Hearing that RE7‘s demo (available now) had updated for the last time, I decided to check out the final version before the game launches in January because they’ve just added the long-promised VR mode!
You can check out the video of my playthrough below, and then please join me further down for some thoughts on the subject of VR control schemes. Specifically, how frustrating it is that developers force a strange, immersion-breaking ‘turn using your head’ system into VR games.
Whether it’s Here They Lie, Robinson’s Journey, or now with Resident Evil 7, developers cause themselves trouble by creating bizarre and jarring movement systems designed around the premise that people should always be looking at the place they’re walking towards — and they’re all awkward.
I’m not sure why they’ve gone down a route that asks players not only to to turn in 30-degree pie slices, but to constantly have to recenter themselves, or to be unable to glance to the side or backwards without running into a wall. Not only are these systems cumbersome to use, they run counter to the natural experience that VR is supposed to be providing.
How is it so difficult to understand that my controller should be in charge of my character’s body, while my head is free to look wherever I want? Developers understand this just fine in vehicle games — Battlezone on PSVR plays like a dream since I can move my tank and aim the cannon in any direction I like while glancing around to my heart’s content. The moment I’m asked to step out of a tank and move into the FPS realm, however, developers decide that I can’t be trusted to look around freely while walking straight down a hallway.
Perhaps they think that this is some sort of hedge against motion sickness, but I have to say that it’s had the opposite effect for me. The only times I’ve ever been close to queasy playing a VR game is when the game world ceases to follow the normal operations of the physical world it’s simulating. Specifically, when pressing forward on a controller suggests I should be walking in a straight line, only to have the slightest turn of my head make my course go wobbly.
This isn’t simulating how people walk, it’s the opposite, and it’s a terrible solution to a problem that didn’t exist.
Resident Evil 7 doesn’t come out for another month, and between now and then I hope that the developers see fit to offer a classic FPS-style control scheme. Move with the left stick, turn with the right stick, and give me the freedom to look and aim independent of what my body is doing. Is that really such an ask?
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It’s exactly for minimizing motion sickness. When you’re sitting down in a car or a tank or some other vehicle then your brain doesn’t mind that the surroundings are moving. When you should be walking and you are not actually moving forward and instead of some external force is moving you about it can get pretty nasty. As a VR developer would you make a control scheme that would fit the norm but it would probably make a bunch of people sick and quit on VR/ stop buying your games/write bad reviews? No one wants to take that risk. Even… Read more »
When I’m walking and I turn my head, I expect to keep moving forward, not start moving in the direction I’m now looking. This effect is the only thing that’s ever created motion sickness when I’m playing VR. I know not everyone is reacting to to VR the same way, but it seems like – in a game that already offers every other kind of option for how they want VR to work – they could also put in a switch to turn head-based aiming on and off. Controller for legs, head for vision and arms – how is that… Read more »
The intial demo at E3 had easily the worst reception there has been to a VR game, made people horrendously ill, causing a pretty large amount of negative publicity for VR full stop. https://www.engadget.com/2016/06/15/resident-evil-7-vr-sickness-ps-vr/ It’s specifically because they had standard FPS controls in addition to the VR head movement. In particular they allowed people to look around using the left stick, that’s one of the worst things you can do. You should never ever have camera movement that doesn’t 100% precisely match the player’s head movement. So that’s the reason why it now snaps in increments, that’s a proven way… Read more »
You’re absolutely right that this is risky terrain they’re exploring, but right now RE7 is offering a half-measure that just isn’t satisfying yet. You can choose pie slice or smooth scrolling, you can strafe, walk backwards and forwards, even do a quick-180 turn. With all of those choices, adding free head movement would at least be an interesting experiment – and I suspect that it would be less stressful for some, as this whole ‘automatically walk the way you’re looking’ is the only time I’ve ever gotten a little queasy playing VR titles.