The Assembly

"The Assembly" is a short first-person adventure with an interesting story, mild puzzles and moral dilemmas, crisp graphics, and excellent voice acting. It can be played in VR or as a regular non-VR game - this review is meant for the latter, as I do not have the equipment for the former.
The story contains two alternating plots that barely intersect, both focusing on "The Assembly", a secret group of brilliant maverick scientists who do self-funded research without governmental control or supervision. One plot revolves around a scientist who has been "invited" to join the group, but needs to solve trials to prove herself - these start with simple logical puzzles, and then turn into moral dilemmas to explore her personality. The second plot follows one of the scientists in The Assembly, who discovers that something is going dangerously wrong, collects evidence, and tries to flee and inform the authorities. Both plots touch on the ethics, chances, and risks of scientific research and progress. While neither goes very deep, these topics kept the game interesting and engaging for me. Some of your choices affect the ending of the game, and you can later revisit single chapters to make a different choice, see a different ending, or search for collectibles that you may have missed.
Many puzzles require a bit of thought and an eye for spotting relevant information in the environment, but they remain easy throughout the game. They succeeded in keeping me engaged without distracting from the story - this game is obviously intended to be immersive rather than challenging.
Graphics are crisp and fitting for a facility that mostly consists of various laboratories, offices, and a few living rooms. Sound effects are okay, though the game sometimes processes them in a weird way - start to play with a Newton's cradle in one room, and you can still here its clacking noise 50m away and through several walls. The voice acting stands out for its exceptional quality, the actors have interesting voices and deliver their lines very believably.
Unfortunately the game insists on WASD movement and does not feature key remapping. I wouldn't consider this a dealbreaker since you never need to move precisely or react quickly, you can get by with just using the forward key and the mouse. But it's definitely annoying that such a basic and for many players important QoL feature was overlooked.
I recommend the game to players who like story-driven adventure games without action elements, and who like to think about the risks and chances of science. However, the price seems a bit high for the amount of content it offers, especially if you have no use for the VR version. I'd suggest to get it on a sale.