Tunnels [Meta Quest 3] | REVIEW

Tunnels plunges players into a subterranean nightmare, armed with nothing but a flickering flashlight and their own two hands. Built exclusively for Meta Quest, this indie horror title promises a unique blend of physical virtual reality immersion, claustrophobic exploration, and creature-based scares. And while it occasionally strikes gold, the experience is frequently marred by clunky mechanics, technical hiccups, and visual compromises.

Check out some screenshots down below:

You play as Jim, a seasoned demolition expert hired to seal off a long-abandoned mine with a disturbing past. Predictably, things go wrong, and after a sudden fall, your simple job turns into a desperate struggle to escape the mine’s twisting, pitch-black tunnels. Admittedly, the story isn’t too deep, but with brief radio check-ins offering some context, it helps set the stage for a descent that leans more on mood than narrative.

From the outset, Tunnels makes it clear that physicality is its core appeal. Movement isn’t just a matter of thumb sticks – to crawl, you must reach forward and pull yourself along with your arms, sprinting requires swinging your arms back and forth, whilst swimming through flooded caverns involves gripping and hauling yourself through waterlogged spaces. These mechanics do heighten the immersion of the game, especially in the early stages when you’re feeling out your environment, but the novelty can wear thin over time. Controls lack polish, with frequent misreads of hand placement and inconsistent collision detection breaking immersion when in a particularly intense sequences, and whilst it’s never bad, it is inconsistent.

The flashlight is your lifeline in Tunnels and often the difference between life and death, with it not only essential for navigation, but also for fending off the mine’s strange, insect-like inhabitants. These creatures scuttle through the shadows, lunging at you when your guard is down, but flashing your light repels them. Unfortunately, whilst early encounters can be intense, they soon become predictable, and the enemies – creepy at first – eventually feel more like speed bumps than real threats. The flashlight’s battery management does add a layer of stress to the experience, but with no battery meter to track it and replacement batteries scattered implausibly throughout the mine, its implementation can also be inconsistent. Whilst it does foster some elements of resource management and fear, it could end up being more frustrating than anything.

“Tunnels is a fascinating concept that occasionally captures the thrill of being truly trapped in the dark and with deadly creatures on your tail…”

Visually, Tunnels isn’t much of a looker. Textures are basic, lighting is flat, and the Quest 3’s LCD screen struggles with true blacks, leading to murky greys where shadows should be. Despite this, I still found the game world tantalising, with the unsettlingly claustrophobic tunnels certainly giving a real sense of unease when playing. It even has some areas which stand out, such as its glowing crystal-lit chambers and massive underground lakes, so there are moments where the world design can shine. It just isn’t very pretty to look at.

Sound, on the other hand, is a strong point, with audio cues echoing and misleading players in effective ways. You’ll frequently hear creatures before you see them, and the distance or direction is rarely clear, making for intense moments where you’ll desperately try pushing ahead or swiftly using your flashlight to keep a creature off your trail. Combined with the tight spaces and low visibility, this keeps tension alive even when little is happening. The voice acting does its job too, and whilst there’s nothing exceptional, it’s emotionally grounded enough to sell the isolation and slow descent into panic.

Unfortunately, some of the technical issues of Tunnels are hard to ignore. Collision problems, awkward animation syncing, and occasional bugs (such as getting stuck on geometry or struggling with grab zones) pop up often enough to disrupt immersion, and whilst they’re not always game-breaking, these moments hurt the atmosphere that the game works so hard to maintain. When horror relies on immersion, even small frustrations can completely deflate the tension, and it’s all the more noticeable when being played in virtual reality.

Check out some screenshots down below:

The multiplayer component (which is available for free) is a nice addition, allowing players to explore the mines with others whilst carefully activating hidden buttons around them to escape. However, in practice, the player base appears limited, making it tough to consistently find active games. I came across a few glitches when playing online too, such as the creatures not responding to the flashlight or lingering around the spawn area and killing me every time I respawned. Only allowing one player to have a flashlight felt a bit mean too and made it a little less enjoyable to play with others. It definitely has potential and it had some fun moments when I played with friends, but it’s not something I can see myself sticking with for long.

It has flaws then, but I still enjoyed my time with Tunnels. It shows ambition in all the right areas: it wants to be immersive, unsettling, and physically engaging, and in some moments, it absolutely delivers – crawling blindly through a narrow gap with something snarling behind you feels uniquely horrifying in virtual reality and there’s plenty of room for some genuinely exciting surprises. But more often, the experience stumbles, with clumsy mechanics or immersion-breaking glitches keeping it from reaching the heights it aspires to. With a few patches, it could be a unique virtual reality experience that really stands out on the Meta Quest platform, but as it stands, it feels like a bit of a missed opportunity, albeit one I’d certainly be willing to re-visit with improvements.

Oh, and the creature’s tail looks like a penis… I feel like I’ve got to put that out there.

Developer: Nomad Monkey
Publisher: Mastiff
Platform(s): Meta Quest 3 (Reviewed), Meta Quest 2
Website: https://www.meta.com/en-gb/experiences/tunnels/6963147540402115/