An Unsettling Horror Experience of Endlessly Waiting Without Knowing When Change Will Come — The Waiting Room: XR Film Guide Vol. 112

https://vrchat.com/home/launch?worldId=wrld_ae7c68ff-4134-4adf-a7c0-2b7b1f33adaf

The work introduced this time, The Waiting Room, is a horror-themed world available on VRChat. It supports the Meta Quest, allowing users to experience it without the need for a PC. Upon entering the world, participants find themselves inside a small room. In front of them stands a large mirror, a sofa sits in the center of the room, and paintings hang on the walls aside from the mirrored one. Participants are free to move around within this space.

VRChat features countless room-based worlds, many of which are designed to be comfortable or fantastical spaces where people chat with friends or even sleep (though I personally never have). While it is certainly possible to chat with friends or sleep in The Waiting Room as well, the world is fundamentally designed as a horror experience centered around observation.

The Waiting Room has received remakes and variations over time, but its core structure revolves around environmental changes that occur in response to the participant’s stay and actions. No clear instructions, guides, explicit story, or goal are presented within the room. Instead, participants experience unsettling transformations in the environment that gradually heighten their sense of unease. It is one of the most visited worlds within VRChat, and its popularity seems to stem from its constantly evolving experience over time and the strong psychological tension it creates.

The Experience of Simply Waiting Without Knowing When Change Will Come

For roughly the first fifteen minutes, nothing happens (though there may have been a hidden trigger somewhere to initiate events), and a strange piece of music echoes throughout the room. The player seemed a bit faulty, or perhaps broken, as parts of it sounded strange, but the music continued to play on a loop. The room is completely white, and aside from turning the music player on or off, there is essentially nothing to do, so I spent the time sitting on the sofa in the center of the room facing the mirror.

After that — and this may be considered a slight spoiler — various supernatural phenomena begin to occur: the room gradually turns red, the paintings on the walls change, the floor disappears except for the area beneath the sofa, and the mirror suddenly shatters. However, because the experience seems to assume that participants will remain there for a long time, events do not happen one after another in rapid succession, nor is the participant expected to actively do much of anything. True to its title, The Waiting Room presents the very act of “waiting” itself as the core experience, which makes it feel somewhat distinct from other horror works.

While spending time within the space, participants undergo the rare experience of endlessly waiting without ever knowing when the next change will arrive.

Comment from K:

The Exit 8 VR version was a big hit, so I can see why this game got people talking, too. You’re literally just waiting in that space, but there’s this creeping dread from the tiny things that slowly start to feel off. It looks plain at first glance, but the fear really grows on you.

Data of Works

Title: The Waiting Room

Creator: Yipped

Genre: Horror

Year of Production: 2020

[embed]The Waiting Room by Yipped Just wait․․ ∗WARNING∗ Audio ＆ Visuals May cause Anxiety or Mental Distress - This Is The Mind ∗∗JOIN THE GROUP for…vrchat.com