The Inpatient is the newest game from developer SuperMassive Games, and is a prequel to the breakout hit on PlayStation 4 called Until Dawn. You're transported sixty years into the past to the Blackwood Sanatorium where something has gone rather awry. If you've played Until Dawn, then the name should sound pretty familiar and you may have an idea of whats coming.
You play as an Amnesiac patient in the Sanatorium, and while the doctor keeps telling you that you're there for your own good, that may not be the case. You'll need to uncover the mystery on the grounds, and discover your past if you want to survive everything this game has to offer. With every choice you make you'll see consequences and changes to the story, so you'll need to be on your toes.
See The Inpatient at Playstation
Blackwood Sanatorium
While there haven't been tons of details about what you're being thrown into with Inpatient, fans of Until Dawn will recognize both the time period and the location. That's because this is set up as the prequel of that game, and when we say things go wrong at Blackwood, we mean they really go wrong.
The game is set during the 1950s in a Sanatorium up on the side of the mountain. While you're going to start out with very few details, it's clear that you are a patient. Through the game you'll need to uncover your past and why you were sent to the Sanatorium, as well as figure out what the heck is going on within elsewhere.
The Until Dawn Franchise
Until Dawn was a game version of the horror movie everyone has seen, where a group of friends go out into the woods and have to survive the night when things inevitably go awry. During the course of that game, you run through what is left of Blackwood Sanatorium and see rumors of a terrible tragedy that took place way back in the 1950s.
The Inpatient takes place in that same Sanatorium during the period when things go very, very, wrong at the Sanatorium. This is definitely a horror game, and the original made me jump more than I usually admit. However if the gameplay is anything like it's predecessor it will require plenty of quick time actions, rather than making you constantly run jump or dodge.
Since this is a VR game, this is pretty awesome for folks who enjoy the horror genre but deal with nausea or motion sickness when they play in VR.
Your choices change everything
If you aren't already acquainted with Supermassive Games through their choose your own adventure style games Until Dawn and Hidden Agenda then you've been seriously been missing out. These games are all story heavy and the choices you make during gameplay directly affect what happens next in the game.
A bad choice can mean you'll skip part of a chapter, or run into some serious trouble. We know that The Inpatient is going to be using the same sort of system, and looks somewhat familiar to Until Dawn itself. You'll end up interacting with doctors, patients, and nurses, and the decisions that you make will directly change the gameplay.
This also means that there is a decent chance of being able to replay the game without getting the same outcome. It also means that things may not always end the same way, but we won't know that for sure until it releases.
Arriving soon
So with all of this, you've probably got one very important question. When is The Inpatient releasing?
While it was originally slated for release back in November of 2017, we'll finally be able to jump into it on January 23, 2018. That's right, just a few short days away. Since it's a PlayStation VR game your best bet is going to be downloading it from the source so you can dive right in.
