Dead Effect 2 VR für Oculus Rift und HTC Vive trägt noch den Early-Access-Stempel, konnte viele Spieler aber schon in den ersten Versionen mit knallharter Action und einer langen Spielzeit von über 20 Stunden überzeugen. Das frische Update in der Version 1.2 des Monster-Shooters mit Rollenspiel-Elementen legt jetzt noch mal eine ganze Schippe drauf und ergänzt Mehrspielermodus, neue Story-Missionen und noch etliches mehr.
Dead Effect 2 VR: Coop, Deathmatch und mehr Single-Player-Missionen
Zombies und andere Monster erledigt man im Action-Shooter Dead Effect 2 VR. Dabei versetzt der Titel den überlebenswilligen Spieler in die unendlichen Weiten des Weltraums und bietet eine passende Story zum blutigen Gemetzel. Das Update auf Version 1.2 hat es in sich: Einzelspieler freuen sich über fünf zusätzliche Missionen, mit denen sich die eh schon vergleichsweise lange Spielzeit des Shooters noch weiter erhöht. Wer gerne mit anderen Spielern loszieht, um gemeinsam Gegnerhorden zu erledigen, darf beim neuen Coop-Multiplayer-Modus loslegen – sofern man die ersten zwei Missionen abgeschlossen hat. Für viele Spieler ein Highlight dürfte der PvP-Multiplayer-Modus sein, die Deathmatches unternimmt man allein oder in Teams gegeneinander. Außerdem kann man den Character, von denen drei zur Auswahl stehen, jetzt bis auf Level 15 hochjagen und Teile des ersten „Epic Armor Set“ erspielen.
Auf der langen Liste der Änderungen stehen zudem einige Balance-Anpassungen, beispielsweise erhöht sich der Schaden, die Revolver anrichten. Wichtig für den Multiplayer-Modus ist nach Aussage vom Entwickler BadFly Interactive die Möglichkeit der VR-Kalibration, mit der sich die Bodenposition und die Welt-Skalierung einstellen lässt. Außerdem stehen Anpassungen der GUI auf dem Programm und etliche Bugfixes. So fällt beispielsweise Loot nicht mehr durch den Boden, auch Probleme mit nicht funktionierenden Munitionskisten und fehlenden Waffen nach Zwischensequenzen wollen die Entwickler behoben haben.
Dead Effect 2 ist über Steam erhältlich und kostet knapp 20 Euro, alle Updates sollen kostenlos sein. Die Mindestvoraussetzung ist ein Rechner mit 6 GB Arbeitsspeicher und NVIDIA GTX 970 oder eine vergleichbar leistungsfähige AMD-Grafikkarte. Das gesamte Change-Log findet ihr auf der entsprechenden Steam-Seite.
Alexandre Aja dürfte knochenharten Horror-Fans ein Begriff sein, schließlich ist der Regisseur beispielsweise für das Remake des Wes-Craven-Klassikers The Hills Have Eyes und Piranha verantwortlich. Aufsehen erregte aber vor allem High Tension und begründete neben anderen Filmen den blutigen Ruf des französischen Horror-Kinos. Der neueste Streich von Aja soll nun Anwendern in der virtuellen Realität in 360 Grad das Fürchten lernen: Campfire Creepers. Die Horror-Serie entsteht in Zusammenarbeit mit Oculus und dem spanischen VR-Entwicklerstudio Future Lighthouse.
Campirefire Creepers: 360-Grad-Serie mit prominentem Gastauftritt
Es dürfte die erste Horror-Serie für VR werden und man darf auf das Ergebnis gespannt sein: Die einzelnen Episoden spielen in einem typischen Sommerlager in Houston, Texas namens Camp Coyote. Die Besucher der sommerlichen Ferienunterkunft scharen sich um ein Lagerfeuer und erzählen sich ihre jeweiligen gruseligen Geschichten. Diese sollen einen eindringlichen Ritt in die dunkelsten Alpträume der eigenen Kindheit bieten, verspricht die Pressemitteilung. Als Vorlagen dienten Aja die Serien-Klassiker Creepshow und Geschichten aus der Gruft. Als besonders nette Anspielung auf vergangene Zeiten darf man dem Gastautritt von Robert Englund alias Freddy Krueger entgegenfiebern. In der von Wes Craven entwickelten Kino-Serie A Nightmare On Elm Street bringt der Killer mit Hut und Klauenhänden Teennager in ihren Alpträumen kreativ und rabiat um ihre noch jungen Leben.
