resident-evil-7-biohazard — Image courtesy Capcom

Resident Evil 7 is Being Played in VR by Almost 10% of Registered Players

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Jan 29, 2017

Capcom’s latest entrant to its popular Resident Evil franchise is currently being played in VR by almost 10% of its players, according to global statistics from the developer.

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard is Capcom’s long awaited sequel to the company’s hugely popular survival horror franchise and it’s been warmly received by fans and critics since its release last week. With the game’s latest iteration, Capcom took the bold decision to not only build in PlayStation VR support for the game, but also allow gamers to play the title from beginning to end inside VR.

So how popular is that PSVR support proving amongst players? Thanks to daily global statistics provided by Capcom via its RE:7 website, it looks as if VR support is proving to be quite a hit. Stats provided for today are currently showing 9.52% (some 81,000 in all) of Resident Evil 7 players who agreed to share data with Capcom’s website, are bravely navigating the title inside PlayStation VR, an impressive figure when you take into consideration both the low penetration of VR into home markets around the world and the huge player base for the series.

Of course, it’s difficult to be sure precisely what is counted towards these statistics. Note too that only players who agreed to opt to share data with Capcom when beginning the game will count towards the stats. Is the counter incremented if a player dons the headset for a few minutes before continuing using a conventional TV or is it based on playtime percentage per medium? These things are not clear, but we’re inclined still be be extremely heartened by the figure. According to Destructoid, RE7 shipped 2,5 Million copies over the launch period.

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Resident Evil 7: Biohazard is arguably one of the first real opportunities consumer VR has had to prove its allure when stacked against traditional TV gaming on a triple-A title, and it’s clearly been quite a draw for those on the fence over the adoption of VR technology in the home. It’ll be interesting to chart this usage to see if this early enthusiasm tails off as player progress through the game.

Damien Wilson

It would’ve been nice for them to add Oculus/Vive VR support, especially considering the game is available on PC.
- Dee Double You
  
  I’ve read we have to wait a year. I firmly believe that a very large majority of Vive and Rift owners would buy this game simply because friggin Job Simulator is the best we have so far. Big miss here
  - Andrew McEvoy
    
    What? Have you not tried Onward or Arizona Sunshine yet? :D
    - Julian Chavez
      
      Arizona Sunshine is a POS
      - Andrew McEvoy
        
        I beg to differ. Quality game.
  - Raphael
    
    I guess you’re trying to make a point by gross exaggeration. Fail.
  - Zac Menteer
    
    I did buy it after seeing the VR tag lol. After seeing it boot up in theatre mode, found out about the deal with PS. RETURNED. What a shame after hearing friends talk about how cool it was. Terrible move on Capcom’s part.
  - Brent
    
    No way! Onward is the best vr game!
mellott124

I still can’t play more than about 10 minutes of Doom 3 in VR at a time. I love the Resident Evil games but this one might give me a heart attack.
- Wolfkolf
  
  I didn’t know the VR Doom was out yet. Or are you talking just the demo?
  - CaptainHappy
    
    There’s a hefty Doom 3 mod where they’ve implemented motion controls, I’m tempted to try it when I get the time.
  - NooYawker
    
    DoomBFG was modded for VR. You also have to download the texture pack. It’s pretty amazing to be inside a Doom game with full touch motion. The mod and texture pack is free but Doom BFG edition is not.
  - Wolfkolf
    
    Thanks for the info :-)
- Jimmy
  
  Only might give a heart attack? :D I already “had” it a week ago, when I tried playing RE 7 for the first time. I have no ideas, how others deal with the fear and all that freaky element in the game, but for me, RE7 is more than scary… However, what I am really interested about is the resident evil 7 2 player modes. As I understand, and according to this article http://www.residentevil7news.com/resident-evil-7-two-player RE7 is not going to have it… Is it really true? Or something is going to change? Please let me known… I really want to play it with my best friends. :(
Andrew McEvoy

Is this coming out for Viver/CV1 ever?
- Sch@dows
  
  VR support is a 1 year exclusive for PSVR apparently.
- Wolfkolf
  
  Nice! As soon as VR for the Vive comes out I will grab this game in a blink of an eye.
  - Sch@dows
    
    I will only replay it in VR if the support is improved. As detailed in my other comment, the current implementation can easily be mimicked with VorpX hack and it is not proper VR support for me.
    - care package
      
      you seem to be quite more optimistic about vorpx than most of what I read. I owned vorpx once. I say owned because I asked for my money back and they nicely gave it. This was after playing Alien Isolation on the DK2 so I knew what real VR implementation was like before I bought vorpx and how much better it was than vorpx ‘mouse look’
      - Sch@dows
        
        I don’t really like VorpX.
        Most of the officially supported games are ok (more like “meh”) while the unofficial hack to make it works on other titles are even worse.
        
