Survive the Night in ‘Propagation: Paradise Hotel,’ Out Today on Meta Quest 2 + Pro

The Paradise Hotel. For Emily Diaz, it was a place to start a new life. Unfortunately, it’s also a place where some of the guests are coming back to life.

Propagation: Paradise Hotel launches today on Meta Quest 2 + Pro. A sequel of sorts to WanadevStudio’s waved-based zombie shooter Propagation VR, this follow-up is a full-fledged survival horror game in the Resident Evil vein. Explore the sinister Paradise Hotel in search of your lost sister, Ashley. Collect resources, solve puzzles, band together with other survivors, and you might just make it through the night alive—if you’re lucky.

We caught up with WanadevStudio’s Creative Director Nicolas Vancayseele to chat about fleshing out the ideas behind Propagation VR into a survival horror game, the lasting influence of Resident Evil on the genre, and maintaining tension even when there’s no real threat to the player. Read on for more details!

Nicolas Vancayseele: Resident Evil is a big inspiration for the horror genre in general—especially when it comes to game development. In the original Resident Evil everything is based around one element, which is the mansion.

In Propagation: Paradise Hotel, the game basically starts in this big lobby illuminated by the moonlight. The player will find this moonlight in mostly every room of the hotel as a reminder of the lobby, and the lobby is the centerpiece around which the whole story revolves.

Since the game’s construction is similar to Resident Evil, it’s no surprise that the key art is also inspired by it.

NV: We don’t know much about what’s happening outside the Paradise Hotel, but Emily has been a bartender at the hotel for a short period of time. Her sister Ashley is actually the one who recommended her to the director to get the job.

After a couple of weeks, people started turning into ferocious creatures and Emily got stuck inside the kitchen with the security guard Owen. Emily doesn’t know the hotel that well, but she’s going to have to explore every corner to find her sister Ashley.

NV: We love Propagation VR, but the fact that it was first developed for LBVR [location-based virtual reality] meant it was missing something. Propagation VR is a static wave shooter without many storytelling elements, but we felt the need to create a more complete game and tell an immersive story. The idea of making a survival horror game started taking shape.

Obviously, it was important to consider the performance differences between a LBVR setup and a standalone headset. This is why we focused on the tension and on the horrific atmosphere of the hotel. Basically we took out the “wave” part of the game and added exploration, resource management, and small puzzles. The player is going to meet fewer zombies, but it will be a tenser and scarier experience.

NV: There are a couple reasons why I think the horror genre is popular in video games. One of them being very simple—it provokes very intense sensations. Moreover in VR, immersion heightens the emotions.

Another reason could be the streaming potential of the genre itself. We always love to see people get scared while playing a game—and since emotions are a bit more intense in VR, you get easily scared and it becomes a show for people around you. VR content creators are always very eager to stream horror games because it shows them at their most vulnerable and creates engagement, from horror fans but also (or especially) from people who would not play.

NV: It was important for us to emphasize the player’s sense of vulnerability facing a zombie apocalypse, but without too many zombies! Even though none of us have experienced a zombie apocalypse, we wanted to give the player a taste of what it could be like in real life and show zombies on a human scale and not Doom-like overpowered.

Technical and development choices were made to favor strain and tension. Some parts of the hotel are terrifying and you don’t even encounter zombies there. It’s all about lighting, music, and noise!

NV: Obviously, we would love to keep on working on other Propagation games. We’re very excited about the launch of Paradise Hotel and can’t wait to see how players react to it. We’re already thinking about a sequel, if players express their will to see more…

NV: At WanadevStudio, we make games for the players and we always appreciate how involved they are. Whenever we need their opinion or help, they always show up and that’s amazing—so we really hope they love playing Propagation: Paradise Hotel as much as we loved making it for them!

Ready to check into Propagation: Paradise Hotel? You’ll find it on the Meta Quest Store today for $19.99 USD.