A séance that invades your actual home
UploadVR's coverage of the VR Games Showcase introduces Spirit Ritual, a supernatural horror title that positions you as a psychic medium trying to break a demonic curse. The hook is immediate: the game’s native presentation is mixed reality, so ghosts are designed to manifest inside your own physical space. Developer messaging describes the effect as “ghosts manifesting inside your own home.” For players who dislike passthrough, an optional virtual reality mode is also included.
Mechanically, the game leans on hand-tracking controls rather than standard motion controllers. You’ll conjure a spirit board to cross into the spirit realm, then arm yourself with an old-timey spirit camera to capture spectral entities. This loop—summon, observe, photograph—echoes Fatal Frame but swaps fixed environments for the player’s living room.
Full-motion video actors, not just CGI
One of the more striking design choices is the use of 3D full-motion video (FMV) performances by real actors. UploadVR notes that FMV in games has a checkered history over the past thirty years, but here it appears well-executed and genuinely unnerving. The trailer suggests actors will appear as layered, volumetric-style figures within the mixed reality scene, blurring the line between prerecorded performance and interactive haunting.
The result is a horror photography game where your targets are not static 3D models but filmed people—something that could make each encounter feel more like a séance gone wrong. Combined with hand tracking, the game avoids traditional button prompts in favor of gestures: raising the camera, flipping the spirit board, or reaching toward a manifestation.
Platforms and the missing release date
UploadVR confirms Spirit Ritual is coming to three headsets:
- Meta Quest
- PICO 4
- SteamVR
No release date has been announced yet. The title was revealed via a trailer during today’s VR Games Showcase, and the UploadVR piece does not include pricing, length, or whether the FMV segments are pre-rendered or streamed. Still, the combination of mixed reality passthrough and live-action horror is rare enough to keep an eye on. For players who already own a Quest 3 or PICO 4, the idea of pointing a vintage camera at a ghost standing next to your couch is a compelling proof of what MR horror can do without needing a fully virtual world.
Spirit Ritual is a terrifying ghost story that blends full motion video with mixed-reality gameplay.
Spirit Ritual is a supernatural horror game, played in either mixed reality or virtual reality, in which you play as a psychic medium attempting to break a demonic curse. You'll use hand-tracking controls to conjure a spirit board to enter the spirit realm and equip your old-timey spirit camera to capture ghosts.
The game was announced via a trailer as part of today's VR Games Showcase.