        What troubles me is more the fact that it doesn’t provide a full VR experience (like RE7) more that the short comings in tracking/warp.
      - care package
        
        have you played it in VR? I don’t think you’ve actually said whether you have or not.
      - Sch@dows
        
        Not in VR (I only buy exclusives on PS4, and multi-platform titles on PC).
        That’s why the issues I raised and explained were about the lack of VR features (like I already experience in any other “lazy” titles) and not about how well/bad the few (one?) included features works.
        
        I’m sure the head tracking works fine (I’ve heard people complaining about mismatching scale but that’s probably due to an incorrect IPD setting as usual), but that’s the least you can expect from a native support.
        It’s just not enough from a AAA franchise.
        There is a difference between “It’s better that nothing” (understandable because of the lack of major VR titles on PSVR) and “it has great VR support”.
- ShiftyInc
  
  Yes, we just have to wait a year before we are getting it. Exclusivity deal with Sony for VR for a year. Positive side to this, is that the game will be discounted by the time the VR patch hits.
  - Joel C
    
    Ha you really think it will be discounted? Maybe $10 less, otherwise Hell no.. they are going to sell it like it’s mostly new.
    - ShiftyInc
      
      it already was 45 euro here, so by the time a winter sale is happening you can easily get it for 30 or so.
Keith.

I’m playing the game using PSVR but I haven’t registered with their website, so I’m not included in those statistics. Awesome game.
- Toby Zuijdveld
  
  I’d say it’s more important as a VR owner to give your information to a pioneering company like Capcom than it would have been at any time in the past. These statistics are public, so it’s not just Capcom that could be influenced by them.
Sch@dows

“Capcom took the bold decision to not only build in PlayStation VR support for the game” <– seriously, VR support is just at VorpX level, how can it be a bold move ?

The game is really great, really, but the VR support is clearly lacking in so many ways (lack of 360° tracking and roomscale is due to PSVR shortcomings but the rest is not).
– Having VR controller available (move) and not using them to interact with the virtual world, seriously?! And aiming with the head is so constraining.
– Linear locomotion as the only method for moving, which is well known to make a lot of people sick. Sure, you can slow the speed to accommodate better, but then you are often too slow to escape from enemies, and it doesn't really solve completely the issue.
– VR was so quickly and badly implemented that the game switch to some kind of theater mode during 1st person cutscenes (with a screen floating in the dark), the subtitles are often hidden by the characters hand or the environment, and menues keeps breaking the immersion.

At the end of the day, this is just a poor VR implementation like the ones we saw during the first years of Oculus' DKs, but since it is well known AAA franchise (and PSVR lacks proper VR games appart from Driveclub), critics seems to be quite lenient about it.
- Gazmeister
  
  You could throw all sorts of arguments in here as to why it is poorly implemented but here’s the thing. As a vive owner as well as having a PSVR, none of those matter because Res 7 is the FIRST game that has truly sold me on VR, regardless of all the criticisms you mention here. It is a triumph for VR, regardless of any issues you have with it. Why not be happy that VR is finally getting a much-needed push? If there ever was a game to blow your mind using VR, this is it! Oculus and Vive owners might feel peeved due to the PS exclusivity deal and I get that. But this game is truly the first game that made my PSVR purchase a warranted one.
  - Sch@dows
    
    I’m not enthusiast about throwing flower at RE7 VR support if that means devs only need to do that much (basically nothing).
    Vive and Rift users don’t have to be disappointed. Just use VorpX and you have exactly the same experience as the one offered on PSVR (and you can do the same with most AAA titles on PC so if you are happy with RE7 implementation a whole world of VR games awaits).
    
    VR games like that are a thing of the past, and should stay there. It is NOT a good thing for VR, especially with this kind of locomotion system which is make lots of people nauseous.
    
    The fact that RE7 is your 1st worthwhile VR experience, considering you own a Vive, also shows how “journalists” keep highlighting already well known AAA titles despite the poor work, instead of showing more modest titles with real work behind.
    