Das Team um Campfire Creepers ist zwar schon mitten im Dreh der ersten Folge, ein wenig Warten muss man aber auf die Veröffentlichung noch. Zum Trost erscheint die erste Episode stilecht zu Halloween am 31. Oktober – wenn alles klappt. Denn Aja und das Future Lighthouse Team wollen beispielsweise neue Kamerafahrten und Makroaufnahmen entwickeln sowie neue Akzente in der Postproduktion setzen, um die 360-Grad-VR-Erfahrung noch unheimlicher und furchterregender zu gestalten. Unterstützung beim Skript erhält Aja zudem vom Produzenten und Regisseur Casey Johnson sowie Drehbuchautor und Regisseur Martin Anderson. Die Serie erscheint wie durch die Cooperation zu erwarten exklusiv im Oculus-Store. Ob und was einzelne Folgen kosten werden, bleibt abzuwarten.
When a game only does one thing, it had better do that thing extremely well. When it comes to making you feel helpless and alone, Outlast 2 is that game.
Im Kino sind die Zuschauer genervt bis gelangweilt, wenn Filme mit den sogenannten Jump-Scares arbeiten – in VR kommt bislang fast kein Horrortitel ohne sie aus. Dabei ist es meistens das Mysteriöse und Undurchschaubare, was eine gute Gruselerfahrung ausmacht. Das dies in Virtual Reality umgesetzt wird, wünschen sich nicht wenige Horror-Fans und Adventure-Liebhaber. Diese Lücke will allerdings Paranormal Activity: The Lost Soul füllen.
Paranormal Activity soll an die erfolgreiche Filmreihe anknüpfen
Das Horror-VR-Spiel soll am 14.03.2017 auf Steam in Early Access veröffentlicht werden und setzt auf den bekannten Namen der Filmreihe. Paranormal Activity war ursprünglich ein Horror-Film aus dem Jahr 2007, der im sogenannten Found-Footage-Format gezeigt wurde und der lediglich mit einem Budget von 15.000 US-Dollar gedreht worden war. Der größtenteils eigenproduzierte Streifen entwickelte sich zum Publikumsrenner, erzielte ein Einspielergebnis von mehr als 193 Millionen US-Dollar und zog sechs Fortsetzungen und Spin-offs nach sich. An diesen Erfolg will nun auch das Entwicklungsstudio VRWERX anknüpfen und ein VR-Spiel anbieten, dass 10 bis 20 Stunden an Spielzeit umfassen soll. Dabei werden die Macher nicht zuletzt den riesigen Erfolg von Resident Evil: Biohazard im Kopf haben. Denn auch Resident Evil bietet ein vollwertiges Spielerlebnis, dass in VR und am Bildschirm erlebbar ist und im Durchschnitt ebenfalls zehn Stunden andauert.
Adaptierte Filmtitel haben keinen guten Ruf
Das Horrorspiel mit Adventure-Elementen Paranormal Activity: The Lost Soul soll dabei zuerst für die Oculus Rift and HTC Vive verfügbar sein, aber kurze Zeit später auch als Playstation VR Titel erscheinen. Dabei setzt das Spiel auf eine gruselige Atmosphäre, die den Spieler die Knie schlottern lassen soll – aber nicht aufgrund von „billigen“ Jump-Scares. Jump-Scares sollen durch ihren Überraschungseffekt und überlaute Geräusche oder Musik den Spieler erschrecken und sind deshalb bei anspruchsvollen Thriller- und Horror-Fans verpönt. Vorschusslorbeeren konnte das Spiel allerdings bereits im Vorfeld einheimsen.
