Backrooms-inspired experience POOLS recently received a new VR mode, bringing an immersive new dimension to the liminal world. Read on for the full review.
When I’m not enjoying VR games, I often play different titles on my Legion Go handheld console. It’s there where I unlocked all the levels of POOLS before Tensori ever added headset access. I love walking around these halls to find things I missed on previous runs. The retro tape filter and heart-pounding moments of weirdness always provide a thrill.
What is it?: A swimming pool focused walking simulator inspired by the backrooms.
Platforms: Steam, PlayStation VR2 (reviewed on PC using Quest 3)
Release Date: Out now (Steam), 2025 (PS VR2)
Developer: Tensori
Price: $9.79
With POOLS VR, that walking simulator becomes a lot darker. The tape filter on the 2D version is gone and is replaced with a harsher reality: you aren’t just an observer from afar, you’re a visitor in a liminal world who is looking for a way to escape.
Your goal is to navigate the halls of twisted structures, ominous bodies of water, and strangely placed slides to find the door that grants freedom. The game states there are no jump scares, which I can verify is true, but the sounds you hear throughout the experience will make you wonder if you’ve been lied to.
The early chapters of POOLS VR are quiet except for the occasional distant growl of a monster or the white noise of an HVAC system running steadily in the background. Your heavy footsteps will echo in hallways as the reverb plays against your imagination. Turning to look behind you will become something you quickly dread. By the time I was ready to explore a bonus level, I found myself swimming around while the world shook from the roars of an angry sea monster.
POOLS VR places you waist-deep in an actual pool and presents a menu to start your game. Pressing the trigger on my Quest 3 controllers made my character break into a run, while pushing down on my right joystick caused me to crouch. There is no jumping mechanic, but there is also no death screen. If you choose to walk into an abyss at any point on the map, the game fades to black and places you next to where you fell.
Comfort
POOLS VR comes with several comfort options. You can add a tunneling vignette and a slider to change the vignette size. You can also skip water slide sequences, receive assistance for climbing teleportation, or optionally fade to black for any midair mechanics (like jumping to your doom). There is also a fade to black for optional snap turning.
Other features include adjusting the height for standing, sitting, and crouching. You can also change your free movement hand, movement direction mode, turn method type, as well as the position offset for your controllers. Lastly, you can affect how fast you walk, run, and swim in the game – or if you simply want to teleport around.
Users concerned with movement sickness should note there is an M.C. Escher-like level which will tilt the world around you and alter your perspective quickly. Please be aware of these existing elements as you navigate the game.
Starting a POOLS VR chapter will place you on the map without the initial cutscene the flatscreen version enjoys. The lack of cutscenes in VR doesn’t impede too much, as it really only constitutes a brief look around the first room you find yourself in.
Pick a path and move forward. If you can find your way around, you’ll transition from one cluster of scenery to the next. Your surroundings can become surreal, tilted, precarious, and terrifying. You will face giant sculptures towering above you, as well as dark hallways with oversized rubber duckies floating within the shadows. The hallways lean to one side or another and sometimes narrow until you feel you’re barely slipping by them, but other times are expansive and filled with a beautiful light. Other corridors become flooded with water as you walk at a 45-degree angle to slosh through an abandoned hotel.
Typically, you will get lost. I thought I knew a level well until I put on my headset and experienced it in VR. All my prior knowledge suddenly disappears, and I’m spending a lot more time walking in circles than I anticipated. If you’ve got time to think about things or like exploring while playing some music you enjoy, POOLS VR will accommodate that.
Fear effectively creeps in as you keep playing. There were moments of running around in POOLS VR where I felt so uncomfortable that I wanted to chicken out and exit. In one chapter I ran down a flight of stairs where several windows gave me the view of different apartment rooms. One room was completely dark except for a giant rubber duck which sat cross-legged in a chair and stared in my direction.
I stopped to stare back at the duck for a moment, then continued moving. But as soon as I got halfway down the next flight, I thought, that duck would actually make for a funny picture. The duck was gone by the time I came back up the stairs. I suddenly became very nervous about where it might have gotten off to.
PC Specs And Headset Used
My desktop computer uses an Intel Core i7 processor, an RTX 4060 graphics card, and 32GB RAM. I evaluated this game using a Quest 3 headset connected to my PC via Virtual Desktop.
You can find POOLS’ recommended settings for PC on Steam.
When things start appearing in POOLS where they previously weren’t, that’s when bad things happen. In one level towards the end of the chapter, mannequins appeared in the hallway behind me whenever I looked over my shoulder and rubber duckies materialized on shelves while staring at me. Still no jump scares, but there are plenty of moments that will make your heart pound as you run. People who question if POOLS is a horror game should give its VR mode a try before delivering a final opinion.
I didn’t experience many issues with POOLS VR, though there’s currently a strange visual problem with the water. If reflections are left on for the pool, those reflections will only appear in your left eye, which leads to a flickering effect in your headset. Turning those off in the settings is my temporary solution.
During level transitions, the blank screen which is supposed to obscure my view doesn’t widen enough to cover my headset’s perspective. Furthermore, occlusion culling is too restrictive, which makes me notice disappearing textures on the walls out of the corner of my eyes as soon as I turn my head. I’m hoping Tensori can resolve these issues in a future update.
POOLS VR – Final Verdict
Tensori has done an impressive job of adapting POOLS to the immersive gaming space, creating a considerably scarier experience than the original by adding VR support. There are plenty of comfort options for all styles of play, and only a few small graphics issues are holding the game back. This is a game I’ll keep enjoying for a long while yet, even if it creeps me out. It’s a great wandering simulator that you shouldn’t pass up.
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