[Review] Tunnels VR is hitting all of our claustrophobia buttons

After playing Tunnels you’ll never want to go spelunking, ever

Tunnels‘ multiplayer aspect is free-to-play, but the code we recieved was for the single player expansion, so that’s where I spent all of my time. This expansion is a single player horror experience where we are trapped in a gold mine with scary things hunting us down as we’re literally crawling through tunnels. I can’t imagine the multiplayer being as scary because it’s a four-player experience where we’re all working together to get out of this spooky place. But this single-player mode where we’re legit alone, in closed in tunnels?

It is a nightmare. It is claustrophobic as hell. I do not like it, but in a good way. We’ve been called in to decommission an old gold mine, so we’re setting up explosives and making our way around, deep, deep into this mine — and then something happens, obviously. We don’t have many tools at our displosal, just a radio and a flashlight, and we’ve just got to try to find our way out of here. This does exactly what it’s supposed to do, in that it’s making us sweat and tense.

There are moments where we’re not running, where we’re able to walk around and do things and have some more mobility, like ziplining and wall climbing. But when we have to go into a tunnel we have to crouch, and then we actually have to use the controls to pull ourselves forward. If I had to make my biggest complaint it would be that the controls aren’t great for the most part. There are times where it’s a motion, like if we need to run we need to swing our arms to run. Then to make a long jump, we have to be doing this same motion and then pushing the jump button. It doesn’t feel good a lot of the time, but the actual scary part of the game is so expertly done. It’s upsetting.

Early on in the game, once we start crawling through the tunnels, they do this thing where we’re pulling ourself forward and we’re still getting yourself acclimated to controls — And then a creature runs through the tunnels in front of us, and it’s just like, oh, what?

I’m usually not particularly claustrophobic, but if there’s no light coming in to the headset — we’re doing all of this with a flashlight that relies on limited batteries — then this seems like the kind of game that could help us solve your claustrophobia or make it worse.

Actually, it’ll make it worse. You’ll never want to go spelunking, ever.

VR is known for these gimmicks, right? And yet this is the first time I’ve seen this particular gimmick: A claustrophobia horror game that you can’t replicate on a traditional gaming system. Tunnels VR is definitely worth the time. It’s the kind of experience where if we have a Quest headset it benefits us to probably get this because it’s so unique.

This review is based on a Meta Quest code sent to SideQuesting by the publisher. Images and video courtesy publisher. It originally appeared on The SideQuest for June 3, 2025.