Die Frage ist nur, ob auch die finale Version hält, was uns das Entwicklungsstudio verspricht. Während im PC- und Videospiele-Bereich die Adaption von Filmtiteln zum guten Ton gehört, ist die Lizenzierung von Hollywood-Blockbustern im VR-Bereich noch relatives Neuland. Denn in der Regel haben Titel, die auf Filmen oder Serien basieren den Ruf, keine guten Spiele zu sein. So finden sich unter den Listen mit den schlechtesten Videospielen zahlreiche lizenzierte Filmtitel – nicht zuletzt der Urvater der Videogame-Katastrophen E.T. für das Atari 2600. Paranormal Activity: The Lost Soul hat somit hohe Erwartungen zu erfüllen und man kann nur hoffen, dass die Macher nicht an die Fehler ihrer Vorgänger anknüpfen werden. Denn allzu oft wollte man mit großen Namen nicht zuletzt vorrangig Kasse machen – wobei man weniger auf Kreativität setzte oder die Wünsche der Spieler ignorierte.
Jump scares are universally hated by horror film and game enthusiasts alike for being ‘cheap thrills’, and are oft considered the low-hanging fruit of the genre. Suspense and existential dread however are much harder to manufacture in a horror game, and from what I’ve seen at this year’s GDC, Paranormal Activity: The Lost Soul has it in spades. As it stands, this isn’t some short ‘brand engagement’ piece like we’ve seen in the past either, but rather a true game that’s clearly intending to approach AAA status.
Descending the dark staircase to the basement, a thought crosses my mind: I don’t really want to do this. Despite being reassured that the level I was playing wouldn’t have the sort of jump scare nightmares you’d expect from a VR horror game, and instead would feature the game’s puzzle elements, I couldn’t help but really hate my new reality.
Opening a creaky door with my Vive controller, I walk down the stairway. The atmosphere is thick with possibility of screaming ghouls, and I’m more than a little intimidated by the thought of coming face-to-face with whatever it is that I’m sure to meet in the grubby little cellar. At least I have a flashlight to guide my way. Suddenly an unseen force snaps the flashlight from my hand. Great.
Rounding the corner, I’m confronted with a Satanic pentagram on the floor lit with candles. The sense of danger is real, and my heartbeat is irregular.
There’s a small altar with an open book, instructions on how to ‘wake the beast’. For Pete’s sake, a beast? Can I… not?
The strange book instructs me to burn a ancient parchment with a monster inscribed on it. I don’t even want to look around, I’m so wary of a demon popping out of the dark corners of the room. Against my better judgement, I find the page on the other table, and now have to place 5 golden coins on the edges of a smaller pentagram etched into the altar. The coins, like the page, are strewn about the dank basement. The fear of the unknown has me quickly grabbing them and matching the symbols.
Suddenly a wild-eyed little girl, her face and elbows smudged with dirt, comes out from under the stairs, telling me to hide quickly before “she” gets here. Physically crouching under the stairs, a gaunt middle age woman storms into the basement, screeching and scanning the room for signs of life.
My palms are sweating, I’m crouching in the fetal position on the floor and the PR rep who was running my demo was laughing at me. The horrible woman looks my way. I can feel her make eye contact with me and she lurches closer. “You have to come with me!” she screams.
Yeah. That’s not happening.
A loud groan issues from above, seemingly coming from the belly of the house and recalling the woman back up the stairs and out of the basement. I’m alone again, but the only way for me to leave is to follow her. Returning to the stairs, they appear much darker than I remember, the door a little creakier than before. I get to the top of the stairs where it’s pitch black. No door can be seen. I slowly turn back down to face the stairwell to find … well, you’ll just have find out.
Created by VRwerx in cooperation with Paramount Pictures, Paranormal Activity: The Lost Soul has changed from when we first saw it at last year’s GDC. Controls, which left something to be desired in the game’s earlier incarnation, have significantly improved. Object interaction, which was somewhat of a pain, seems to be a complete non-issue now that the game has undergone extensive polishing. Graphics are on the high end too, and reflect a clear wish by VRwerx to create a AAA ‘VR-native’.
