Instead, port developer Armature Studio has focused on translating a third-person console shooter into a first-person headset-based game. It’s got crisper textures and spatial audio upgrades, but if you’ve seen the game’s high-definition rerelease or the even more HD fan-made remaster, it’s not an extraordinary graphical overhaul. Unlike Capcom’s recent Resident Evil 2 and 3 console remakes, which were heavily reimagined versions of their source material, RE4VR (technically simply named Resident Evil 4) is a nearly beat-for-beat copy of the original’s narrative, enemy encounters, and level layout. Resident Evil 4’s VR version retools a horror classic with VR combat satisfying enough to make up for its myriad rough edges, producing something surprisingly fun. But the weirdest part by far? It mostly works. And Resident Evil 4 in VR, an Oculus Quest 2 version of Capcom’s 2005 GameCube game, makes a lot of tradeoffs that sound compromising on paper.
Resident Evil 7 supported VR to questionable effect in 2017. VR versions of non-VR games are often at best superfluous and at worst painful - sometimes literally if you’re prone to motion sickness. I didn’t have stellar hopes going into Resident Evil 4’s virtual reality adaptation.
