blair witch: oculus quest edition

December 25, 2020

The Best Oculus Quest Games of 2020

It’s been quite the year for the Oculus Quest platform, both positive and controversial. The standalone headset has gone from strength to strength with a growing catalogue of videogames and let’s not forget about the arrival of Oculus Quest 2. Whether you’re new to VR or not, here are VRFocus’ recommendations from 2020.

Below you’ll find 10 of the best videogames for Oculus Quest and this list is by no means exhaustive. It really was difficult narrowing down the selection and there are many more great titles on the store.

The Best Oculus Quest Games of 2020

The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners

For those who love a good zombie apocalypse Skydance Interactive’s The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners is worth a look. Having to survive the mean streets of New Orleans, you’ll deal with dangerous humans and walkers alike. Scavenge houses for useful parts to keep you healthy or to craft more weapons, whilst uncovering the underlying storyline.

Go in silent with blades or a bow to avoid attracting attention or make some noise with pistols, rifles and more – just be ready for the horde. Plus in January 2021 a free horde mode ‘The Trial’ will provide wave-based action.

Cubism

Simple, elegant puzzle gaming, Cubism is the work of solo developer Thomas Van Bouwel. Featuring 60 puzzles, twist and turn them to try and fit the various colourful pieces inside. Easy to pick up yet difficult to put down Cubism is an indie gem to enjoy.

The horror genre has been well represented in VR and Bloober Team’s Blair Witch: Oculus Quest Edition is a great example why you should avoid the woods at night. Taking the standard 2019 title and giving it a VR twist, you have to explore the creepy woodland looking for a missing lad.

Along the way you have to deal with some strange events as well as your characters own PTSD and panic attacks. Lucky, by your side is your faithful pooch Bullet who can find hidden items as well as alert you to danger. Full of suspense and puzzles to solve, this isn’t for the faint of heart.

Until You Fall

When you just want a pure arcade hack-n-slash Schell Games’ Until You Fall is an energetic roguelite which ticks all the right boxes. Set in the neon fantasy world of Rokar you play a Rune Knight tasked with ridding the land of evil.

Gameplay revolves around runs through the world which changes each time due to procedurally generated levels. Combat is melee based, where you buy and upgrade various swords and knives adapt and conquer each run. Die and you return to the beginning a try again. Hectic and brutal, this is one videogame to get your heart pumping.

Population: One

Mixing the massive battle royale genre with VR’s interactive gameplay is Population: One. Taking place across one giant map which supports 18 players, across six squads with three players each, drop pods launch you onto the battlefield to see who can survive the longest.

Weapons and useful items are littered throughout the world as well as resources to build quick platforms for defensive and offensive capabilities. You can also climb anything you want and then glide across the map to gain an advantage. A relentless first-person shooter (FPS), one to keep you entertained for hours.

Phantom: Covert Ops

For a far more subtle shooter where you can be as stealthy or gung-ho as you like then nDreams’ Phantom: Covert Ops is a good choice. Playing as an elite operative infiltrating an enemy base, the unique element here is that you’re entirely confined to a kayak throughout.

So you can silently paddle through waterways, hide in reeds, and then snipe enemies to complete the task. Or with some C4 and the assault rifle tear the place up, your call. Completing mission-specific objectives or finding hidden secrets will unlock levels in the Challenge Mode, so there’s more to keep you entertained after the campaign is over.

Five Nights at Freddy’s: Help Wanted

The only other horror title on this list, Five Nights at Freddy’s: Help Wanted goes for the classic jump scare, using it to great effect. A compilation of all the previous Five Nights at Freddy’s plus some made for VR content, all the levels are bite-sized mini-games where you have to survive the night.

With killer animatronics hunting you down encounters can include playing a security guard keeping an eye on monitors or crawling into claustrophobic ventilation systems to repair them. You know they’re coming, but it doesn’t make it any less scary!

Cook-Out: A Sandwich Tale

Pure multiplayer madness for up to four people, Cook-Out: A Sandwich Tale is all about preparing delicious lunches for your customers. They all have their own preferences with some more exacting than others, so it’s up to you and your team to deliver, no one person has all the ingredients. Therefore good communication and some speedy chopping skills are in order.

You have access to a fridge full of ingredients as well as a grills to toast (or burn) ingredients. Plus you’ll need to clear and clean plates as no customer wants their sandwich on a dirty plate. There’s also a single-player mode where you can team up with a kitchen robot assistant to tackle the various campaign levels. Good clean/messy fun.

