FMV horror has always lived on the edge of believability. It asks you to take real actors, confined spaces and often low-budget effects seriously — to engage not just with what’s on screen, but with what it implies. Dead Reset, from developer Dark Rift Horror and publisher Wales Interactive, understands that tension. More than that, it thrives in it.
This isn’t a throwback. It’s not “so bad it’s good.” It’s not campy. Dead Reset is a focused, unsettling sci-fi horror story that treats its characters, its themes and its violence with total seriousness — and it’s better for it.
You play as Cole, a trauma surgeon trapped in a time loop on what appears to be a derelict spacecraft. But this isn’t a simple “live, die, repeat” setup. Each time Cole dies, he wakes up again, alone in what might be a medbay, surrounded by people who don’t remember what happened in his previous lives. He’s the only one who carries the knowledge forward, forced to convince a skeptical — sometimes hostile — crew that they’ve all been here before, and that something terrible is coming for them.
“There’s no winking at the camera. No one’s in on the joke — because there is no joke.”
The prologue and first chapter, which took roughly 40 minutes of branching narrative, set the tone early. The location is confined and sterile, but the dread is palpable. Power flickers. Tension rises. The loop begins. Again. And again. Every conversation carries weight because you know what’s at stake, even if no one else does.
What makes Dead Reset truly uncomfortable is how earnestly it treats the loop. There’s no playful banter about déjà vu. No lighthearted winks at the player. The characters respond to Cole’s claims with concern, suspicion or outright denial. And because they don’t remember the loops, every failure is permanent — for them, if not for Cole. When a crew member is electrocuted during a system repair or takes spikes to the face, they don’t get another chance. Cole does. And that’s part of the horror.
This isolation is central to the game’s psychological weight. Cole isn’t just dying — he’s remembering every death, while those around him don’t even realize they’re on borrowed time. It creates a creeping guilt that seeps into the performances, particularly when Cole starts pushing people toward choices he knows will end in blood — if you want to play it that way. For survival? For information? For the next breadcrumb forward? The game doesn’t moralize, but it does sit with the consequences.
And then there’s the creature.
Unlike many FMV horror titles that use monsters as shadows or metaphors, Dead Reset puts its horror front and centre. The alien presence isn’t a subtle suggestion — it’s a frequent, tangible threat. A mass of tentacles and glistening flesh, the creature appears throughout the prologue and first chapter in full view. It’s not afraid to enter a scene and turn it inside out. It doesn’t stalk. It erupts.
“What makes Dead Reset truly uncomfortable is how earnestly it treats the loop.”
The effects are, frankly, better than you might expect from FMV. This thing is physical. It grabs. It tears. It eats. The creature’s arrival isn’t just a set piece — it’s an escalation. You feel its presence before it strikes: alarms blare, characters back into corners, choices collapse into violence. And when it hits, it hits hard. People are lunged at, screaming onto the floor as it rips and tears into them. On the bad loops, the room is often left dripping — with Cole’s blood, too.
The deaths are, most of the time, intense physical ordeals that left me shouting. Whether someone is shot or devoured, the game treats each as a real moment of horror. There’s no slow-mo, no stylized flair. Just screaming, bloody masses, cut to black, and Cole waking up alone. It’s in the deaths that aren’t overly bloody or horrific where the FMV styling shows — the electrocution scene I saw didn’t look quite as convincing as someone getting half their face eaten off.
Performance is always the tightrope FMV games walk, and Dead Reset lands with more confidence than most. Cole is excellent — haunted, fraying at the edges, but never sliding into sci-fi caricature. He’s a man burdened with impossible knowledge, and the fear that even if he saves someone this time, he’ll have to start over anyway. His chemistry with Fearne — the game’s strongest supporting role so far — is key. She’s not a sidekick or a love interest (yet, though the trailers suggest otherwise). She’s another professional: grounded, skeptical, sharp. Their dynamic evolves subtly over the loops, and watching how Fearne reacts to Cole’s growing desperation is half the tension.
Other crew members vary in impact. A few lines fall flat. A couple of scenes lean into sci-fi camp. But even the weaker performances aren’t distracting — and considering I’ve only played one chapter out of eight, there’s still room for the ensemble to grow. What matters is everyone plays it straight. There’s no winking at the camera. No one’s in on the joke — because there is no joke.
Structurally, the game uses its interactivity smartly. Choices aren’t just black and white — they ripple. Dialogue shifts depending on how Cole approaches a situation. Some scenes branch dramatically. Others do it in smaller ways: a look, a tone, a pause. The game doesn’t want you to replay loops for collectibles or endings. It wants you to understand. Understand its people, its patterns, its timing. This is storytelling by way of deduction.
“Dead Reset doesn’t beg to be liked.”
And if the rest of the chapters follow through on what the prologue sets up, Dead Reset could be something rare in the FMV space: genuinely unsettling, narratively rich, and mechanically satisfying.
The only lingering question is how it’ll balance its two strongest elements — the psychological pressure of Cole’s looping consciousness, and the physical terror of the creature hunting the crew. So far, they’re in sync. The alien horror isn’t just a monster. It’s part of the system. It’s a puzzle to solve, but also a trap. One that could end Cole and the others — or bring them together — depending on your choices.
Dead Reset doesn’t beg to be liked. It’s not here to win over FMV skeptics or cater to casual horror tourists. It’s here to unsettle. To repeat. To bleed. And it does. By the end of the first chapter, I wasn’t just intrigued — I was gripped. I need to know what happens next. I need to see how far Cole falls. I need to understand what this creature is and why the ship is tearing itself apart.
But mostly, I just need to go back for one more loop.