The game is preferably played standing up, and requires you to physically turn your body instead of using a snap-turn comfort mode, which can lead to some predictable cable snags. Realism factor is high in both set design and characters, and by keeping artificial locomotion confined to forward movement, you really start to feel grounded in the reality.
Paranormal Activity: The Lost Soul is slated to release on Steam Early Access on March 14th, and will be coming immediately to Oculus Rift and HTC Vive with PSVR support coming shortly after. The developers say the game will be 10-20 hours in length.
If I ever am forced to live through and eventually die during the zombie apocalypse, then I will look fondly back on games like Killing Floor: Incursion by Tripwire Interactive as adequate methods of survival training. While not the most realistic experience in the world, I still certainly feel like all of the gore and violence of this setting has done its part to subconsciously prepare me to do what needs to be done in the face of flesh-eating monsters.
It’s worth clarifying also that while I will refer to them as zombies because that’s what they basically are, technically the world of Killing Floor does not have any literal “zombies”. They’re called Zeds, but oh well.
The last time we saw this game was at last year’s Oculus Connect 3 (OC3) event and at GDC 2017 this year, the team at Tripwire brought along a brand new demo for us to try. I jumped into the game on the Oculus Rift with Touch and met my partner, this time instead of a developer it was another journalist from a different media publication.
After learning the basics of controls, moving with the teleportation mechanic, grabbing items from our back and chest holsters, and grabbing my flashlight, it was time to get started. Instead of appearing at the house like I did in the previous demo (shown in the teaser trailer above) we were down inside of what appeared to be a mine.
Standing back-to-back, my partner and I fought off waves of zombies coming from two sides. Some of them walked slowly, others were half-jogging, while a select few appeared to be running almost full speed with a scowl etched across what remained of their faces. My least favorite ones scuttled across the ground with bodies distorted and twisted, into strangely crawling creatures.
At first I found myself happy to pick off head shots from a distance with my pistols, then I heard my partner blast a pack of them all at one from short range using his shotgun. I reached back to get mine and found it insanely satisfying. Not only does it simply feel more powerful in your hands, but you have to physically pump it after each shot as well. The sense of presence was wonderful.
Playing with guns was fine and dandy of course, but the real excitement started when I set aside such play things and got down to real business: my ax. With a well-placed swing and a bit of slicing power, I was able to cut through waves of zombies like decomposing butter.
Heads flew off in every direction, limbs littered the floor around me, and I generally felt like a champion standing atop a mountain of corpses on the battlefield. Later on the developers admitted that melee weapons may be slightly over-powered at the moment. I was even able to chop off arms specifically so I could then grab them and beat the zombies to death using their own limbs. The zombie with giant claw-arms was my favorite to dismember.
Scattered around were a few moments of light puzzle solving, such as using a special filter on my flashlight to find spores that need to be shot, or moving a skull from a pile on the ground to an ornate pedestal clearly designed to hold skull-shaped objects.
These moments didn’t serve much purpose other than simply breaking up the monotony of constant wave fighting. A bit more depth and complexity would have been appreciated in some areas, but those elements are mentioned to exist once you dig deeper into the experience.
Killing Floor: Incursion does not currently have a release date, but developers mentioned it would be prior to the second half of the year for Oculus Rift and Touch.
As positively terrifying as it is, Resident Evil 7 played it safe. It’s easily one of our favorite VR games thus far, but it’s also essentially an enhanced version of the game you can play on standard screens with a standard controller. But how do you make a horror game with the full capabilities of VR tech? What does it mean if you bring your hands into the experience? How do you handle enemy encounters?
These are just some of the questions that Hammerhead VR’s Syren tackles, and it has some interesting answers, though they could do with a little polish.
Syren is set in a dark, dank underwater research facility, where a team of scientists have been carrying out brutal experiments on the titular mythical creatures, discovered in an ancient city lost to the oceans thousands of years ago. As you can probably guess those tests go awry and you, a member of that team, find yourself searching for a means of escape as twisted mechanical monsters stalk the creaky halls and linger in the shadows.