In Death: Unchained

In a similar roguelite vein to Until They Fall, In Death: Unchained has procedural levels and single run-throughs where death puts you right back at the start, a little wiser and a little stronger. Here though, all you have is a bow – a crossbow can be unlocked – and an assortment of magical arrows to take down Templar Knights, demons, evil monks and other unearthly creatures.

One for those who love a challenge, there’s plenty to keep you entertained as the developer has just released a new gameplay mode called ‘Siege of Heaven’. Plus, like many on this list if you have an Oculus Quest 2 there are visual enhancements which make the world more impressive.

The Room VR: A Dark Matter

Fireproof Games took its hugely popular mobile series The Room and built The Room VR: A Dark Matter specifically for VR gaming. With an original storyline set in London, circa 1908, you play a detective called to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a renown Egyptologist from the British Institute of Archaeology.

Que elaborate puzzles, dark magic and fantastical gadgets to aid the investigation. These are all fully interactive to help engross you in each element plus the gameplay uses specific teleportation points so it should be a very comfortable experience for all players.

November 4, 2020

Review: Blair Witch: Oculus Quest Edition

When Blair Witch launched into cinemas in 1999 it would mark a new era for horror films, one which would see countless imitations utilising the shaky, handheld footage look. In 2019 Bloober Team, the studio behind horror titles such as Layer of Fear VR brought the world a Blair Witch videogame for consoles and PC, receiving widespread praise for its psychological gameplay. Now the team has redesigned the experience especially for virtual reality (VR) – namely Oculus Quest – showcasing why the technology works so uniquely well with the horror genre.

If you’ve played the original version then, for the most part, Blair Witch: Oculus Quest Edition will feel very familiar, it’s the same story involving former police officer Ellis heading into the Black Hills Forest with his pet pooch Bullet as they help join a search for a young missing boy. Ellis has a troubled past, suffering from PTSD and panic attacks which the videogame portrays to great effect whilst wandering the woods inhabited by the malevolent witch of local legend. As an Oculus Quest title, the graphical fidelity has obviously taken a knock but in the process of switching to VR, the sheer heart-pounding scare factor has been increased.

An important factor in most VR titles is interactivity, not so much having stuff to do more the way you can connect with it. An important aspect when porting a standard videogame into an immersive one. So the redesign adds those factors which help connect you to the digital world, being able to pick up items such as the torch or the mysterious camcorder. One of the biggest changes is the way you can interact with Bullet, who is a vital grounding point when you’re wandering the woods at night. You can send him off to search for clues or have him by your side, he will sit there so you can pet him – great if moments get a little too much. Or grab a stick and play fetch for a bit.

Needless to say Blair Witch: Oculus Quest Edition isn’t for the faint-hearted. While there aren’t loads of jump scares – a common technique in other horror titles – Bloober Team goes for that constant fear of threat, playing on your mind with sounds rustling from the bushes or Bullet suddenly growling when he senses something nearby. That’s not to say there aren’t moments where you don’t want to turn around like the sequence inside the house for example. It’s not an action videogame after all so you don’t have any weapons as a safety net.

So Blair Witch: Oculus Quest Edition is atmospheric, no doubt about that. Walking through the woods either in the daylight or at night can be a chilling experience – daytime always feels like a respite – but there are a few little factors that can stutter it. First of all, it’ll depend on whether you’re playing on Oculus Quest or Oculus Quest 2. The formers OLED display works far better during the night time sequences, with Quest 2’s LCD offering more of a dark grey. On the flipside, Quest 2’s improved performance allows for greater detail, easily seen in Bullet’s fur, so objects don’t look quite as bland as on Quest 1.

One aspect ported from the 2019 original that’s hit and miss is the cut scenes. These 2D videos are the same in VR so whilst they help the story along, that sense of presence and fear which has been so well built up is then lost as the chapter ends and the cut scene begins.

When it comes to things to actually do these are fairly spread out with Blair Witch: Oculus Quest Edition featuring a lot of wandering, following Bullet and occasionally getting lost. There are a few environmental puzzles along the way, with most revolving around the camcorder and special red tapes which Bullet helps you find. These can make items appear or even rewind past actions to help clear the way. It’s a mechanic that works even better in VR than the original.

It’s important to note that Bloober Team has ensured that Blair Witch: Oculus Quest Edition caters for most players when it comes to comfort. Full locomotion is available for maximum immersion as well as teleportation and vignette tunnelling should you need it. Sub-titles are automatically on so it’s worth dipping into the settings to switch them off – nothing worse than the atmosphere being ruined by loads of bright text just dumped on top.