    If you haven’t tested yet, I suggest you try “The Solus Project” (Steam refunds you if you played less than 2h), a survival game with good story and really good VR support (not just some camera control of the standard version).
    - NooYawker
      
      While full locomotion isn’t my thing you can’t say it’s a thing of the past. Lot’s of people can handle it just fine.
      - Sch@dows
        
        Unfortunately, a lot more don’t (it gets better with pratice and time, but that’s still not ideal). That’s why it isn’t a good idea to base the gameplay around that idea.
      - Andrew McEvoy
        
        I think most people can handle it. Onward is a fine example of full locomotion that the majority of people can play without any ill effect. There is a growing resentment amongst users that the more vocal crowd are skewing this perception that most people get motion sickness from full locomotion and thus we have seen most early game developers playing it safe with teleportation based games. At the end of the day though Id personally hate to see this division fester and would hope to see developers create games that cater for both needs if possible. I think full locomotion only games will still sell well though, taking the most popular vr game out there as an example (Onward).
      - Sch@dows
        
        I’m not sure Onward can be used to say “the majority of people can play without any ill effect” because, let’s be honest, is Onward really a well known VR game that would gather players from every horizons (hardcore VR gamers and more casual VR gamers) like RE7 is?
        Even I, who is surely not a reference but who keep myself informed everyday through VR oriented websites like roadtovr, etr and a few other, never heard of it before.
        
        Good for you if you’re really thinking “the more vocal crowd are skewing this perception”, but that a reality (not a virtual one ;p).
        Even on lot of generalist gaming website (usually not VR oriented and were you will find more unbiased opinions from new VR users) had reported having trouble to test RE7 in VR from start to finish, because they didn’t necessarily had “compatible” testers for it. A lot of comment were saying the same.
        
        But I join you in with the idea games should not offer one locomotion mode only, and let the user choose. But to do that, you need to include this in the game design early on. You can’t do it if your game has scripted event that must occur when you reach a specific coordinate that you could skip by teleporting.
      - Andrew Mcevoy
        
        You havent heard of Onward? It is early access but its been getting rave reviews since its release last August. One of the many positive feedback comments is how people who usually are a little shall we say susceptible when it comes to full locomotion saying that they didnt feel any ill effects with this set up. It also has the consistently busiest severs according to Steam (Read uploadvr link below!) so it is a popular game. My point is that it is built for vr from the ground up and has already proved to be successful for what it is. I hope there are more games like this as well as teleportation only games, not just teleportation only games, as that would give me the sads ;)
        
        Some links for you..
        
        http://uploadvr.com/onward-college-dropout-vr-shooter/
        
        http://www.roadtovr.com/valve-takes-onward-developer-wing/
        
        https://www.pcgamesn.com/onward/onward-valve
        
        and check out those steam reviews!
        
        http://store.steampowered.com/app/496240/
      - Sch@dows
        
        Thanks, never heard of it yet, but it’s never too late.
        I will check it as soon as I come back home (don’t have access to these sites from work T__T)
      - Andrew Mcevoy
        
        Also as a sidebar, isnt Arizona Sunshine a scripted game in that things happen once you hit a mark? Its mainly down to activating switches and doing stuff but this works both with full locomotion and teleportation (may I refer to these as just loco and tele from now on?? Lazy but my fingertips are burning) so perhaps that might be a way around this issue for scripted games..
        .. i:e Don’t have your trigger switches be down to moving to a specific area but instead have it be down to activating switches or opening doors.
      - Sch@dows
        
        Exactly, that’s how you design a game with loco and tele (;p) in mind.
        Force the player to pick some key item or execute some action where you’re sure he can’t escape the script and BAM !! make him dirty his pants >__<
      - Toby Zuijdveld
        
        You’re right; lots of people can handle it just fine – the only stats I’ve seen regarding research on the matter states that ~10% of people suffer from VR motion sickness. That isn’t ‘a lot more’ than 90%, any way others may want to try to spin it.
    - Gazmeister
      
      I will give that a try! And to be fair, Resident Evil is not a VR only game first, only second. The majority of people play this game because it’s resident evil, not because it is in VR. And from that perspective I understand your point, they have not given VR the love that VR only titles receive. That being said, I was impressed with the amount of provided options to minimize nausea and as a result, I haven’t experienced any at all but that is a personal thing.
      Resident Evil 7 to me is a benchmark for VR gaming – a well-rounded full experience that blows your socks off in VR.
      - Sch@dows
        
        Indeed, the option to reduce movement speed is helping greatly to minimize nausea, but at the same time makes it more difficult to escape from enemies.
        I suppose you can’t have everything when the game isn’t design with VR support from the start.
        
