you to a secret research facility in Antarctica. There you undergo a training for a planned interstellar quest to retrieve quintessence, an energy capable of stopping the aging process.

It’s been years since Prometheus arrived to Antarctica and the facility is starting to show its age due to unfriendly weather conditions and neglection. While the only task left is to prepare himself for the journey ahead, the player gets to relieve past events through various flashbacks, from the day Prometheus arrived to Antarctica, met the love of his life, a redhead engineer Alice, trained for his mission, and faced many perils until the moment the game story opens.

Gameplay movement doesn’t use teleport system but forward and backward walking while rotation isn’t done neither smoothly nor by degrees, instead, the analogue stick is used to make player face another direction. Moving the stick right will effectively rotate player to the right by 90 degrees. Moving it under any other angle will make that angle new forward view. During determination of rotation, the player can see trajectory path of where the character will face next which helps the player face exact wanted direction.

Various items can be picked up and tossed pretty much anywhere. There is no inventory system, not even for key items, so everything the player carries is visible in one of his hands. Each hand can hold and carry a single item. Places where interaction can be done will be highlighted once the player is in the right position or is holding an appropriate item (e.g. carrying a vinyl record will place it on a gramophone if player click on it while carrying a vinyl record). Game supports two move controllers which can emulate hand movement but it also supports full gameplay with just a single gamepad where analogue sticks can be used for hand movement. Objects can be rotated while carried for closer examination but will not provide any additional info or new way to use them.

This game doesn’t feature and jump scares and can be played leisurely in VR where player can focus on exploration, surrounding, and solving puzzles. As the title implies, this is only first chapter in the story which leaves with a cliffhanger just as the player enters the planet’s orbit and heads for open space.