The horror section on Oculus Quest is a strong one, with Blair Witch: Oculus Quest Edition having stiff competition from the likes of Five Nights at Freddy’s VR: Help Wanted, Lies Beneath and The Exorcist: Legion VR. It can hold its own, however, offering decent psychological horror for its 5-6 hour duration. If you’re a big fan of VR scares intertwined with a decent story then Blair Witch: Oculus Quest Edition will have you shaking in your boots.

October 29, 2020

‘Blair Witch: Quest Edition’ Review – Real Psychological Thrills Worthy of the Name

Games built on film franchises are rarely good for a reason. Many suffer from comparatively lower budgets and seem to fundamentally lack creative flexibility. More often than not, this ends up leading to a clumsy replication of the source material and a big disappointment on the part of the player. Thankfully, this isn’t true for Blair Witch, the story-driven psychological horror game first launched on PC in 2019, and now rebuilt for Oculus Quest. The VR port is a bit rough around the edges, but even with its momentary jankiness and lower graphical fidelity it delivers a dark, bone chilling story that forces you head first into insanity.

Blair Witch: Oculus Quest Edition Details:

Available On: Oculus Quest
Release Date: October 29th, 2020
Price: $30
Developer: Bloober Team
Reviewed On: Quest (2019)

Gameplay

Rebuilt for VR, Blair Witch: Oculus Quest Edition immerses you in the haunted forest first conjured up in The Blair Witch Project (1999), the breakout ‘found footage’ horror film which spawned a slew of sequels, books, and video games.

Taking on the role of ex-policeman Ellis, you join a search party for a missing boy who’s gone missing in Maryland’s Black Hills Forest, a place where even daytime feels dark and claustrophobic. Things aren’t as they seem though, as Ellis battles with demons (both literal and personal) and marches deeper into his own troubled past as he picks up a trail leading to the boy. No spoilers here, but there’s multiple endings depending on actions you take throughout the game.

The game suggests wearing headphones for a more immersive experience, but you’d be forgiven for sticking to Quest’s built-in audio if you want to keep some filter between you and what lies ahead. Honestly, the game is intense and comes with a trigger warning because of the realistic depictions of post-traumatic stress, and—you know—horrible monsters chasing you through the forest.

Jump scares are few and far between, but are timed well enough to keep you on your toes. In the end, it’s less about fighting the monsters head-on, and more about unraveling the story through the eyes of a man who is recovering from PTSD in the worst place imaginable. You only have a flashlight, old-school cellphone, CB radio, a camcorder to reveal hidden secrets and play found footage, and your trusty German Shepard, Bullet. No guns and no melee weapons.

Although sometimes one of the biggest immersion breakers (more on that in Immersion), Bullet is overall an awesome addition. He alerts you to baddies ahead, uncovers key items, and keeps you on the trail which sometimes isn’t where you’d think to go. It’s so much nicer having Bullet around than a constantly chattering guide to force you through the experience, and also leaves you with your own thoughts on how to accomplish tasks that lie ahead. You can pet him, call him back with your whistle, command him to seek, and let him sniff items to get you on the right trail.

The cellphone is a cool addition too, as you receive calls and text messages that give some flavor to the story. Dialogue between you and your significant other Jess never feels super important to the story, but there are times when an SMS will really creep you out. The radio does essentially the same job to stay in contact with the rest of the search party, albeit without text messaging.

My most favorite addition by far is the camcorder. Found footage scattered throughout the game not only lets you see key moments in the story as they’re captured by a certain antagonist, but also lets you magically conjure elements in your location like a key item, or clear a pathway that was formerly blocked. There’s a few times in the game when looking directly at monsters results in your grizzly death too, which forces you to physically look away from any oncoming demon and follow a trail revealed by the bewitched camcorder.

Outside of using the camcorder there aren’t a lot of puzzles to solve, which is a shame. Puzzles are mostly momentary fetch quests which don’t rely on anything more than a good spatial memory of the level. Inventory is also pretty lackluster, as objects magically disappear from your hands, never to be seen again. Love it or hate it, the game’s body-mounted holsters were always a source of confusion, forcing me to look down to accurately grab the cellphone and not the radio, or the flashlight and not the camcorder. Some physical separation here would have made it much less frustrating. A journal of all your findings was equally pretty useless, and should really only be used if you’re taking the game in much smaller bites than I did.

In the end, it took me around five hours to play straight through, although your mileage may vary as you seek to unlock multiple endings. Immersion-breakers aside, I really enjoyed my time with Blair Witch. Its apparent lack of sidequests makes it worthy of really only a single playthrough and not much more.

Still, it was an intense trip that was soaked with existential dread and phycological terror. Sure, you can die and be thrown back to your last checkpoint, but it’s the bumps in the night and the unexpected thrills that definitely leave its mark.

