Bethesda’s E3 keynote has seen a number of announcements including a new Fallout 4 VR trailer that gives the first public glimpse of VR gameplay in the Wasteland. The company has also revealed that the game will launch in October.
When we tried out an early version of Fallout 4 VR at last year’s E3, it wasn’t apparent just how the studio would retrofit the open world game to VR headsets. There were still plenty of questions about final locomotion style, inventory management and simple things like placing the game’s crafting items. Critically, there was also no ‘V.A.T.S.’ a satisfying slow-motion combat mechanic that has defined the Fallout franchise in recent years.
While only a quick glimpse, the trailer (heading this article) seems to show that the devs have scraped the previous teleportation mechanic in favor of a smooth, forward movement, though this could perhaps be one of several locomotion options. Inventory hasn’t been entirely revealed, but since the game’s ‘Pipboy’ wrist-mounted computer also acts as an inventory management device in the previous non-VR version, it stands to reason the VR Pipboy will too.
The trailer makes heavy emphasis of the crafting/base building mechanic for which Fallout 4 has become so well known, letting you select items by browsing through a hand-mounted UI, and place them easily through natural hand motions.
There’s still no info on how Fallout 4 VR’s V.A.T.S. will work, though Bethesda teases on Twitter that “VATS = another level,” suggesting a complete redesign of the stylized slow-motion targeting system for VR.
Bethesda has confirmed that Fallout 4 VR will launch on the HTC Vive in October 2017. While most Vive games are built on Valve’s OpenVR and technically support the Rift too, it’s unclear if the game will actively block Rift support via OpenVR due to Bethesda parent company Zenimax’s unpleasant history with Oculus.