It’s more Tales of Terror than it is Resident Evil, though, and that feels intentional. Exploring the facility itself has an atmosphere akin to BioShock, largely thanks to the wonderfully detailed, cramped and claustrophobic environments, but game’s brand of fear is more about jump scares that make you chuckle afterwards rather than making you want to rip your headset off. There are moments that will get your heart pumping, but this is a more enjoyable sort of horror than what you’ll see in other games.
There isn’t any set mechanic to survival in Syren, no repetitive combat systems to defend yourself with or stealth meters to aid your sneaking. Each encounter with an enemy is a multi-threaded scenario with a number of different solutions that can play out organically. Early on, I found myself making great use of VR’s positional tracking to peek out behind corners and wait for an enemy to pass, biting my lip in hope they’d take a left instead of a right to clear the way. I’d then teleport like crazy (the game only lets you move so far) in a mad rush for safety.
Later on, I would stumble across elements in a room that I could use against Syrens, like a gas leak in a kitchen, items I could throw to distract them, or lockers I could hide in. The latter is a particularly heart-thumping use of VR, as I slowly twisted my head to follow one enemy’s movement, watching through a grate and not daring to make the slightest sound. It was as if I was really there in that locker, aware that the slightest knock could end my life, even if the game might not register the collision of hand and metal.
One of my favorite aspects of the game is that lack of systems. Syren simply asks what it would be like if you were really dropped into this situation. There’s no inventory system to store items, for example, you physically have to hold onto them. If you drop an object or hit it against a surface, you’ll probably alert the enemy. You don’t take the game’s mechanics into consideration, you take your physical presence into consideration. That’s something horror games really need to capitalize on going forward.
If a Syren does spot you then it’ll quickly give chase and more than likely end up gnawing on your face. They’ll kill you instantly, and you’ll have to start the level over. It can be frustrating, until you figure out how to get around an encounter. It’s very much a game of trial and error; spend four or five attempts working out what to do, then making your way to the next room, and then repeating the process. It does artificially extend the one to two hour length (you could probably run through the game in less than 30 minutes on a second playthrough), and I would have liked to have seen more than the handful of levels on offer here, even if the later stages bring some unexpected twists to the formula.
Ultimately, though, the game’s main enemy is polish. Though it’s visually arresting, I encountered a handful of bugs and a lack of sound effects that took the impact out what could have been some of the game’s more effective moments. Scripted sequences are not VR’s strong point, and Syren proves that in one or two places. On the other hand, there are times when it sounds like the enemy’s footsteps are right next to you, when they’re really in another room entirely, and I sometimes saw them stop right in front of me, confused by a door I might have walked through or table in their path.
It’s not enough to spoil the overall experience, though I’d have gladly seen Hammerhead spend an extra month fine tuning the game to keep the immersion intact right the way through.
Final Score: 7.5/10 – Good
Though brief, Syren proves itself to be a worthwhile taster of what VR can really do for horror games. While never fully capitalizing on that potential, there are some revelatory moments for the genre here, making you painfully aware of your own self as you hide behind crates and freeze on the spot. That alone helps overlook the short length and handful of bugs and blemishes, and makes Hammerhead VR itself a developer well worth watching.
Syren releases on February 15th on HTC Vive and Oculus Rift for $19.99. A PlayStation VR version is coming in March. Check out these official review guidelines to find out more about our process.
The Kickstarter campaign for Organ Quarter isn’t one you should turn your nose up at; this promising VR horror game only needs a bit of help to get finished.
Organ Quarter is in development at Outer Brain Studios, and it’s been in the works since at least last year. The team is looking to raise $6,500 to help push the game along to its estimated July 2017 release window. In the grand scheme of things this is one of the smaller amounts we’ve seen asked of a Kickstarter campaign, and Organ Quarter’s memorably sickening trailer suggests the Outer Brain is building something worthwhile.
Designed for the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive along with non-VR options, the game is a first-person survival horror set in a bleak, deserted city, not too dissimilar to the iconic town of Silent Hill from Konami’s celebrated series. The player is cast as an isolated man that leaves his home for the first time in months to find his world completely transformed. You’ll be looking for a means of escape, and will solve puzzles and battle twisted enemies with limited ammo to do so.
