Virtual reality makes “perfect sense” for horror games like Resident Evil, according to Resident Evil: Revelations 2 producer Michiteru Okabe. As such, it’s a technology that Capcom will consider when thinking about future titles in the blockbuster series, he said in a new interview.
“Speaking personally, I’m really excited about VR,” Okabe told Game Informer. “I think it makes sense. Having gone from 2D to 3D, now it’s time to surround yourself in these worlds instead of just having a screen in front of you. It makes sense; the technology is there.”
The reason VR is such a natural fit for horror, Okabe said, is because it heightens immersion–which is a particularly important element for horror games.
“There’s going to be some really compelling stuff coming out on [VR], no doubt,” he added. “It makes sense for a lot of game genres; I think it makes a special kind of sense for horror games where immersion is more important than perhaps in other genres,” he said. “I think we should most definitely start thinking about what we could do with that kind of technology in the future. It makes perfect sense.”
Also in the interview, Yoshiaki Hirabayashi, who is the producer for the upcoming 1080p Resident Evil remake, said he is “really stoked about the idea of virtual reality.” He added that the team at Capcom in Japan even recreated the mansion from thefirst Resident Evil in VR for a prototype. He joked that if Capcom were to make another remake of the original Resident Evil, “then we need to make that in virtual reality.”
One of this fall’s big-name horror games, Alien: Isolation, features a VR mode on PC–though you’ll need to do some work to get it up and running.
The two major VR devices today are the Facebook-owned Oculus Rift and Sony’s PlayStation 4 device, Project Morpheus. Versions of the headsets made for developers are currently available, though it remains unclear when Rift and Morpheus will go on sale to the public.
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