Resident Evil 4 VR Hands-on Preview


Resident Evil 4, like Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim and Grand Theft Auto 5, is one of those great games of all time that has been relaunched on almost every platform. But the upcoming Resident Evil 4 VR for Oculus Quest 2 could be the first time since 2005 that Capcom’s seminal survival horror game feels new again.

Resident Evil 4 VR is not a sample that shows you the best parts of the 2005 classic. This is the full game remade in virtual reality and you will be able to experience each area, puzzle and boss fight in a new light. And I’ll be the first to tell you that this might be the first time in a long time that I’m excited to play Resident Evil 4 again in its entirety.

Screenshots of Resident Evil 4 VR game

Resident Evil 4 is best known for modernizing the Resident Evil formula and turning the series in a more action-oriented direction. Gone are the slow controls and slow weapon play, Resident Evil 4 introduced a new, faster third-person combat system while expanding the arsenal with new weapons and melee attacks.

All of this translates well into virtual reality. If you’ve played a VR first-person shooter, you’ll know that if there’s one genre where VR excels and potentially surpasses the console experience, it’s a shooter. To this end, much of the original Resident Evil 4 experience has been remade for interaction.

Weapons are a good example of this. All the tools a player needs will be somewhere on their person and can be grasped as needed. Do you need to draw a gun? Take it from your waist. Do you need to heal yourself? Your health items can be grasped from your left shoulder. Take out a knife? It is sheathed in your chest.

See also  18 intriguing Switch games showcased at QUByte Connect 2021

In the same way, the reloading of your weapon is also done in real time. Your ammo is in a bag on your left side and you will need to physically remove the ammo cartridges and load them into your weapon.

This could be the first time in a long time that I’ve been excited to play Resident Evil 4 in its entirety again.


The whole experience has a learning curve – I can’t tell you how many times it took a health item just to accidentally grab my knife, but once you develop muscle memory, it’s almost second nature.

The puzzles have also been redone so that they can be interacted with. A puzzle in the church requires players to move different colored lights correctly to form the correct shape. On console, players would interact with this using a controller, but in VR you’ll be pressing virtual buttons on a machine to navigate the lights in the right way.

Similarly, your items are now handled in a full-size virtual window where you can collect items and rearrange them by physically moving them. And saving your game is done on a fully interactive virtual typewriter and it might just be my favorite thing.

Every review of IGN’s Resident Evil game

However, not everything is in virtual reality. All the scenes of the game are not seen in the first person, but in a virtual cinema screen in front of the player. Not only that, but every time Leon does an action like climbing a ladder or jumping out of a window, RE4 VR switches from a first-person perspective to the same cinema view.

See also  Skyrim: The horses did so much 'crap' that they were almost taken out of the game

It’s not a very graceful transition, but I understand why it was done. Turning every scene in the game will undoubtedly add countless hours of development, and I doubt jumping up and unfolding a second-floor window would be enjoyable in VR.

The most serious problem is how some of the combat encounters are translated into the new format. Resident Evil 4, as stated above, was a more action-oriented twist for the series and that included adding much more intense mob encounters.

On consoles and PC, this was not a problem, but in virtual reality the intensity and difficulty of these encounters increases substantially. For one thing, fighting off a wave of enemies by taking weapons out of their holsters and reloading them in real time can be incredibly exciting.

But if you are a supporter of motion sickness like me, you will probably play using the teleportation controls, and getting away from a mob with this type of motion while physically managing your inventory was quite a challenge.

But while mob fights are difficult and a bit frustrating, boss fights elicit a completely different reaction. There’s nothing like fighting The giant in virtual reality, looking at his imposing figure as he shoots him with everything he has.

See also  The Forgotten City: Interview with Creator Nick Pearce

Between the boss fights and the enemies is the beautiful and grim world of Resident Evil 4. While I have seen this world many times over the years, there is nothing like seeing it in virtual reality. The constant cloudiness becomes physically oppressive and you can almost smell the rot and blood in the village. But there are also moments of serene beauty and you can see it for the first time only in virtual reality.

If you have skipped every Resident Evil 4 re-release due to the incremental changes made to each version, Resident Evil 4 VR is the most substantially different version of the game that I have seen in a long time and I am really looking forward to revisiting this exciting nightmare when it is released. release Resident Evil 4 VR this October. At least until the rumored Resident Evil 4 Remake is finally announced.

Matt TM Kim is IGN’s News Editor. Can you reach it @lawoftd.




www.ign.com