        And of course, you’re right to think people bought the game mostly because it is a RE franchise game, but considering the lack a real VR games on PSVR at the moment, I’m sure lot of PSVR owners bought the game even if they were not particularly into survival horror games.
      - Gazmeister
        
        I’m sorry for those people cause they will be terrified! I love survival horror and played non-stop with my butt cheeks clenched together :’)
      - Joel C
        
        Wish I could play on PC in VR.. Thanks A lot Capcom. Great way to show your future support of VR catching fire.
    - Joel C
      
      VorpX Doesn’t work that well though, it’s buggy in many games. Hard to setup and configure, and I’d prefer the devs just make a simple VR option for head tracking in all their future development. This would save VR from becoming a gimmick by giving us a huge library and also not making Devs lose money trying to cater to the smaller niche of VR gamers.
  - Rey Barrera
    
    Yeah this sounds more like someone’s just annoyed that the PSVR is getting some love and is trying desperately to pimp other options. It’s a great experience in VR and I’ve played VR across all three major platforms (and even google’s portable entry).
    
    It’s just nice to see that a healthy number of folks are playing VR period.
    - Sch@dows
      
      I must admit I would have been jealous if PSVR had that 1 year exclusivity with full VR support. But feel free to discard/ignore all the arguments in my initial comment and treat this as just some random rant against the game and the so-called journalists.
- Raphael
  
  So I guess you’re complaining it lacks teleport. Vorpx? So it builds a vr image by harvesting the frame buffer and then applying an ugly image-warp as you look around?
  - Sch@dows
    
    Teleport, interaction with tracking controller (aiming, searching/scavanging), VR friendly HUD (mostly inventory), VR/360° cutscenes … what you would expect from a “bold decision” to support VR in a AAA game.
    - Raphael
      
      You mean teleport as an option?
      - Sch@dows
        
        Of course, or something close to it.
        Although most of players would feel nauseous using the linear locomotion system, some may prefer it, and it would be a shame to prevent any player to use it if they want, especially since it is the easiest thing to do in a game already playable without VR.
        
        As I said, they just didn’t seem to have put much thought into it when they decided to add VR support in the game.
    - Steve Bishop
      
      It does have VR in some cutscenes (dinner scene), the ones you are likely referring to are the pre-rendered scenes, of which, you couldn’t do VR for now matter how much you tried.
      
      Teleport would be horrible and would break the game, unless it had stamina assigned to, which may also break the game. Jack grabs you because you can’t teleport away, or Jack can never grab you and the game is ultra-easy because you just hop around like a damn jedi.
      - Sch@dows
        
        Like I said in response to another comment, Teleport “or something close to it”.
        I agree with you, teleport won’t work in this game (at least as it is) and not only for when the Bakers chase you (because the devs could have made them teleport too when you don’t look at them, or just let them run). Most of the game is based on scripted jumpscare moment (which kills replayability to some extends and that’s one of the few issue I have with the game), and teleport would let you avoid to coordinates where the script should trigger.
        
        That’s just demonstrate how the game was’t built with VR in mind, and it was just added later on when the game design was already decided.
        
        Again, it is a great game I really enjoyed (despite an underwhelming second part), but VR support was the bare minimum, unfit of the praise you can read from the press on that aspect.
        Congratulate Capcom for such a job won’t push them to stick their fingers of of their ass and offer a proper VR support, or a game with VR in mind from the start.
- care package
  
  Guess we are soon to hear from people that have played it so we can find out if they getting so sick or if it’s such a ‘poor VR implementation. So far to me the reviews read quite positive.
  - Toby Zuijdveld
    
    The thing about reviews and VR sickness is that everybody who is affected is not necessarily affected by the same games, or in the same way. There’s no way to quantify this currently, so any singular reports by a journalist can only at best give an indication that you might feel something maybe. Reviews basing their overall opinion of a VR game based on how bad their motion sickness was are bad reviews. It’s like someone who suffers sea sickness telling normal people ‘stay away from that boat’.
    
