Resident Evil VII VR didn't really scare me

I don't want to sound like I think I'm a bad ass but I wasn't really scared by RE7 VR. Though the early game did give me the creeps and the dark environment throughout is quite overwhelming there are parts of the game that break this experience quite a lot. Now, let me elaborate.

The plantation in VR is second to none. The depth of field in the whole of the area is amazing. The basement crawlspaces feel enveloping and leave me a little claustrophobic. The outdoors feel fantastic and open and even the door opening animation is so good.

This is all unfortunately broken by the characters themselves. There is a long way to go before we can cross that uncanny valley and it is never more prevalent then when Jack or Marguerite appear all up in your grill. Needless to say that happens a lot and really took me out of the world. Like an animatronic skeleton jumping out at you in a theme park the jump is there but you quickly see it's a fake and you really have nothing to be afraid of.

I really did like this game and its story and characters are great. The environment is also awesome but I do really think we have a ways to go before animation can really be good enough to keep you in the world more effectively.

That's my opinion though, what did you guys think? I'd like to know and would love to discuss it with you.

Thanks duders.

Sounds like more of a complaint about the animations than with how scary the game is in VR. I agree with you though in one particular case! Margeurite. That moment in the crawl space where she shows up in your face is a bit awkward. Her face isn't well animated. I'll even say her face isn't well animated in the entire game. Just seems a bit stiff. This is very apparent in the bedroom DLC, which I recommend anyway because it's freaking fantastic regardless.

It's rumored that the exclusive VR deal with Sony is the reason it went first person. For shame. I've tried VR. A monitor is better.

@frostyryan: Yeah! I've heard it's like a VR escape room which could be pretty cool. Yeah I'd boil it down to a complaint about the animation which is the main reason why I had trouble being scared. It just broke me right out of the tension

@ezekiel: I'm glad they went with the first person regardless of the VR exclusivity situation. The series needed a reboot and the perspective was definitely a good way to start. I would have loved to see where they could have gone in third person but as it is I think its great

I haven't beaten the game yet because playing in VR is just hard for me. I can only play about 30 minutes at a time because of my fear. I have played Outlast and Alien Isolation but the VR is just a whole level above what a monitor can bring for me. The actual video quality in the VR is worse than a monitor but I don't really care. The experience of the game is just burdening. I have such dread after starting the game back up. The part where you are at the dinner table towards the beginning just creeped me out too much. I had to move my head to the side and watch in "third person." I could not control myself. I scream a lot.

As for the uncanny valley you are experiencing, I don't think it is different than any other video game. Hell, I think the animation is pretty damn good. Now the camera is what breaks the animation. The worst part about the VR is that the calibration is never perfect so when you go into a specific animation (like if someone grabs you) sometimes you are either facing the wrong way or they are grabbing your "neck" but its about 2 feet off. I constantly re-calibrate so that this doesn't happen but it does anyway. I think that is partially what you are describing?

Again, haven't even gotten close to beating the game.

@haxdax: Yeah, my fiancé couldn't even leave the room she was in because of the fear but I just never got that feeling. And yeah, I think the frequent recalibration is primarily because of the light sensors that the PSVR uses but I do find myself having to recalibrate a lot which can also break the experience. Playing in the dark really helps with that (but I definitely won't help with the fear :P)

Well, that's PSVR's RE7 which is lacking motion controllers and room scale, it's going to be a lot better on the Rift and Vive (graphically too). The head aiming and reliance on a standard controller break the experience quite a bit on PSVR as does how much the PS4 downgrades the game to make it run in VR.

That said, even in PSVR I think it's a lot better than on a monitor, if your aim is to be scared or creeped out.

The Rift is the VR I tried. It's too pixelated, since the picture is so close to your eyes. It's impossible to offer a decent resolution at that distance with reasonable specs. The colors and contrast can't compare with a good IPS monitor.

@ezekiel: So you weren't commenting about whether RE7 is better in VR or not as someone that played both versions then..

I have a 144hz 1440P GSync (IPS) monitor, the Vive is much better for horror than that. The scare factor and immersion outweigh graphical fidelity I think. VR will look a lot better next year.

The pixelation being distracting depends on the game. Some look far better than others, shimmering on distant objects is the biggest problem (game dependant) and of course text heavy games can be glaring. The Rift also has flare issues that the Vive suffers less from. Valve's The Lab looks great.

No colour or contrast problems in the Vive, didn't think the Rift CV1 I got to use was bad either. The contrast of a VA panel is a lot better than IPS anyway, better back levels, but other drawbacks make IPS my preferred all arounder.

Full AAA VR games till need work it seems. I have not tried the VR portion of RE7, but sounds like the mode just exists. I'm sure I would be blown away if it were my first VR experience though, but most people seem to be over that honeymoon period.

@isturbo1984: The environment itself is so well done, everything is to scale and there's proper depth on everything so it's worth checking out for that but, and again this is just me, the characters are just not quite there yet

@ezekiel:I mean, that depends on the person. My first thought every time I put on my psvr is: fuck this looks bad. But give me a half hour in vr and im not occupied by it at ALL anymore to the point i barely notice it. By the time I take the headset off after an hour or longer i always feel like the real world suddenly looks extremely sharp for a couple minutes haha. I adjust quickly I guess.... Not denying it would be better if the tech would be further along though.

I'm even playing on a launch ps4, in the case of RE7, the pro should apparently eliminate the ugly checkerboarding at the edges of the FoV and add better shadows and 2x MSAA.

Having played re7 on a tv and in vr I am not ever bothering with playing it in non-vr again. Im really surprised so few people with a psvr seem to feel that way, I've only seen EP's victor lucas being as enthusiastic about it. It seems so tailored towards being a vr game besides some flat pre rendered cutscenes (Those take me out of the experience the most). A videogame or movie on a flat screen does not manage to make me scared in the slightest, Re7 in vr isnt necessarily 'scary' either but it did keep me on edge constantly with me being in its creepy lived in/real feeling setting making the jumpscares even actually work for me.

And as a videogame it plain plays better with psvr than on just a controller, aiming with your head is almost too good. The speed of your character moving+aiming feels to slow on the screen imo but fine in vr. I also noticed I never needed to look at the map in vr. I can close my eyes and still vividly remember the layout of every place I've visited in re 7 and what happened where down to a degree I had yet to experience in a videogame.

Vr is so weird in how it effects different people though. I find it all really interesting. For example, I have a pretty bad fear of heights irl but those strangely do nothing for me in vr. The difference I've noticed there is that irl I immediately start worrying about me being a clumsy asshole and in vr I don't. That has definitely made me think about rational vs instinctive fear among other things..

Edit:The character dont take me out of it in re7 though btw, I actually thought they looked way better than I expected up close. I can totally see how one could think otherwise though, its true they dont animate perfectly (Still, better than in a lot of other games). Havent had to recentre the view either in my 6+ hours with it. One time my view got swimmy like at gb's psvr launch stream, and turning the psvr on and off fixed it.

Just want to say trading off resolution for the immersiveness of VR is well worth it. My first jaw dropping moment with PSVR was with the London Heist portion of VR worlds. It was like I was really ducking for cover desperately trying to shoot people. Far away pixelated objects really doesn't matter anymore at some point.

RE7 was pretty scary as fuck for me in VR, by the way. For first person horror experiences, I'd say VR is becoming almost crucial. It's simply just scarier.

Haven't played it yet, and don't have a psvr or any high end vr thingy but i think the uncanny valley can make things even more terrifying.

You want a prize?

@rich666: nope, just looking to start a conversation. Thanks for contributing!