Immersion

While the story and overall basic structure of the game’s one-way trip through Black Hills Forest is really well done, some of it felt somewhat shoehorned into VR. Cut scenes are done via immersion-breaking 2D windows which I really wish simply weren’t there.

Gripes aside for a moment: the games tension comes in a wide assortment of flavors that really seeps into your reptile brain. Creepy bumps in the night scare you away from the periphery of levels, dilapidated interiors force you to confront grizzly deaths, and the threat of meeting a demon around any corner is very real. Disjointed bits of the game confused you, and keep you wondering what’s real, or if any of it’s real in the first place. Photos of supposed victims litter the world, and you’re always left guessing if you’ll find your own polaroid snapshot among the bunch. Ok, more gripes now.

One of the biggest things you’ll notice is overall graphical quality. On the original Quest, it’s predictably lower than the PC or console versions as most levels are muddy and samey feeling. I’m still waiting on receiving my own Quest 2, so I wasn’t able to verify whether the headset’s extra horsepower from the Snapdragon XR2 significantly improved render distance and texture quality, two of my main gripes. Bloober Team says Quest 2 improves the quality of textures, 3D assets like dog fur, and foliage density.

The king of jank though is undoubtedly Bullet, which is a crying shame. Oftentimes I’d find him running at full clip into a cluster of trees, where he’d remain in his infinite forward bound. He’s sweet and helpful, which offsets this a bit, but seeing him run through a minecart or robotically readjusting to get through obstacles was still a let down. You can pet him, tussle his ears and even feed him for a laugh, but there’s hardly ever a peaceful moment when it really makes sense to take the time.

As is, it’s still pretty amazing what the studio was able to do on the modest Quest 1 hardware. Much of the game is dark and very foggy, which forces you to focus on near-field objects. It’s not to say you can’t sense the game chunking away and loading the bits just outside fog—there was definitely some jank there, as trees would pop in and out of view at times. Loading screens are also a bit of a pain, as you’ll be stopped multiple times throughout any of the 17 chapters to load a new section. Thankfully there isn’t any backtracking, so these screens only really appear in about 20-minute intervals.

Comfort

While the game has been re-engineered around the need for VR support, and many of the standard locomotion and comfort options are available, level layout requires you to go up and down inclines like hills and bumps in the road, which can be a little uncomfortable. One instance of an impossibly twisted house was a turn off, although fairly brief.

Both hand and head-relative forward locomotion is available alongside the ability for smooth forward and teleporting. Comfort-specific stuff, like variable snap-turn and VR blinders are also available to keep you from feeling too queasy as you make your way through the densely-packed levels.

Thankfully the game comes with both standing and seated standing modes, which comes with a manual height adjuster for fine-tuning.

The post ‘Blair Witch: Quest Edition’ Review – Real Psychological Thrills Worthy of the Name appeared first on Road to VR.

October 29, 2020

Blair Witch VR Review – Bringing The Iconic Horror Series To Quest

Blair Witch originally released as a non-VR game from Bloober Team, the creators of Layers of Fear and the upcoming Xbox/PC horror game, The Medium, but is now getting the VR treatment with the Blair Witch: Oculus Quest Edition out today on October 29th. Read on for our full Blair Witch VR review.

The Blair Witch Project is one of my favorite horror movies. It’s often credited as the source of the now-ubiquitous personal hand camera POV format in films and was essentially one long, creepy, family movie gone wrong. I love slow-building tension and genuinely unsettling characters that make your skin crawl. The ending for the original Blair Witch film, how the camera just drops and cuts off at the end like that, really stuck with me as a kid.

Now, even though this game is simply titled Blair Witch (or in this case Blair Witch VR) it’s not actually tied to the film directly. Instead, it just takes place in the same universe, kind of like The Exorcist: Legion VR relates to that franchise.

In Blair Witch VR you take on the role of Ellis, a former police offer with a troubled past that joins a search party searching for a young boy that’s gone missing in the Black Hills Forest. The year is 1996, so don’t expect to see a lot of modern technology being used. It’s a slow-paced, creepy psychological horror game that does a really nice job of immersing you in the unsettling atmosphere surrounding the Blair Witch’s legacy.

Generally speaking, this is the same as the non-VR game. There isn’t really anything new here in terms of the story and content, but rather the way it’s played is all new. Specifically, you have hand presence now. This means you can manually pet the dog (that’s very important in my opinion) and reach out to pick up things in the environment. They’ve done a good job here of making this feel like a game that was made for VR, but every now and then you’re reminded that it was, in fact, a non-VR game first.

