Developed by Armature studios, Resident Evil 4 VR features remastered art, 3D spatial sound, a new first-person perspective, and a movement and comfort scheme that allows the game to be played in either seated, standing or room scale VR. You can listen to my opinions on the game (and watch me shoot at least 2 Ganado in the butt) as I chat to fellow Resi fan, Aoife Wilson in the review chat video below. This review chat features gameplay footage I recorded during my playthrough of the first 4 hours of the game. You’ll be able to watch that in its entirety in traditional Ian’s VR Corner style, starting this Sunday from 2pm BST over on our YouTube channel. Resident Evil 4 may be over 16 years old now, but the fact that developer Armature has managed to make the whole game run natively on the Quest 2 at a smooth 70 frames per second is still very impressive. Especially so when you factor in all the remastered assets and geometry tweaks needed to accommodate the new first-person perspective. Revisiting this classic game through the eyes of Leon Kennedy should be especially exciting for fans of the original as now, instead of just replaying the game for the hundredth time, you’re actually able to inhabit the world and get up close and personal with familiar locations and characters. It’s not just the viewpoint that’s been altered for VR though, interacting with the environment and the game’s many puzzles now incorporate physical movements using the Touch controllers. Similarly, grabbing your guns and reloading is done physically, as is using your knife and throwing grenades, which in my experience is all tracked accurately meaning there’s minimal frustration. The first-person viewpoint did seem to make the combat much easier than I remember it being. I put this down mainly to the original’s sluggish aiming controls, as in VR it’s way easier to nail headshots, but this new-found accuracy seems to be balanced out with higher damage being dealt by your enemies. I go into way more detail about my time with the game and show off over 20 minutes worth of gameplay in the video above so I’d recommend you give that a watch if you want to be better informed about what’s on offer here. What I will say now though is that after 4 hours of playtime, I’m dying to go back in and play more. Armature have created a wonderful way to experience this classic game, whether you’ve played the original or not and I’m hoping that the success of this remake will open up a world of possibilities for VR re-releases of other old-school favourites. Dino Crisis VR anyone..?
