GameCentral plays Bethesda’s three new VR games, and experiences what might be the future of first person gameplay.
Bethesda has been doing a lot lately, to push itself into the big league of video game publishers. It now has its own yearly showcase at E3 and has influenced the whole industry in the way it announces and previews games only six months or so before they’re released. But lately it’s also been making inroads onto unfamiliar platforms.
The announcement that Doom and Wolfenstein II will be coming to Switch represents the most convincing third party support Nintendo has had from anyone so far. But Bethesda are also very aggressive in their plans for VR, and we’ve just played the first three games they intend to release.
Admittedly, two of the games are just older titles with VR support tacked on, but Skyrim and Fallout clearly suit VR very well – and although full price will certainly be a temptation to the curious. Doom VFR though is built from scratch for virtual reality, and is the most inventive of the three – even though it’s due to be sold at just £20.
Whether Bethesda has an exclusivity deal with HTC Vive or just prefers their tech we’re not sure, but none of the three games have announced any support for Oculus Rift. Two of them work with PlayStation VR though, and will no doubt be heavily promoted by Sony later this year. And with good reason from what we’ve seen so far…
Doom VFR
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Formats: HTC Vive (previewed) and PlayStation VR
Publisher: Bethesda
Developer: id Software
Release Date: 1st December 2017
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim VR
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With Skyrim barely running properly on PlayStation VR it seems as if Bethesda’s most recent role-player is just too much for it. Fallout 4 VR is only being released for HTC Vive, and once again it’s a full price release – although this time without any of the DLC. Running on a powerful PC there’s no compromise in terms of the visuals, but suddenly being able to move around the world like a real person turns Fallout into a very different kind of game.
Unlike PlayStation VR, or Oculus Rift, the Vive headset allows you to walk around a fairly large area in front of the TV and still interact with the game world. You don’t need to turn using a button or a controller, you just turn. You also don’t move a cursor to aim, you aim with your arm. And that quickly turns Fallout 4 into something closer to a straight shooter.
The demo area we were exploring was set-up with lots of enemies, and taking them down proved far easier than it would’ve in the original version. And while V.A.T.S. is still part of the game its slow motion effect feels more like something out of Bayonetta than the tactical aid it was originally supposed to be. None of this is necessarily a criticism, but the feel of the game in VR is very different from just playing on a PC or TV.
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Fallout 4 VR – you’ve got a virtual Pipboy, but not a virtual arm
Bethesda also let us explore outside the demo area, allowing us to get a go on some power armour and explore the post-apocalyptic streets and wilderness. With the improved visuals it was a far more awe-inspiring sight than Skyrim, although it was still obvious that this is a game that was never originally designed for VR. Again, it was the melee weapons that seemed the oddest, as you wave around supposedly deadly weapons like a little toy truncheon.
The Pipboy works better, although it’s a bit weird to see it’s not attached to a virtual arm. You’re able to hold it up and look at it just by flexing your arm though, as if it was a real, physical thing, and the menus are just as easy to use as in the original version.
When Bethesda do create a new role-player, presumably starting with The Elder Scrolls VI, they’ll no doubt do it with VR firmly in mind from the start. And that’s important because the difference between Doom VFR – a game specifically designed for VR – and Skyrim and Fallout 4 is considerable. The role-players are a fudge, and although they seem relatively successful they’re still really only a hint at what a bigger and more complex game would be like in VR.
Formats: HTC Vive
Publisher: Bethesda
Developer: Bethesda Game Studios
Release Date: 12th December 2017
Source: Metro