Master modder Praydog has once again shown the big development studios how to do it; this time by adding full 6DOF VR to both Resident Evil 7 (and its DLC’s) and Resident Evil Village on PC.
Not only that, but these marvelous mods also go a couple of steps further than the offical PSVR release of Resident Evil 7 by introducing both full VRIK (that’s a full player avatar rather than just floating hands) and motion controller support.
What makes this even more impressive is that these new motion controls also feature some extra immersive touches, like the ability to block by holding your hands in front of your face, or being able to physically heal by pulling a medicine bottle out from over your shoulder and pouring its contents directly over your (virtual) hand.
Praydog’s previous Resident Evil mods brought first person VR to both the Resident Evil 2 and the Resident Evil 3 remakes and, after previously playing through both of those games in flat, it’s safe to say that VR was my prefered way to experience them. This is even more true for Resident Evil Village, which you can watch me stupid my way through in this week’s episode of VR Corner (above).
Playing Resident Evil 7 through on PSVR is still one of my all time favourite gaming experiences so when Capcom announced that Resident Evil Village wouldn’t support PSVR, I (along with the rest of the VR community) was understandably disappointed. With the gameplay already in first person, the lack of VR support felt like an incredibly missed opportunity to say the least. As you’ll see in the video above though, Praydog’s mod makes this dream a reality and arguably it provides a better experience than the one we would have gotten if Village had recieved a dedicated PSVR mode.
For a start, having motion controls means that you can free aim with your hands, rather than being limited to the ‘shoot where you look’ control scheme that’s utilised in Resident Evil 7 for PSVR. This, along with a full body model to look at, ups the immersion dramatically and it makes some of the more hectic battles in Village feel nail-bitingly realistic.
Village also looks absolutely incredible in VR. The highly detailed environments were a joy to explore and some of the distant views across the village at the mountain ranges beyond it legitimately took my breath away. One of the most impressive things about playing Resident Evil Village in VR though, is finally being able to understand the true scale of some of the enemies. Lady Dimitrescu in particular feels way more imposing in VR compared to in flat and it turns out I had completely underestimated how much she towered over her daughters.
While easy to set up and get running, Praydog’s mods aren’t perfect and there are a few visual glitches and areas for improvement here and there. Ethan’s body for instance contorts in a very unnatural but comical way when you crouch walk and at other times his clothing can glitch in front of your vision slightly. None of this is detrimental to the overall experience though and when the immersion during the rest of your time in the game is as high as it is here, any slight wobble is easy to look past. Oh, and carrying baby Rose in the prologue of Village is unintentially one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen in VR, and it’s well worth downloading the mod just so you can experience the full baby-balancing, dipping sauce action for yourself!
Both the Resident Evil 7 and Resident Evil Village VR mods are due to be released to the public in the next week or two. Just like the ones for RE2 and 3, both of these mods will be free and open source (if people want to contribute or add new features) but Praydog does have a Patreon you can join if you’d like to support his ongoing efforts to bring flat games into glorious VR-O-vision.
If you’d like to get a heads-up on exactly when these mods will be set live, I can also highly recommend joining the Flatscreen to VR Modding Community on Discord. There’s an incredible number of flatscreen to VR mods available on there already and it’s a great place to ask for help, provide feedback or just give your thanks to the mod makers themselves.
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Ian Higton
Video Producer
Ian is a video producer, keen streamer, VR enthusiast, battle royale fan and retro connoisseur. He lives in the West Midlands with his ZX Spectrum collection and a troublesome cat.
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