Blair Witch VR Review – Quest vs Quest 2

Blair Witch VR is functionally the same game on Quest and Quest 2, there aren’t any major differences. However, it does look better on Quest 2 as expected. Specifically, texture quality is a bit better, 3D models are a little nicer such as added fur on the dog, there’s more foliage like grass, and a few mroe visual effects. The flashlight gets a dynamic shadow on Quest 2 as well, in addition to overall higher pixel density. Although, the black levels are deeper and richer on Quest 1’s OLED panel, which is nice for a game that frequently requires nighttime exploration.

The scares are solid. There are a handful of jump scares sprinkled throughout, but overall this is a very slow-paced and atmospheric game. Outside of VR when I played originally I found myself often getting frustrated when I was lost in the woods. But in a VR headset, it’s just another form of suffocating tension that really surrounds you. It’s that type of slow-building terror, like something is going to leap out at you any second now.

Speaking of getting lost though, it does happen, and eventually it can still get annoying here. This isn’t an action horror game like Resident Evil so it’s not like there’s a bunch of combat to help break up the aimless wandering bits. The vast majority of this game boils down, essentially, to aimless wandering. That being said, it’s quite immersive and creepy the whole time.

Blair Witch VR Review – Comfort

Since the VR player isn’t, strictly speaking moving around as in a more traditional game, but instead moving the map around them or simply peering in closer to the environment, Panoptic is a pretty chill VR experience. It is possible to accidentally move the map into the walls, which is disorienting and a little annoying.

Luckily, you’ve got a dog buddy with you most of the time. Reaching down to pet him is great. Some players might be put off by the floating hands instead of full arms and body IK, but honestly you get used to it. It looks weird in screenshots and video, but you truly begin to ignore it after playing for a while.

Just like the non-VR counterpart, Blair Witch VR clocks in at around six hours, but I could see it taking longer if you get really stuck or if you genuinely enjoy exploring the forest. It’s quite detailed and pretty to look at, even if you constantly feel like you’re being stalked.

Blair Witch VR Review Final Verdict

As far as ports of non-VR games go, Blair Witch VR is quite great as it manages to be better than its non-VR predecessor in basically every way Frankly, this setting fits VR like a blood-soaked glove and I hope to see more Blair Witch games in VR after this. Horror naturally lends itself to the immersive realms of a VR headset and it doesn’t get a whole lot more unsettling than the iconic Blair Witch franchise. This doesn’t quite soar to the same heights as something like Five Nights at Freddy’s in terms of sheer jump scares, or even The Exorcist VR or Resident Evil 7 VR on PSVR in terms of highly-concentrated VR horror-fueled tension, but it easily ranks as one of the scariest horror games yet for the Oculus Quest.

4 STARS

For more on how we arrive at our scores, check out our review guidelines.

You can find Blair Witch VR on Oculus Quest starting at 10AM PT today for $29.99. This review was conducted using an Oculus Quest 2, but the game is slated to come to other VR headsets later. It’s also compatible with Quest 1, you can read about the differences in the review up above.

You can find more details on the game’s official website.

October 27, 2020

Hold Your Nerve With These Scary VR Horror Titles

Halloween is almost upon us and while the events of 2020 may hamper traditional activities such as Trick or Treating, there are plenty of other ways to enjoy the season. You could carve some pumpkins, dress up in some ghoulish face paint or if you’re really really brave play some of the virtual reality (VR) videogames listed below.

AFFECTED: The Manor

This scary title has been doing the rounds for several years now, available on most platforms with recent updates adding a speedrun mode called The Gauntlet whilst The Darkness update upped the intensity by adding just a single candle for illumination. AFFECTED: The Manor isn’t so much a game rather a haunted house experience with multiple routes and endings if you can handle returning.

Supported platforms: Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Valve Index, Windows Mixed Reality & PlayStation VR

Five Nights at Freddy’s: Help Wanted

The long-running franchise came to VR in 2019 and was all the better for it. Full of bite-sized mini-games that will get your heart racing, the scenes from the previous editions have been updated for VR whilst new ones were added. If you like jump scares (or don’t) it doesn’t get much more intense than this.

Supported platforms: Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Valve Index, Windows Mixed Reality & PlayStation VR

In Death/In Death: Unchained

Whether it’s In Death for PC VR and PlayStation VR or In Death: Unchained for Oculus Quest, what you get is a frantic fight against hordes of demons, with only a bow for company. Procedural levels mean that each run is never quite the same and death sees you placed back at the start.

