Ghost Town | Review | 6DOF Reviews (2025)

There’s a strange kind of magic in Fireproof Games’ Ghost Town, and it’s a kind that’s all too rare in the world of asset flip Meta Quest store titles. There’s no pun here, and I’m not about to joke about the game’s metaphysical or supernatural themes, either, and I don’t plan to leave you in suspense; I loved Ghost Town. It’s beautifully made, atmospherically rich, and carefully crafted with love and care. Unlike many of the characters in the game, Ghost Town has a clear pulse and is a pleasure to spend time with. Keep reading, and allow me to explain.

Set in London back in 1983, Ghost Town places you in the role of Edith Penrose, a medium who communicates with the dead, solves supernatural mysteries, and, judging by her entry in the phone book, does whatever she can to keep the lights on. It may not sound like the most novel of game settings, but the proof, as you all know, is in the pudding.

It’s a Kind of Magic

At its core, Ghost Town is a supernatural detective story, an exploration of haunted places, but more so, of souls that just can’t let go of their lives. Playing as Edith, you’re not so much a ghost-buster as a ghost-doctor, helping all but one of the spirits you encounter in the course of your adventure. Think Dr. Strange meets Ghostbusters but with more compassion and fewer proton packs!

The narrative is compelling; the characters are rich and well articulated, but mechanically speaking, the game is essentially a puzzler with some elements of escape room gameplay. You make your way through the story, solving puzzles, finding objects to solve other puzzles, and eventually helping free souls from their chains to the mortal world, liberating them into a hopefully happier afterlife.

For those wondering how much of a horror game it is, let me assure you (or disappoint you if you were hoping otherwise) – Ghost Town does not try to scare you out of your wits. It elegantly avoids throwing any cheap tricks at you, and although I often felt it might, it did not once throw a jump scare at me. It does get very creepy at times, but it perfectly straddles that fine line between being creepy and terrifying, and, I might add, it does so with no small amount of aplomb. Ghost Town leans on dread, suspense, the sadness of regrets, and the folly of fear, but it never undermines its ambitions and is all the better for it.

Fireproof Games know exactly what they’re doing.

The Threads of Fate

Most of the puzzles and environmental riddles in Ghost Town involve intricate machinery, with some puzzles involving the sequential use of many devices in a particular order. Each puzzle feels handcrafted and deliberate—never procedural, never random. There’s a tactile satisfaction to the interactions: pulling levers, sliding switches, rotating dials, or lining up psychic resonances like tuning forks.

But here’s the rub – the puzzles, while elegant, are rarely challenging. They’re more about being observant than being clever. You seldom get stuck, which helps the story flow but also means you might not feel that rush of dopamine you get from cracking something genuinely challenging. It’s a double-edged design choice: ideal for narrative immersion but somewhat too frictionless for puzzle veterans.

Through a Glass Darkly

Visually, Ghost Town is one of the best-looking native Quest games I’ve ever played. Fireproof Games (who also created the fantastic The Room VR) has done something remarkable with Unity, pushing the headset’s capabilities with minimal jank. The lighting design, the environments, the particle effects, the art direction, the textures – all of it feels like it’s running on a much more powerful machine.

The graphical splendor of Ghost Town extends to the character animations, which are professionally and excellently motion-captured. The game powerfully demonstrates what good voice acting and motion capture can accomplish and how much emotional value great performances can add to a game.

Echoes of the Past

The audio design in Ghost Town is masterful – not just good – but downright masterful. The music emphasizes when it should, punctuates subtly when that’s all that’s needed, and knows when to get out of the way when silence is the best accompaniment. It evokes without contrivance. The environmental sounds are equally splendid, your footsteps walking through puddles, the crackle of electricity, the voices of the haunted, the whole world around and the characters that inhabit it coming to life through your ears.

Ghost Town is incredibly aware that, although often neglected, the auditory experience of a VR game can win you half the battle. It revels in driving home that fact and takes full advantage of the soundscape.

The voice acting is equally excellent across the board. From Edith to her partner Rina to the people and ghosts you encounter – all the voices are very well delivered – a testament to both the actors involved and the game’s director.

Short but Spirited

Clocking in at around 4 to 5 hours, unless you get stuck on some of the puzzles, Ghost Town doesn’t overstay its welcome—but it might leave you wishing it did. The experience is somewhat compact but very satisfying, and while there’s some light incentive, like the magazine collectibles, to replay scenes and soak in details you might have missed, there’s no branching narrative or different outcomes to uncover.

That said, its length feels appropriate for the story it’s telling. It’s tightly written and well-paced. The ending is satisfying while leaving the door open to more adventures, a promise I hope to see fulfilled.

Ghost in the Machine

There isn’t much wrong with Ghost Town, so when it comes to complaints, they’re mostly minor.

At around 4-5 hours of gameplay, some people will take offense and call this another short-length VR experience, but at 30 dollars, the bang for the buck is about equal to a good movie, adjusting for the duration. It’s a quality experience.

Another issue I had was in one particular segment where I had to control a scanner using a virtual joystick in the game. It sounds ridiculous to say this, but I got stuck on this for more than 10 minutes, absolutely failing to move an on-screen menu to activate it. Here I was, moving my hand, trying to push the virtual joystick towards the menu options on the virtual monitor in front of me and failing miserably. I thought it was a glitch. Frustrated, I took off the headset and had a break, only to find out that in contradiction to all the immersive norms the game has established, this one virtual joystick could only be controlled by your actual Touch Controller joystick. Was this obvious? Am I an idiot? C’mon, Fireproof Games, fix it!

The last niggle is that although beautifully rendered, the world generally lacks freeform interactivity. Aside from the devices and objects you manipulate to solve puzzles, you can’t really interact with the world around you. Here I am, wishing the world was a little more responsive to my eager little fingers and that this last sentence doesn’t come off as weird as it sounds.

So, as refined as it is, Ghost Town isn’t without missteps. Beyond the limited interactivity and gentle difficulty curve, one of the bigger drawbacks is the lack of real stakes. You can stumble and get stuck, but you can’t actually fail. You can’t really make a wrong move.

Elysium Bound

Ghost Town isn’t a game for everyone—but it knows exactly who it is for. It offers atmosphere, emotional storytelling, engaging, if not particularly challenging, puzzles, and a haunting world that lingers in your mind long after the headset comes off. Unless you really don’t like this kind of game, I can easily say that this is one of the best offerings you’ll find on the Quest.

Fireproof has once again proven they understand the unique strengths of virtual reality—intimacy, presence, tactility—and they’ve built a story that works particularly well because it’s in VR. Edith Penrose may be a ghost hunter, but the real spirit here is narrative ambition. And for those of us who love VR not just for its gimmicks but for its potential to truly immerse you in a fascinating world, Ghost Town is a triumph.