Paranormal Activity: The Lost Soul

Partner studio: Puny Human

Concept

A first-person VR horror game licensed from a major film franchise, built around a randomized scare system, 3D positional audio and an optional mode that strips all directional guidance and interface after the tutorial. Originally built for tethered PC VR and PlayStation VR, where real-time lighting and shadow work carry most of the atmosphere.

Requirement

The title had to run on Meta Quest — a standalone mobile-class GPU with a fraction of the power of the original target — while preserving the lighting, shadow and audio work the horror experience depends on. The codebase also required a major engine version upgrade before the port could proceed, and the finished build had to pass Meta's certification process.

Approach

A six-person team ran the port end to end over twelve months. The engagement opened with a major engine upgrade and extensive code refactoring, followed by art and level optimization targeted at the mobile GPU budget.

Performance work was balanced deliberately against the integrity of the horror experience rather than applied uniformly — keeping the scare system, spatial audio and lighting reads intact where a blanket reduction would have flattened them.

Extensive QA and platform compliance work ran through the back half of the program, culminating in Meta certification.

Delivery scope

• Platform and systems programming
• Hardware porting (Meta Quest)
• Engine version upgrade
• Code refactoring
• Art and level optimization
• VR performance optimization
• Quality assurance
• Platform compliance and certification
• Port production management

Results

• Released on Meta Quest 10 September 2021
• 12-month engagement, November 2020 – November 2021, with a dedicated 6-person team
• 72 person-months delivered — one of the studio's largest fixed-team engagements
• Engine upgrade, codebase refactor and full art optimization pass all completed inside the port window
• Meta certification passed
• Title supported commercially on the platform for a further five years