The surprise reveal at the end of this week’s Resident Evil showcase was a VR update. Specifically, we’re getting a VR port of Resident Evil 4. The game will be released on the Oculus Quest 2, and we’ll get more details about it next week at a special Oculus showcase.
The game looks very similar to the RE4 we remember, down to the guns, enemies, and environments. You can see Leon’s hands during the combat sections, as well as when he types on a typewriter (and I think this is the first time in any Resi game I’ve ever actually seen someone typing on the save-point typewriters) and when he turns a crank in the castle section. Other than that, we can’t see very much of the gameplay, so there’s no way of knowing if there will be any changes or not.
We first heard about a VR version of RE4 after Capcom’s data breach, when leaked documents mentioned the game would be released sometime in Spring 2021. We know from the teaser trailer that the game is being developed by Armature Studio and Oculus Studios. It’s also the first game to be exclusive to the Quest 2. We’ll know more after the Oculus show, which will air on Facebook and Twitch.
It’s not clear whether this is the remake of Resident Evil 4 that’s been rumored to be in the works for a while. While the game has obviously been remade with VR in mind, it doesn’t look like it’s gotten a visual upgrade of any kind — if anything, the graphics resemble those from the original release. That’s not a bad thing necessarily, as a standalone VR headset wouldn’t have the power to run a spiffy new remake, but it begs the question of whether this is the last we’re going to hear of RE4 in the near future.