The FIRST Vampire Slaying HORROR Game: Silent Slayer VR!

Silent Slayer: Vault of the Vampire by Schell Games is a horror puzzle game where you open vampires’ coffins and stake them in their sleep, and you have to be very, very quiet about it. When I read who made it, I didn’t expect a horror puzzler with jump scares, because these developers made I Expect You To Die, Among Us VR and Until You Fall, some of my favorites. These are my first reactions to Silent Slayer VR after the first three levels on Quest, played as the huge horror baby I am.

Schell Games sponsored this video. I’m a big fan of the studio, and that’s the only reason I’m even playing a horror game. That pays for our time, not for the verdict.

The story

A letter calls you, the slayer, to a castle held by an ancient vampire clan. A ritual is coming that would make the elder vampire and the whole clan more powerful, but on the day before it ends they’re vulnerable. You’re judged the most capable of slaying them before the world falls into darkness. These vampires are unlike any you’ve faced, and the slayers before you failed.

Your guide is a magic book, made long ago from blood, skin, sinew and organs, that explains each vampire and how to kill it. It talks to you the whole time, sometimes helpfully, sometimes telling you that you did a poor job. Even the tutorial surprised me: you watch a past slayer go after a red-eyed vampire, and it’s creepy as heck.

How the game works

Every level follows the same steps, and each one gets harder:

1. Read the book. It tells you about the vampire and the methods to kill it.
2. Build the bindstone. Line up the stone fragments on the table to complete the shape and release to fuse them. An arcane pattern appears that you’ll need later to break the vampire’s barrier.
3. Teleport to the coffin with a device on the table. Keep still for the transport.
4. Open the coffin without a sound. Remove the crossbars, nails or locks slowly. If you touch the metal or drop something, it makes noise.
5. Find the heart. These vampires can move their hearts for protection, so you use a relic heart as a detector: hold it near the chest, find where it beats strongest and mark the spot.
6. Stake it. Thrust the stake into the weak spot in the barrier, then slash through each segment of the pattern, following the arrows.

Make too much noise and the vampire wakes up. When you slip up, the book warns you not to risk another mistake until some time has passed.

Level 1: the baron

The first vampire is a young baron, the least of the clan’s nobles and the castle’s provisioner. I failed. I didn’t know the crossbars on his coffin had to come off slowly (you could have said that before, book), and he woke up because of my “inadequate execution”. My heart was beating out of my chest.

Second try, slowly. I put the bars on the table, opened the lid, found his heart, marked it, and still made noise moving the book and missed a slash. Third try, I got him. After that I understood the game, and it’s actually pretty fun. I think it could be a really fun party game too.

Level 2: the baroness

Next is a baroness who runs the clan’s trading business (in human cargo, naturally), and she’s much sharper prey. Her coffin needs a new tool: a pry bar. Socket it on the head of a nail, push slowly until the nail bends out, then pluck the nail out with your other hand and put it on the table. Don’t let the nails fall.

It’s so slow, and I usually have way too little patience for this. This crypt has many more coffins, there are hands where they shouldn’t be, and I kept hearing things behind me. At one point the book said it was growing concerned with how long I’d taken. The heart detector doesn’t check your work from here on, so you’re on your own. I got her, and the book called my performance “adequate”.

Level 3: the duke

The duke runs the clan’s affairs. His coffin is locked, and the book forged a key. Inside are wires of midnight steel that sing out loudly at the slightest touch, and you can only cut them with special blades when they’re inert, so the clippers can’t touch them.

I said I was a tiny bit less scared by now, which says a lot for a horror baby. Then something made a noise on my left and I was definitely not less scared. Some locks are placed way too high for a short girl like me. I got the coffin open, but the wires got me, and after that I needed a break. That’s where I stopped.

Silent Slayer VR first impressions

That was crazy. My heart was still racing, but I genuinely had fun.

It’s great at creating a tense atmosphere that keeps you on the edge of your seat. The spatial music and sound effects do a lot of that work: every creak and whisper pushes your heartbeat up a notch. The puzzles are light but engaging, and the real test is how well you handle stress while you solve them.

The story is subtle, but a fantastic voice actor brings it to life, and sometimes that voice made me even more scared. I also recognized parts of Schell Games’ earlier games in it, which I love.

Who it’s for

The mix of sound, puzzles and story makes this an intriguing horror puzzler, and I think it works solo or as something to share the thrills with at a party. If you like tension and puzzles more than gore, this is a good one. It was set to release on 6 June 2024, and I think it’d be a very nice game for Chary to play at Halloween. Don’t tell her yet.