Supported platforms: Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Valve Index, Windows Mixed Reality & PlayStation VR

Lies Beneath

A good horror game needs to be super creepy, usually with a nice mix of impending doom and some horrible looking monsters. If that’s what you’re looking for then Drifter Entertainment’s Lies Beneath should suffice. With some striking artwork and a comic book style delivery, this should easily keep you on edge.

Supported platforms: Oculus Quest & Oculus Rift

Layers of Fear VR

Set in a hauntingly twisted mansion, Layers of Fear VR is a remake of the pancake original, adding immersive controls for a more intense experience. You play as a painter trying to finish his Magnum Opus yet as you wander his Victorian mansion his mind begins to unravel.

Supported platforms: Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Valve Index & Windows Mixed Reality

Propagation VR

Time for one of the newest horror titles on this list, Propagation VR is the work of French team WanadevStudio. Normally creating videogames for VR arcades this is a wave shooter set in a dilapidated subway station after a virus has broken out. With no locomotion the action comes from all sides, creeping out of the darkness for some frightening moments. And the best bit is Propagation VR is completely free!

Supported platforms: Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Valve Index & Windows Mixed Reality

Phasmophobia

The current indie hit on Steam which only arrived into Early Access during September, Phasmophobia is a 4 player online co-op psychological horror. Whether you’re in VR or on PC, you and your team are paranormal investigators searching haunted locations for evidence of ghostly activity.

Supported platforms: Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Valve Index & Windows Mixed Reality

The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners

For those after an awesome zombie survival experience in VR then look no further than Skydance Interactive’s The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners. From the safety of your base where you can craft weapons and useful tools you need to head into the streets of New Orleans, searching houses for resources and finding other survivors to uncover their stories. And of course, removing a few walkers along the way.

Supported platforms: Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Valve Index, Windows Mixed Reality & PlayStation VR

The Room VR: A Dark Matter

Maybe not everyone’s definition of a horror experience, those that love a good atmospheric puzzle title should take a look at The Room VR: A Dark Matter. Expanding upon the popular mobile series you’re sent back to London circa 1908 to the British Institute of Archaeology where an esteemed Egyptologist has disappeared and a spine-tingling world awaits.

Supported platforms: Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Valve Index, Windows Mixed Reality & PlayStation VR

The Exorcist: Legion VR

Pretty much a staple of most VR horror lists, The Exorcist: Legion VR was released back in 2018 by British studio Wolf and Wood. An episodic story spilt across five chapters, you play the role of a detective investigating grisly murders. Needless to say, these all have a paranormal twist.

Supported platforms: Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Valve Index, Windows Mixed Reality & PlayStation VR

Blair Witch: Oculus Quest Edition

This final is a little extra because it’s not quite out yet. Another standard game port into VR, Blair Witch: Oculus Quest Edition has been redesigned for the headset with lots more interactive features. This probably makes it more terrifying to play as you wander into those haunted woods. It’s set to arrive just in time for Halloween on 29th October 2020.

Supported platforms: Oculus Quest

October 23, 2020

Bloober Team On Why Blair Witch Is The ‘Perfect Fit’ For VR Horror

The VR version of Blair Witch releases very soon for the Oculus Quest later this month. Dubbed ‘Blair Witch: Oculus Quest Edition’ this new version of the first-person psychological horror game was rebuilt for VR and is dropping on the Quest platform first on October 30th before coming to other headsets later.

We got the chance to send a few questions over to the Blair Witch VR Project Manager, Szymon Erdmanski, to see what it was like working on such an iconic horror property in VR.

Blair Witch VR Developer Interview

UploadVR: What about Blair Witch felt like a good fit for VR?

Project Manager, Szymon Erdmanski: Blair Witch is a psychological horror story, it does not depend on a lot of action and fast movement to deliver an intense experience. Quite contrary, scares using atmosphere and the experience of being alone in dark woods with just a flashlight and monsters hiding in the dark. This is a perfect match for a VR where fast paced action just does not work and will make you nauseous at best.

VR is all about atmosphere and story, and those are also Blair Witch strongpoints, so that just made a perfect fit right there. We obviously had to do a lot of redesign to make BW work for VR but we didn’t have to turn the whole project upside down because the strong foundations were already there.

UploadVR: This is now the third VR game you’ve done, counting the Daydream version of Layers of Fear and then the full Layers of Fear port for PC and Quest. What are the main takeaways you’ve learned while developing for VR?

Erdmanski: There is a huge difference between traditional gaming platforms and VR from a gameplay standpoint. What works well on PC or consoles will not, in most cases, work in VR. Fast paced action with a lot of player movements is especially a big no no in VR. What works well is manual interactions with VR controllers, limited player movement, great storytelling, and building atmosphere using visuals and sound effects.

