Since way back in the early days of PC gaming, FMV games have provided a wonderful way to put real video of actors into our games. I’ve enjoyed countless campy FMV experiences over the years, with hilarious overacting and delightfully daft stories. From Who Pressed Mute on Uncle Marcus? to Mia and the Dragon Princess, nobody does FMV games quite like Wales Interactive. In fact this wonderful publisher is pretty much the sole reason the genre still exists in 2025, so it’s only fair that a megafan like me plays all their games. Coming in September, Dead Reset is a sci-fi horror time loop game, and I got to check out the first chapter.
Dead Reset follows the peril of Cole Mason, a surgeon who wakes up in an underwater bunker with no idea how he got there. There’s no chance to dwell on this though, because with a gun pointed to the back of his head he’s forced to perform surgery on an unconscious woman. There’s some sort of mass in her stomach, and unless Cole wants to get shot he’ll have to grab a scalpel and get stuck in. Well it turns out the mass in question is a parasite, and before you know it this wobbly blob of meat and tendrils jumps out of the patient and mauls everyone in the room. Thankfully this is a time loop game so you start all over again, but it’s fair to say our protagonist is a bit startled by his situation.
As the loops continue you’ll get to slowly see more of each of the people in this sinister sci-fi base, like the trigger happy guard who will absolutely shoot you in the head for even the smallest reason and the goofy psychologist who keeps dropping things. Like any good time loop, as you learn more about the characters and situation you’ll be more prepared to tackle the next loop. Eventually I was able to convince everyone I wasn’t crazy, and we came up with a plan to save everybody.
In terms of gameplay Dead Reset is incredibly simple, at least in the opening chapter anyway. You’ll watch a scene play out, and when there’s a choice that needs to be made you’ll have to hurry to choose from two options (unless you enable Streamer Mode for less stressful time pressure anyway). With four different endings to aim for these will likely be rather important down the line, but in the short term it didn’t really matter as Cole just kept coming back (albeit admittedly a little more shaken up).
When I think of a time loop game I generally think of a game that fully restarts every time you hit that fail state, but that’s not exactly how it works in Dead Reset. After reaching a certain point in the story I was anchored to a new moment, and all redos began from then. It’s an interesting way to still have a more long form story while also keeping the intrigue of looping to explore new options, and I’m excited to see how it plays out in the full game.
When Dead Reset releases it’ll be made up of eight chapters, so in this preview I really only scratched the surface of the game. I had a great time with this first hour of sci-fi horror though, in part thanks to the stellar acting and in part thanks to the practical effects. It’s such a ridiculous gorefest with buckets of blood flying around all over the metallic hallways, and fans of the more brutal side of science fiction will absolutely revel in it.
I was seriously impressed with the demo build of Dead Reset, and a lot of this was down to just how different it is to the majority of modern FMV games. This isn’t necessarily a campy and silly take on the genre, instead having real stakes and even some fear. Whether you’re a fan of the gore or full motion video, Dead Reset will likely be a highlight of the coming autumn of video games.
