Resident Evil 7 looks like a great return to form for the troubled franchise, a return to the horror roots that made the series so enduringly popular to begin with. And with its support for VR, it promises to amp up the scares and thrills that players will experience even more.
The VR mode, however, has been the subject of some debate ever since the game was first announced. While there is no doubt that VR is uniquely suited to horror games, as well as to Resident Evil in particular, there have been complaints about it causing nausea and motion sickness.
While Capcom have already addressed those doubts, Capcom Europe’s CEO Katsuhiko Ichii has an entirely different potential problem with the VR mode. Speaking to MCV UK (via VideoGamer), he admitted that the VR mode was too scary for him to play through. Capcom apparently is doing its best to ensure that the VR mode didn’t put people in ‘real danger.’
“Honestly, I find it a bit too scary,” he said. “It depends on the person. Some people might play part of it in VR, some might play it entirely in virtual reality, and some might play it entirely on the screen. It’s a choice.”
But that choice doesn’t take into account that the game was developed as a non VR game to begin with- and translating all of that into VR could potentially make the game scarier than the team had bargained for.
“When creating the game, the entire development team approached it as a normal non-VR game, and put in plenty of frightening jump moments,” added marketing director Antoine Molant. “Having said that, obviously from a testing standpoint, we are making sure we are not putting people in danger for real.”
Resident Evil 7 is set to launch on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC next January.