Propagation: Paradise Hotel review – like a decently made zombie B movie

During an early moment in the horror survival game Propagation: Paradise Hotel, an NPC asks us to lead the way through dark zombie-infested hallways. But the thing is: this guy is armed with a pistol and we have…nothing. “Go ahead, I got your back,” the lily-livered invertebrate says. The game only progresses if we obey his instructions, but karma delivers a swift blow and kills off this chicken-hearted fiend early on—leaving us his gun and ammo. Which are rather important, because there’s lots of shooting zombies coming up.

Paradise Hotel’s overlaying narrative is simple: we play a hotel employee, Emily, who’s been separated from her twin sister. A radio transmission has been broadcast advising survivors to head to the roof, but there’s also the matter of finding and helping her sibling. Achieving this requires us to go upstairs and work our way through an onslaught of slobbering undead, which, in this game, can never be truly defeated; “killing” a zombie merely takes them out for an indeterminate period.

Suspense-wise this is a clever touch, adding an extra layer of dread by evoking uncertainty around when they’ll spring (well, stagger) back to life and come after us again. It also allows the developers to reactivate the zombies at dramatically opportune times. There are occasions, for instance, when we’re about to discover something important, then BAM!—the bastards come at us, teasing out the moment, heightening its impact.

Most video games use repetitive structures, establishing familiar rhythms by requiring us to complete the same or similar objectives. The trick is to establish a compelling flow while providing embellishments, and/or an interesting storyline, to distract players from the fact that they’re essentially repeating themselves. 

Paradise Hotel’s thinnest-of-thin narrative provides no such distraction. There’s a lot of walking around in the dark, a lot of retracing your steps. And while some embellishments add intrigue (such as having a torch with limited battery life, causing us to carefully meter out its usage) too many objectives simply come down to opening doors. There’s a card key. There’s a “master” key (which actually doesn’t work on all locks). There’s door codes. There’s bolt cutters for entryways that’ve been chained and padlocked. All of these are variations of the same thing: here’s a door, here’s the lock.

Given the monotony of the gameplay, it’s a shame the hotel wasn’t one of those fancy ones, like a resort with infinity pools and spectacular buffets; this might have zhushed things up a bit. Most rooms are similar in shape and size, lots containing handwritten notes penned by guests. This is one of those video game worlds implausibly filled with passionate writers, who must love picking up pen and paper and scribbling down their thoughts, which they leave behind for somebody in the future to discover. Navigating environments with notes strewn everywhere is common in video games—allowing an easy way to expand back stories and provide additional narrative information. But it’s a lazy technique and, in VR, not an interesting use of space.  

For a much more engaging technique, deployed for similar reasons—i.e. imparting back story info—consult the horror experience Wraith: The Oblivion—Afterlife. At particular points characters from the past appear before us like apparitions, and we get to listen in to their conversations, painting a scenario from a previous time without breaking our anchorage in the present—a spatialised flashback. Don’t go into Paradise Hotel expecting innovative touches. The experience is the equivalent of a decently made B movie: it does what it says on the tin, and isn’t interested in reinventing the wheel.