In the developer’s words, it’s “Resident Evil by way of David Cronenberg and David Lynch.” If that sounds like something you’d be interested in then you can check out a free demo, released last year. It definitely wears its inspirations on its sleeves; touring the grimy corridors to the lucid music feels like being transported right back to classic 90’s survival horror.
What really caught our attention in the trailer was the sublimely grotesque imagery; many of the enemies appear haunting, but it’s the scenes set seemingly on top of a pile of brains that really creeped us out. Coming off the back of Resident Evil 7 [Review: 9/10] we thought we were ready for anything in VR, but maybe not.
Reassuringly, the campaign page talks with a sense of awareness of how overwhelming VR horror can be for both better and worse. Outer Brain promises to “use VR’s sense of physical space and presence to push players past their comfort zone,” but also notes that players need a breather from time to time inside VR. “The game won’t be end-to-end claustrophobia and you can expect plenty of open areas, too (indoor and outdoor),” the page reads.
The team suggests the game will last between five to seven hours in length, aiming to make it “a proper VR adventure”. It will launch on Vive first with an Oculus port a little later down the line. Discounted early bird copies are available for $15 on Kickstarter right now.
Late last week we reported on data from Capcom that revealed at least 62,000 people had been playing Resident Evil 7 [Review: 9/10] with the game’s optional PlayStation VR support on PlayStation 4. One week on and that number has crossed a significant milestone.
ResidentEvil.net, an optional service that collects statistics from RE7 players across all platforms if they opt into it, has just been updated, confirming that over 100,000 people have now played the game on PSVR, since that’s the only VR headset the game is currently compatible with. The current total of VR users (100,101) comes out to approximately 9.3% of the over 1.07 million registered users that opted in to the service through the game’s menu. That percentage has shrunk somewhat; it was at 9.59% when we originally reported on it.
Since the last story broke, Capcom revealed that Resident Evil 7 shipped 2.5 million copies to retailers so far, though hasn’t revealed how many copies have actually been picked up by consumers or on which platforms. Additionally, that would further be boosted by digital downloads on the likes of the PlayStation Store and Steam for overall players.
As we said in the previous post, the number is likely to be even larger in reality, as not everyone with a PSVR will have opted into the service, though it’s also important to point out people using more than one account on the same PS4 console could count for multiple players. When we reached out to Capcom for clarification on what that number means exactly, a represrntative provided the following explanation:
“As far as the stats go, these are figures tracked for users that connect online and have a connected RE.net account and opt-in to share their stats. We don’t have any figures beyond that though.”
It’s a well-deserved milestone; Resident Evil 7 quickly became one of our favorite PSVR games when it launched last month. In our review we called it a “modern classic” that made for a “compelling VR experience.” How much further could that number grow? We’ll continue to keep track of it over the coming months.
Capcom also has an exclusivity agreement with Sony, preventing it from bringing the game to other headsets like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive for a full 12 months. It’s quite possible that this figure could shoot right up next January, then, assuming the publisher does indeed launch support for those platforms.
Last week we reported on the details of the first piece of DLC for Capcom’s Resident Evil 7: Biohazard [Review: 9/10]. Released today for PlayStation 4, Banned Footage Vol. 1, the first pack of new content, includes three things for intrepid horror junkies like myself to sink their teeth into. The aptly titled Nightmare is a wave-based survival mode, Bedroom is an escape-the-room puzzle experience, and Ethan Must Die is a brand new game mode. Only Nightmare and Bedroom feature PlayStation VR (PSVR) support.
Unfortunately, this means that the most interesting new feature (Ethan Must Die) is left out of the VR fold, but we have our fingers crossed it will get support later on.
Instead of accessing the new content from VHS tapes inside the game itself, you’ll actually go to the Main Menu and find them all under the “Extra Content” option. From here you can select the Banned Footage collection or the new Ethan Must Die game mode.
You can watch a quick teaser video above showing off what’s in store for the Banned Footage Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 collections. The second set is due to release on PS4 in two weeks on February 14th. What better way to celebrate Valentine’s Day than with blood, guts, and gore?
