'ADR1FT' Review: An Evocative, Tense Space Thriller Unlike Anything You've Played

ADR1FT Screenshot | Image: Three One Zero & 505 Games

Reviewing ADR1FT is tricky. Adam Orth and developer Three One Zero’s “First Person Experience” not only marks the first retail VR game I’ve ever reviewed, but it also sidesteps the traditional boundaries of what one might expect from a video game. Complicating things further is that while ADR1FT was built from the ground up for virtual reality and is playable inside the Oculus Rift, it’s still a perfectly complete — but notably different — encounter outside of VR in standard desktop mode.

ADR1FT places you in the fragile EVA suit of a terrified Alex Oshira, the commander in charge of a long-term mission on the sprawling HAN-IV space station. A space station that has been decimated by an unknown disaster, leaving you as the sole survivor, clinging to life with only option: get home or die trying.
All the odds are against you. Life support is toast. Your EVA suit is damaged, so randomly scattered oxygen canisters are used to both keep you breathing and act as a propulsion system for your suit. This means oxygen is a resource that must be carefully managed. Then there’s the environment, littered with wreckage and deadly obstacles; a cold and uncaring enemy.
A First Person Experience

ADR1FT Screenshot | Image: Three One Zero and 505 Games

ADR1FT is the debut game from Three One Zero, and they’re already tremendous world builders. Audio design is intentionally sparse but believable, and the shattered HAN-IV is replete with poignant, floating reminders of the lives that were snuffed out and the impact these losses will have back on Earth. Through text terminals, voice messages, and personal belongings, the developers weave in accounts of the deceased crew’s personal struggles from being isolated for so long. We hear about their personal demons, and we see slices of raw humanity.

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And the visuals in ADR1FT border on photorealistic. They’re just breathtaking. The first time I had to navigate from one broken wing of the space station to another across a chasm of deep dark space, I nearly had a panic attack. Random debris and water droplets and wreckage surrounded me. Combined with the disconcerting view of the earth beneath my feet, it drove home a powerful sensation of solitude. The developers have created a gripping atmosphere here, as if it was pulled from an actual historic event instead of someone’s imagination.
Adrift in Virtual Reality
Having six degrees of freedom inside of ADR1FT’s world is immersive enough, but that same experience inside the Oculus Rift elevates things to levels I never thought possible. In VR, you simply are Alex Oshira. The amount of presence — feeling physically present in a non-physical world — conveyed can be terrifying depending on your comfort level with lonely zero-gravity space.
In truth, I could only play ADRIFT inside my Rift for about 10 minutes at a time, compared to hours with other launch games like AirMech Commander or Lucky’s Tale. That’s not a knock against the hardware (the game hummed along smoothly with no detectable latency on my VR-Ready Alienware X51), nor a suggestion that the developers haven’t thoughtfully designed the VR experience. Rather, I think it’s the exact opposite.

All games on the Oculus Store have “Comfort Ratings.” ADR1FT’s is accurately rated.

Note that it didn’t make me sick or nauseous, but it did make me uncomfortable and sometimes borderline panicked. I have to imagine that’s why its Comfort Rating on the Oculus Store is “Intense.” As I’m sure puttering along in zero-gravity space might be. There are a ton of cues that sell it, from the way your helmet wraps around your vision, to the way water droplets float past you, or the way the environment is rendered in 360-degrees with such depth and distance. I actually spoke to ADR1FT lead Adam Orth about this and he takes it as a compliment, as a testament to how convincing modern virtual reality can be.
ADR1FT is worth experiencing in VR, provided you dive in with an air of caution and don’t overdo it. This wasn’t indicative of every VR experience I’ve had with the Oculus Rift launch titles, and some of you may translate this intensity as a failure while others applaud it as a success. We’re all different, and VR will affect us in different ways.
(Space)walking Simulator

ADR1FT Screenshot | Image: Three One Zero and 505 Games

Three One Zero is leaning heavily on the “Experience” portion of their “First Person Experience (FPX)” description for ADR1FT, so set your expectations accordingly. No new gameplay mechanics are introduced beyond learning to pilot your EVA suit and interact with various terminals and oxygen sources throughout the destroyed space station, although new environmental hazards do enter the fray. On the plus side, this means you’re not worried about continually mastering new controls and are free to enjoy the ride. On the downside, it means things can get monotonous.
Beyond survival and unraveling the story leading up to the space station’s demise, your underlying objective is to repair the four separate wings of HAN-IV  in order to enable communication with Mission Control, and power up your ride home. Unfortunately this results in some artificially extended gameplay.
For example, in each wing you need to locate the system mainframe, fabricate a “cerebrum core,” and then repair the cerebrum module (basically bringing each crucial component of the station back to life). You do this four separate times in each wing with no variation to the formula. This happens to also involve a lot of backtracking through admittedly stunning sections, but with a propulsion system so slow, it can unnerve the impatient among you.
It means a somewhat drawn out 4 or 5 hour playthrough instead of a brisk and more impactful 3 hour one. But it’s still a playthrough worth having.
And that’s where the perils of review scores once again rear their ugly heads. A number here feels almost arbitrary. Reviews are so subjective, and this particular review is about a game that can be experienced in two very distinct ways — in virtual reality or via a standard PC gaming experience, and thus stands to impact people quite differently. It’s a focused and powerful narrative, augmented by stunning audio design and fantastic visuals. Still, it has elements that may turn people away, and I can’t help but wish there was more to the gameplay.
I’ll close this by emphasizing one important thing: This review score is based on the game Three One Zero has delivered for the asking price, not what my armchair game developer alter ego wishes they’d delivered. What’s here is special. Slightly flawed, but still absolutely worth experiencing for yourself. ADR1FT is evocative, chilling, tense, and unlike anything I’ve ever played, even if it isn’t for everyone.
Platform: Oculus Rift, Steam for Windows (Playable outside VR, coming soon to Xbox One/PS4)
Developer: Three One Zero
Publisher: 505 Games
Released: March 28, 2016
VR Rating: Intense
Price: $19.99
Score: 8/10
Author’s Note: Final review code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review. ADR1FT was played using an engineering sample of the final consumer version of the Oculus Rift, and in traditional desktop mode on an Nvidia GTX 970-equipped Alienware X51.