At this point, full-motion video (FMV) games and publisher Wales Interactive go hand in hand, but more traditional releases like Into the Restless Ruins and Sker Ritual also come to mind. With Dead Reset, the developer/publisher and co-developer Dark Rift Horror are returning to live-action interactive fiction, and I’ve had the chance to play through its prologue and first chapter ahead of the planned September launch.
The pitch is simple: Cole Mason (Daniel Thrace), a surgeon, is seemingly kidnapped and brought to a hidden facility. The mission? To operate on a patient with a parasitic lifeform inside of her. The twist? He’s stuck in a ‘death loop’ of sorts that will remind cinephiles of Duncan Jones’ Source Code (2011) from the get-go. Coincidentally, the just-released title Every Day We Fight also deals with main characters that ‘respawn’ every time they die, but it was amusing to experience an entirely different approach in this new FMV horror.
For the longest time, video games have tinkered with that concept one way or another: In the vast majority of them, you can just reload if you fail and/or die. Typically, death isn’t built into their narrative, but reshaping all the storytelling around the act of dying can change everything. We all keep coming back to The Stanley Parable as one of the best examples of what video games are uniquely positioned to do, but back in the day, FMV games that played out like ‘choose your own adventure’ books filled the sizable gap between cinema and games in a very straightforward but effective way.
Nowadays, it’s not hard to find beautifully rendered video games which try really hard to feel like TV shows or movies, and some excel at such an approach to narration that’s mixed with traditional gameplay. But sometimes you also have to wonder whether it’d be more effective to go with FMV projects if you’re far more interested in the narration than the ‘actual video game that’s engaging’ side of things. That’s why I have a soft spot for publishers and devs that put stuff like Dead Reset out from time to time.
So, after all this brief commentary on the state of narrative-oriented games, does Dead Reset bring anything new to the table? Not really, but that’s kind of its main appeal. At least during its first hour or so, this interactive B movie looks and behaves exactly like a random flick you’d pick up with some friends at a small video rental shop in the 1990s. But, of course, you get to decide how things go. No tricks or gimmicks, as far as I can tell. Cole tries to make sense of the situation he finds himself in, but the parasite bursts out of the patient’s body (yes, there’s a lot of Alien DNA in this one) and pounces on every human in the room. Reboot.
The loop keeps going: Maybe Cole can warn everyone about what’s about to happen regardless of how they try to perform the surgery, but he gets shot in the head. Going straight for the nearest door? Oh, I better don’t spoil that surprise. Eventually, you can get these scientists to believe you, but what about the rest of the fidgety group? Humans are panicky creatures, and quite often, the literal monster is the least of Cole’s problems. It’s all remarkably familiar, but Dead Reset’s earnestness is infectious.
Director Stewart Sparke (Book of Monsters) brings as much texture and mood as he can to what’s ultimately a low-budget production shot inside a retooled school building (this is confirmed inside the preview build itself). It’s as charming as it’s bloody. The actors are keeping a straight face throughout the whole thing, but you can tell everyone in the shoot was having a blast hamming it up. Perhaps that’s why much of Dead Reset would land better if the script and direction were a bit looser and more playful. Mind you, it all could feel heavier by the time you’ve gone through the entire thing, but even as the sort of production that knows it’s going for schlocky instead of self-serious, a cheekier take on the material would seal the deal much better if you ask me.
On the other hand, Dead Reset’s bet on “death is inevitable” is pretty well executed. It feels as seamless as a traditional FMV can be, and I didn’t run into any dead ends which force you to reset a section or go down a certain path. Maybe another run would change my opinion, but this preview respected my time and just kept pushing forward. Groups and streamers should go with the ‘streamer mode’ in order to remove time constraints; as long as no one’s afraid of a bit of gore, Dead Reset would go down well at a party if it manages to keep up the pace for several chapters.
Tiptoeing around plot and character beats is difficult when story is the main attraction of FMV games, so it feels silly to keep this preview going only because I can. My first contact with Dead Reset was satisfactory and refreshing (if only because we don’t see many releases like it anymore), but there’s the lingering question of whether it can keep my attention for longer than a couple of hours if the tone remains oddly one-note.
Dead Reset is launching on September 11, 2025, on PC, PS4/5, Xbox One & Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, iOS, and Android.
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