Nightmare (VR Supported)
The first piece of new content in Banned Footage Vol. 1, Nightmare, offers some much-needed replayability to a game that formerly only consisted of a single-player campaign. You’ll take on the role of Clancy, the cameraman from the Beginning Hour demo and one of the playable VHS tapes found in the core game. The events found here supposedly take place after he is separated from the rest of his crew. Your objective is to survive for 5 hours until dawn.
You’ll start off in one of the basement rooms of the Baker House, near the processing area. If you completed the base campaign, it will be immediately recognizable. You’ll start with a small collection of resource scraps that can be used to purchase items like guns, ammo, first aid kits, skill upgrades, and more. Spread throughout the basement are processor that create more scraps over time. You can also set traps in pre-defined locations.
Exploring this game mode requires quickly memorizing the layout and making trips between the different processors to stay stocked up on your scraps and supplies. The traps are best saved for late-game usage to get the most out of them. Rooms that have objects in the middle (such as tables) are useful for keeping distance between you and the Molded creatures that spawn. Careful aim and keeping a cool-head will be crucial to passing this new mode.
While it’s not necessarily infinitely replayable and would be improved by more maps or multiplayer, it feels like a welcomed addition to the game. That being said, I can’t help but feel like it should have been there to begin with. It adds a missing layer to the experience that was very likely ready to include by the time the game launched.
Bedroom (VR Supported)
This bit of content feels the most similar to what’s already found in the VHS tapes from the base game’s campaign. You’ll start out as Clancy once again, strapped to a bed this time, as Marguerite stops by to deliver your supper. After she leaves it’s up to you to frantically search the room for a way out.
In practice, it plays out much like a real-life escale room puzzle would, tasking you with exploring every nook and cranny of your surroundings for a way out. But you have to be careful because if you make too much noise then she’ll come back to inspect on what’s going on. If she catches you out of bed then it’s Game Over. If you hear her coming, then you have to try and put everything back the way it was so she doesn’t notice.
Even though it’s not a wave-based survival mode like Nightmare, this one felt more nerve-wracking to me. Part of that could be because Marguerite as a character is more terrifying and disgusting than the Molded, which act much like the over-used zombie archetype that they seem to be based upon.
It’s unfortunate then that it loses its appeal after you’ve figure it all out, but it was fun while it lasted. A bit reminiscent of the Happy Birthday tape from the original game, albeit with a more frantic and rushed premise.
Ethan Must Die (No VR Support)
Finally, the most interesting piece of new content in the bunch is a brand new game mode called Ethan Must Die. While it adds the meatiest junk of stuff to do with the most interesting replayability elements, it unfortunately lacks any PSVR support. Hopefully that changes.
You’ll start out alone and afraid in an attempt to surpass the overwhelming odds of an entire game mode tailor-made just to kill you. Whereas the core campaign featured a litany of ways for you to fight back or run away and hide, Ethan Must Die doesn’t sport those same fine luxuries.
Instead, everything in this game mode appears to be randomized. The higher the star rating on a crate the better item it could have. When you die, you’ll leave a gravestone behind and if you make it back to that gravestone on your next playthrough, then you get a randomly selected item from your past corpse given back to you. It’s almost like an even less forgiving version of Dark Souls’ death and soul system.
It’s strange that this mode doesn’t support PSVR play because for the most part all of the assets are reused from the core game even if this is a “new game mode” technically. It’s a lot of fun and features a disgustingly difficult gauntlet of challenges.
If you loved the original game, then this is worth the $9.99 price of entry. However, I’d recommend getting the $29.99 Season Pass to get this, Banned Footage Vol. 2 (typically $14.99) and an unannounced third piece of paid DLC content all together. You’ll save money that way.
However, if you weren’t amazed by Capcom’s brand of first-person horror in Resident Evil 7, then this isn’t going to do anything to change that. With the most interesting piece of content lacking PSVR features, it’s a bit of a hard sell if you’re a fan of Sony’s HMD, but is still worth playing outside of VR.