UploadVR: Can you explain what it is about VR that feels like such a great fit for horror games?

Erdmanski: As I mentioned before, fast paced action and a lot of player movement is very difficult to make work in VR. Psychological horror games are rooted in atmosphere and story, and the genre’s slow build up using visual and audio cues works really well in VR.

UploadVR: For Blair Witch, I noticed it indicates it’s “redesigned” and “rebuilt” for VR and I see lots of physical interactions in the trailer that weren’t possible in the non-VR game. Can you explain just how different this version is? Is the story still the same? How much new content is there?

Erdmanski: The story is more or less the same. Levels were redesigned and rebuilt from scratch for Oculus Quest for a lot of reasons. We found that a lot of walking around, which created the atmosphere of being lost in the woods in the original game, turned out to be pretty frustrating in the VR version. Remember you don’t want to move a lot in VR, so we redesigned the levels from scratch, to make the game a more compact experience with gameplay condensed in a smaller space. That alone made the experience more intense. We also added a bunch of interactive physical items which always work great in VR.

What we believe is the most important improvement is the interaction with your dog, Bullet. In the Oculus Quest version of the game you can pet your dog, grab his paw and play with him using VR controllers almost like you would with a real dog in real life. One of the new features is playing fetch with the dog, you can grab sticks and throw it for Bullet to bring them back to you.

UploadVR: Why did you choose to launch on Quest first?

Erdmanski: We have a great relationship with Oculus and Facebook. Oculus is one of the fastest growing VR platforms and the Quest 2 is just astonishing as a standalone VR headset.

Of course other platforms are also ok and we will work on them too. 😉

UploadVR: Will there be any Quest 2-specific enhancements in comparison to the Quest 1 version of the game?

Erdmanski: Yes, there are visual improvements for Quest 2, since it is significantly better performance-wise then the old Quest. Most noticeable is that the dog will look significantly better on the new Quest and we added more foliage in the woods.

UploadVR: Once Blair Witch VR launches on the Rift store, will it have cross buy with the Quest version?

Erdmanski: We’re working on that – stay tuned.

UploadVR: Are there plans to eventually bring The Medium to VR or Layers of Fear 2?

Erdmanski: We are focusing on Blair Witch, but you never know.

UploadVR: Can you at all speak to how well Layers of Fear VR is doing in terms of sales on Quest vs PC?

Erdmanski:The Quest is a dynamically growing platform, especially with the new Quest 2. We are a public company and we can’t share numbers, but sales are meeting expectations.

UploadVR: Finally, if you could work on any established IP, whether it be a film, book, TV show, game, etc — and adapt that into a VR game, what would it be and why?

Erdmanski: We can handle a variety of IPs and when it comes to horror, we want to work on it all! The team is packed with horror fans of all kinds, and we would love to work on stories from John Carpenter, Steven King, or Silent Hill.

Do you plan on playing Blair Witch VR this halloween when it releases for Oculus Quest on October 30th? Let us know down in the comments below!

October 23, 2020

The VR Game Launch Roundup: A Horrifyingly Tasty Selection

October hasn’t disappointed when it comes to virtual reality (VR) titles for most of the major headsets and with one week left to go there are more to look forward to. Naturally, with Halloween coming up, there are a couple of spooky titles as well as non-seasonal entries.

Flavortown – Last Hope of the Internet

The first of a six-episode series arrives next week in the form of comedic title Flavortown, where you become a meatball cop in a world entirely populated by living food. Your job is to infiltrate Flavortown’s underworld and clean up the streets, as well as enjoying all the other tasty treats the town has to offer.

Supported platforms: Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Valve Index & Windows Mixed Reality
Launch date: 26th October

AGOS: A Game of Space – Ubisoft

Ubisoft has made a few VR titles and continues to support the technology with interstellar simulator AGOS: A Game of Space. Mankind has abandoned Earth heading out among the stars to find a new home. Split between thousands of ships, you play the AI onboard one, tasked with keeping your cargo safe and well.

Supported platforms: Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Valve Index & Windows Mixed Reality
Launch date: 28th October

Groove Gunner – BitCutter Studios

VR fans love a good rhythm-action videogame and Groove Gunner will be the latest to join this energetic genre. With a demo already available, the gameplay is split between shooting targets as well as blocking incoming projectiles with arm-mounted light shields.

Supported platforms: Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Valve Index & Windows Mixed Reality
Launch date: 28th October

Blair Witch: Oculus Quest Edition – Bloober Team

Time for the big horror title of the week. Bloober Team is bringing its Blair Witch videogame to VR, with Oculus Quest being the first platform. Redesigned around VR interaction, you have your lovable companion Bullet by your side as you venture into the cheery forest…and, well you know the rest.

