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Games

Gaming And Theater Merge To Scare The Crap Out Of People

Punchdrunk’s interactive theater is put to terrifying effect.

Last night I learned that I’m a coward. It wasn’t the most welcome insight into my personality, but it’s a fact. How do I know? Well, let’s just say if a malignant alien civilization came to Earth and enslaved humankind into slavering zombie-armies to wage war on humanity on their behalf, you wouldn’t want me in your small group of struggling survivors.

Fortunately it wasn’t the end of the world last night, instead it was the Punchdrunk event …and darkness descended, organized to promote the release of the latest installment of a sci-fi horror FPS on PlayStation 3 called Resistance 3. I’ve never played the series before, I own a Wii, so my first contact with the franchise came last night—and I wasn’t very good at it. But the game comes second fiddle really, because the event itself was an incredible mix of immersive theatre and video game aesthetics where my disbelief wasn’t so much suspended, but rather chased out of me. In fact, I could hardly muster a thought other than sheer terror as I took flight in the dark, barely able to turn around for fear of what I might see. If you’ve ever played a horror survival game, it’s like acting through a level, like Half-Life writ large.

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Suitably, what was billed as a “survival experiment fusing theater and gaming” took place in the dingy darkness of the arches beneath London’s Waterloo Station. The plot was something to do with being a prequel to the game, where we had to help out a group of resistance fighters. All very role-play-esque, and as a bunch of cynical journalists, we responded with bemused laughter when we were told our mission. And the constant reminder by the staff that we’d better be prepared to be scared was met with incredulity and disbelief. However, by the end of the experience we were a sweaty, panicked bunch of terrified cowards, running full pelt through badly lit rooms, pushing and shoving each other in a bid to get ahead and escape the unnatural forms breathing down our necks. To describe too much about the experience would be to ruin it for anyone who was going to check it out over the course of this weekend and the coming weeks, when it goes on tour, but let’s just say it involves creeping about with torches, meeting a resistance fighter, completing a few tasks, running for your life, and having no consideration for your fellow humans.

This is the bar you run into, looking like a chump, startled and anxious.

And, in a final expert move, as we made the last dash for our lives, sprinting for the light at the end of the tunnel, jumping and leaping to avoid the savage half-humans swiping at us from all sides, we flew through a door sweating and terrified—and looked up to find we were in the bar area, everyone looking at us, perplexed at our over-the-top actions, while we perspired and caught our breath.

Two women coming out of the experience, looking a bit shaken.

At the end of the experience, digesting it all with my fellow “survivors,” I only wished all promotional events could be as exciting as this. And, more than anything, it made me yearn for the days when gaming itself could be this truly immersive.