I Expect You To Die 2: The Spy and the Liar [VR]

My first hour with I Expect You To Die 2 was spent being poisoned by a sandwich, skewered by a crossbow, and exploded by a cigar I really should have left alone. Each death resets the level, and the game does not apologize for that. What it does instead is make every restart feel like a fair rematch rather than a punishment, because the puzzle logic is consistent and the environments are packed with enough detail to reward close observation on each run. The core loop is essentially an escape room transplanted into a seated VR body. You play as Agent Phoenix, a spy the villainous Zoraxis corporation believes is dead, which gives you cover to go undercover across six missions. Each one drops you into a distinct location, from the backstage of a theatre to a private jet to a Zoraxis base, and tasks you with goals that range from protecting dignitaries to disarming bombs to outfoxing a smugly charming celebrity villain voiced by Wil Wheaton. You never walk anywhere. Instead, telekinesis handles reach, letting you grab, drag, rotate, throw, and crucially freeze objects mid-air when you need both hands free. The freeze mechanic in particular opens up some satisfying multi-step solutions where timing and spatial thinking replace brute force. Where the game genuinely excels is environmental craft. The six locales are dense with reactive detail: ropes that seem to puff dust, radios playing in-world music, drawers that open just enough to hint at a hidden object inside. That density is what makes the puzzles feel earned rather than arbitrary. You are never randomly guessing. You are observing, remembering, and connecting things the level planted in front of you from the start. The overarching story across all six levels is tighter than the first game, with a proper arc and a conclusion that lands, helped along by writing that stays wry without becoming exhausting. The honest caveats: the total runtime lands somewhere between two and five hours depending on how quickly puzzles click, which makes it a short experience even by VR standards. Replay hooks exist in the form of optional Souvenir objectives, hidden trophies, and per-level speedrun targets, but those are finisher content, not padding. The bigger issue is that the formula itself is unchanged from the 2016 original. Schell Games refined the execution, sharpened the production, and added celebrity casting, but the moment-to-moment interaction model is identical. If you have never played the first game, that is irrelevant. If you have and were hoping for a mechanical leap, you will not find one here. What you will find is a better-looking, better-sounding, better-written version of the same excellent idea. For VR newcomers, this is one of the most accessible entry points the platform has, since the whole thing is played seated with no locomotion and no motion sickness risk. For puzzle veterans, the difficulty sits at a comfortable medium that peaks in a few genuinely head-scratching moments without ever tipping into unfair. The stylised, retro-spy visual direction also ages better than photorealistic VR titles from the same era. If your headset is gathering dust and you want a reason to put it back on, this is a clean, confident reason.

Alex · Scout Team

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