The Plainspoken Review

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A Halloween evening for adults: HAUNTED with friends as spectators

Published on . Written by The Plainspoken Review team. About 4 minutes to read.

In short

  • One person plays, everyone else watches on the TV.
  • The player swaps after each chapter.
  • The play area stays clear. Spectators sit well back.
A cartoon pumpkin with a face stands next to a VR headset on a sofa cushion

Halloween is the perfect excuse for a scary game. HAUNTED: Are You Alone? is especially well suited to it. It takes place in your real living room. The scares are loud and physical. And for spectators it is often just as funny as it is for the person in the headset. In this guide we plan an evening like that, step by step. It is meant for adults. HAUNTED has an age rating of 18.

What you need

  • A Meta Quest 2, Pro, 3 or 3S with HAUNTED (according to the store).
  • A charged battery. It is best to charge the headset fully in the afternoon.
  • A TV or tablet to watch along on. The headset sends its picture by casting (the picture appears on another screen at the same time).
  • A living room with the furniture pushed back.
  • Seats for the spectators outside the play area.
  • Drinks and small snacks for the breaks.

What it costs

HAUNTED cost £3.99 in the British Meta store on 10 October 2026. Everyone plays on the same headset and with the same purchase. More on the HAUNTED store page. Casting costs nothing. A TV without casting built in needs an extra device.

Before the evening: sort out three things

  1. Who plays? Ask your guests beforehand who wants to go into the headset themselves. Not everyone will, and that is fine. Watching is fun too.
  2. Who should not play? The game warns you every time it starts: not suitable for pregnant women or for people with epilepsy, heart conditions or anxiety disorders. Tell your guests beforehand.
  3. Are there children in the house? Then it is not a good evening for HAUNTED. Watching is not suitable for children either.

How the evening runs, step by step

  1. Prepare the room. Coffee table to one side, rug edges flat, cables out of the way. The player turns, ducks, crawls and swings an axe.
  2. Lights on. The headset needs light to recognise the room. The scares come from the game, not from a dark room. Keep candles outside the play area.
  3. Scan the room. Have the headset scan the room once before your guests arrive. That saves time.
  4. Turn on casting. Send the picture to the TV and check that it is working.
  5. Read the warning pages together. When it starts, HAUNTED shows two pages of warnings. Read them out loud. Then everyone knows what is coming.
  6. The first player starts. They choose “New game”. The others watch on the TV.
  7. Swap after each chapter. The story is split into chapters. After each chapter the player takes off the headset and passes it on. “Continue” picks up from the same place.
  8. Plan breaks. After two or three chapters everyone takes a break. Lights a little brighter, window open, something to drink.
  9. The game modes at the end. After the story, “Games” offers three endless game modes with points. Everyone plays one round. Whoever has the most points wins. The game saves the best five scores per mode.

The whole story takes about 25 to 35 minutes. With swaps and breaks, that is a pleasantly full evening.

Rules for spectators

  • Stay outside the play area. At least one arm’s length, plus an axe, away.
  • Do not touch the player. Not even as a joke. Someone who gets a fright sometimes swings without meaning to.
  • Feel free to call out tips. But no false warnings like “Behind you!” when there is nothing there. The game does plenty of that on its own.
  • Pets stay in another room.

Good to know

  • No one gets stuck. After every death, “Help” explains how to get through the chapter. From the third death there is “Skip chapter”.
  • Hands or controllers. If you do not like controllers, play with your hands.
  • You cannot play sitting down. HAUNTED calls for standing, ducking and crawling.
  • Glasses and hygiene. A wipeable face cover is handy when several people are playing.
  • Privacy. If someone is filming, “Hide my room” (in the settings) can replace your home with a virtual cell.

A sample timetable for the evening

Time What happens
19:00 Guests arrive, short introduction, read the warning pages
19:15 First chapters, swap after each chapter
19:45 Break with drinks, put the headset down for a moment
20:00 Remaining chapters up to the end of the story
20:30 Points competition in the game modes
21:15 Wind down without the headset, lights on, something calm

Adjust the times to suit your guests. The only important things are: build in the breaks and do not start too late.

If something goes wrong

  • Someone gets too much of a fright: headset off, lights on, sit down, water. No one has to keep playing.
  • The battery runs out: use the long break for charging.
  • The characters appear in the wrong place: scan the room again. A piece of furniture may have been moved.
  • The TV shows no picture: check that the headset and TV are on the same wi-fi, and restart casting.

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