This was easily the strangest game we played at the preview, which feels entirely proper considering it’s the first VR title from Dark Souls creators FromSoftware. Although the graphical style is fairly similar there’s no obvious connection with any of their previous work in terms of story or gameplay. The staff at the preview had us believe that déraciné means ‘daydream’ in French, but online dictionaries insist it means something that has been uprooted from its natural environment.

Both make sense to a degree though as the game takes place in a boarding school where you play as a fairy, which some of the children believe exists but none can see. This seems to be because the fairy exists outside of normal time, with human characters either frozen in place or appearing as shadowy ‘memories’ where they’ve previous been. It’s all extremely odd and none of it is explained within the game, but a primary mechanic seems to be the magic rings you have on each hand which can transfer the essence of an object through two different time periods.

Or at least we think that’s what was going on, as we tried to answer a girl’s wish for a flower to grow back to life by finding a living one and draining its life force. This was a part of a tutorial which we’re told may or may not be in the final game, while the first chapter of the actual story involved performing another favour – this time finding the special herb leaves that each child has in a vial round their neck and dropping them into a cooking pot.

Apparently the children are supposed to eat the herbs but often refuse to, although exactly why is never explained. Finding the children involves a series of simple clues and puzzles, as you read people’s thoughts like little audio logs and work out where each one is hiding. Quite why any of this needed to be in VR we’re not sure but we will admit that climbing up a tree and looking down was one of the few times we’ve got genuine vertigo from a game – probably because the tree was rendered to look as realistic as possible.

The annoucement of any new FromSoftware game is instantly grounds for excitement but Déraciné is so strange we really don’t know what to think of it. But if any developer deserves the benefit of doubt it’s From and the melancholic atmosphere is so well crafted we assume the real purpose and meaning of the game will be revealed only by playing the whole thing.

Formats: PlayStation VR

Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment

Developer: FromSoftware

Release Date: 6th November 2018