    When it comes to VR, treat any game that doesn’t give a demo as suspect, imo. RE7 of course has a demo.
    - care package
      
      I would agree completely, and just for the record I have not heard/read anyone getting sick from it.
      - Toby Zuijdveld
        
        Oh, I certainly have. Though the vast majority of cases are resolved by fiddling with the comfort options.
- Brent
  
  Linear locomotion is the best option
  - Sch@dows
    
    Because …
  - Toby Zuijdveld
    
    Because linearly is how humans travel. If you want to be immersed in a game world it literally can’t be done any other way.
  - Joel C
    
    Yep totally Agree.. Linear Locomotion (is that even the right term) rocks! Like in Doom3BFG! Screw all the Hand Motion Controls, and Room Scale Wii gaming crap. We just want developers to add simple VR headtracking to their games with DirectVR. Stop trying to over complicate things.. that is why we dont have Fallout VR mod yet.. because they are taking another YEAR to cater to all the VR fanatics that have to utilize every one of their expensive toys for all of 2 hrs.
jlschmugge

This is good to show that people will play VR if given full experiences that are enhance the the same screen version.
Simonsteamyhead

I played res 7 exclusively on psvr for the first 6 hours of the game and am loving every second of it.The immersion and scale is mind blowing.The atmosphere it creates is genuinely heart pacingly scary.The trepidation when opening a door into an unknown room is honestly quite intimidating…Then as a comparison I played for 1/2 hour on a 55″ 4K tv.The difference was night and day.It was flat and tiny and using the stick control for looking around was incredibly slow and awkward.It was like playing with extremely limited tunnel vision.It had no atmosphere and tbh had no tension or scares when compared to VR.Nothing more than this direct comparison proved to me that VR for games is now the only way to play…
Rey Barrera

I’m definitely playing it in VR and didn’t sign up to be probed lol
- Toby Zuijdveld
  
  I’d say it’s more important as a VR owner to give your information to a pioneering company like Capcom than it would have been at any time in the past. These statistics are public, so it’s not just Capcom that could be influenced by them.
NooYawker

I’m playing this game on regular screen but I don’t I couldn’t handle it if I was playing this on my Vive. Somethings are too immersive and I don’t want to be in that house. I must admit, I’m a big wuss when it comes to scary VR.
Mikey M

After playing this in vr I can honestly say that this is THE best immersion and best gaming experience I have ever felt in any video game….EVER!….It just knocked my favorite gaming experience ever down (Skyrim) to 2nd place…the psvr would be a great buy even just to experience this 1 game…it’d be worth the money spent even if you did not buy any other game for it either…I’m a 44 y.o. gamer that has had pretty much every console video game…even the neo-geo, colecovision, Sega saturn, etc…I’m so friggin happy to have been able to experience this in my lifetime….i might even trade in all my games and only buy psvr games from now on (I own all the top rated vr ones already)…i just love the complete immersion…now, mind you that this is just my opinion, I am blown away by this game…the demo of RE7, that I had played for the past month really set things up…I gotta admit I absolutely love survival horror games and believe this is better than any horror movie ever made…these horror games now are better scripted than many movies out there and really get you into it more by engaging you in it….this is jaw-dropping, jump-scare, intense gaming at its finest! At least to me…again..this is just my opinion, but also of my friends that have seen this as well…can’t wait for more top psvr games…I don’t think I can ever play any game unless it is in vr again? Especially after being immersed in this game…get this!!! You won’t regret it…it’s something that you have got to experience! It will change your outlook on gaming…I cannot even play this too late on a work night…the adrenaline really gets a pumping…unbelievable experience! Come be a part of the family…bwaahhhahaha
- Gazmeister
  
  We must be brothers, cause I could have written this. I’m 39YO and feel EXACTLY the same. This will blow everybody’s mind!!!!
- Toby Zuijdveld
  
  I’m 37 and it didn’t blow my mind – I still consider Rush of Blood my favourite VR title – but it was pretty fantastic playing a full length title in VR. It’s too ‘regular game’ paced for me to want to invite people over and stick them in this (the demo’s a better fit), but it might well be the first game I ever buy a Season Pass for, because Capcom needs my tracking for their statistics :p
Joel C

I felt so pissed when I learned one of the few games I looked forward to playing in VR; due to pure greed, had it’s VR part held back on the PC. Damn Capcom! So I refused to buy the game. Now it’s been cracked so they just missed no telling how many sales. I would have bought day 1 if it had VR though. Now I’ll just screw around with it in VorpX to get it working anyway.
John

I use it fully but dont send data. Wonder how many more doing this.