New Dark Pictures Game Features Gimmick from Fan-Favorite Doctor Who Episode

One of Supermassive Games’ new horror games set within The Dark Pictures series called The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR features a callback to one of the best Doctor Who episodes of all time. In the new VR game, there’s apparently a sequence where enemies respond to the eye-tracking technology used in the PS VR2 to determine whether or not the player is blinking. That is to say that just like the Weeping Angels from the Doctor Who episode “Blink” and others in later seasons, some enemies in Switchback VR will close the distance on players who have their eyes closed.

Supermassive has talked about this feature in a broad sense previously whenever it listed the features Switchback VR boasts. One of those highlights on the page for the game told players “Don’t Blink” and said that “In the blink of an eye, more and more enemies are upon you as your pupils are being detected.”

That alluded to the fact that we’d see some tricks related to blinking in the PS VR2 game, but a recent preview of it from EDGE Magazine (via MP1ST) confirmed as much. A hands-on experience with the game recounted a part where bloodied mannequins stood ominously in front of players and only moved forwards once the player blinked up until one of them comes to life.

We’ve seen this sort of thing used on and off throughout different games and other mediums, but Doctor Who’s recurring use of the Weeping Angels is without a doubt the most recognizable and popular use of this kind of “don’t blink” trick. The newish DLC for Resident Evil Village, Winters Expansion, made use of this, too, through a mannequin scene where players were chased every time they lost sight of the creature, but that wasn’t playable in VR, so it was only part of the experience Switchback VR looks to be incorporating. Doctor Who: The Edge of Time is a VR game that utilized the Weeping Angels, too, but the eye-tracking feature isn’t present in that game.

The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR will be out on the PS VR2 on February 22nd, so we’ll see then just how well this eye-tracking trick works out in that game.