Supported platforms: Oculus Quest
Launch date: 29th October

Horror Bar VR – VR Factory

Time for some light-hearted Halloween fun, from the team which brought you Bartender VR Simulator, comes Horror Bar VR. Released as an Early Access title, you’re the bartender in a zombie bar serving all-sorts of ghoulish drinks for the undead patrons, even rustling up the odd snack or two.

Supported platforms: Oculus Rift, HTC Vive & Valve Index
Launch date: 30th October

October 23, 2020

The VR Game Launch Roundup: A Horrifyingly Tasty Selection

Flavortown – Last Hope of the Internet

Supported platforms: Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Valve Index & Windows Mixed Reality
Launch date: 26th October

AGOS: A Game of Space – Ubisoft

Supported platforms: Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Valve Index & Windows Mixed Reality
Launch date: 28th October

Groove Gunner – BitCutter Studios

Supported platforms: Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Valve Index & Windows Mixed Reality
Launch date: 28th October

Blair Witch: Oculus Quest Edition – Bloober Team

Supported platforms: Oculus Quest
Launch date: 29th October

Horror Bar VR – VR Factory

Supported platforms: Oculus Rift, HTC Vive & Valve Index
Launch date: 30th October

October 6, 2020

Blair Witch: Oculus Quest Edition Is A Redesigned Version Of The Horror Game Built For VR

Blair Witch is back! Bloober Team, the developers of Layers of Fear VR, are back in the immersive realm with a redesigned version of their Blair Witch game built specifically for VR. Blair Witch: Oculus Quest Edition releases on October 29th for $29.99 and will come to other headsets in the coming months afterward.

Blair Witch originally released about a year ago as a non-VR horror game from Bloober Team and is currently available on PS4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC. In the game you play as Ellis, a former police officer that joins the search party for a young boy that went missing in the Black Hills Forest. It’s an original story set within the same universe as the films filled with psychological horror and a very good boy dog companion.

And yes, you can pet the dog!

Blair Witch VR

The VR adaptation is being described as a “brand-new version of the Blair Witch story built specifically for the VR experience” with a “rebuilt” story and “redesigned environments.” From the sounds of it this is more than just a straight port. There will be new creature encounters, sounds, and in-game events with all-new interactions like catching, throwing, and stacking objects, a marker and paper for notes, breakable tree branches, and the ability to open drawers, doors, gates, and more.

On paper this sounds like a much more robust adaptation than Layer of Fear VR, which as more or less a straight port as far as we could tell. We actually asked them about whether or not this game would get the VR treatment, but they obviously didn’t confirm that back then. Blair Witch VR is coming first to Oculus Quest on October 29th for $29.99, but will also hit “additional VR platforms in the coming months” so it’s only a timed exclusive.

Let us know what you think of the news down in the comments below and check out our list of the scariest VR horror games for more spooky times.

October 6, 2020

Blair Witch: Oculus Quest Edition Is A Redesigned Version Of The Horror Game Built For VR

And yes, you can pet the dog!

Blair Witch VR

Let us know what you think of the news down in the comments below and check out our list of the scariest VR horror games for more spooky times.

The Best Oculus Quest Games of 2020

The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners

Cubism

Blair Witch: Oculus Quest Edition

Until You Fall

Population: One

Phantom: Covert Ops

Five Nights at Freddy’s: Help Wanted

Cook-Out: A Sandwich Tale

In Death: Unchained

The Room VR: A Dark Matter

Blair Witch: Oculus Quest Edition Details:

Gameplay

Immersion

Comfort

Blair Witch VR Review Final Verdict

AFFECTED: The Manor

Five Nights at Freddy’s: Help Wanted

In Death/In Death: Unchained

Lies Beneath

Layers of Fear VR

Propagation VR

Phasmophobia

The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners

The Room VR: A Dark Matter

The Exorcist: Legion VR

Blair Witch: Oculus Quest Edition

Blair Witch VR Developer Interview

Flavortown – Last Hope of the Internet

AGOS: A Game of Space – Ubisoft

Groove Gunner – BitCutter Studios

Blair Witch: Oculus Quest Edition – Bloober Team

Horror Bar VR – VR Factory

Flavortown – Last Hope of the Internet

AGOS: A Game of Space – Ubisoft

Groove Gunner – BitCutter Studios

Blair Witch: Oculus Quest Edition – Bloober Team

Horror Bar VR – VR Factory

Blair Witch VR

Blair Witch VR