Bethesda’s debut VR title Skyrim VR (2017) recently received its third patch since the hotly awaited game launched on PSVR back in November. According to a studio forum post, the free patch not only fixes a few quality-of-life issues such as realistic bow-shooting and control scheme changes on PS Move, but also improves visual fidelity on both PS4 and PS4 Pro.
As the studio’s first VR game, followed by Fallout 4 VR (2017) and DOOM VFR (2017), Skyrim VR suffered a few unfortunate missteps at launch, which the company seems to be addressing in their latest patch.
One of the biggest niggles for PSVR players was the sometime muddy graphics, which at times resulted in distant features devolving into completely unrendered fields and repeating textures—not at all the experience we had on the PC version. To boot, Bethesda promises the latest patch brings “[g]lobally improved visual fidelity, particularly on PS4 Pro.”
Another clear immersion breaker: PS Move controllers were rendered when weapons were sheathed in the previous version of the game, something that felt entirely out-of-place in the fantasy world setting. Now, Bethesda has included a “show hands when sheathed” option, which replaces PS Move with hand models.
Like many action-oriented VR games, Skyrim VR previously relied on hand-relative direct movement, but now also includes the option to move via head-relative movement (looking in any direction and pressing ‘forward’ sends you in that direction).
We mentioned in our review that bow-shooting felt less intuitive and natural than many of the bow implementations we’ve seen in made-for-VR titles because of its use of only one PS Move controller to aim. Now it appears Skyrim VR will allow for a more standard bow-shooting scheme by allowing you to use both PS Move controllers to aim.
Some other quality-of-life updates including a new menu experience, an adjusted angle for spell casting, and map marker information have been added.
Here’s the full patch notes:
Skyrim VR for PSVR Patch 1.4.40.0.8
- Added a new main menu experience
- Globally improved visual fidelity, particularly on PS4 Pro
- Increased the maximum value for the height offset slider
- Various bugfixes
- Changes when using PS Move controllers:
- In direct movement, changed the secondary X button to move the player backwards.
- Added a new option, enabled by default, to “Show Hands When Sheathed”
- Sheath/unsheath has been moved to hold secondary O.
- Adjusted angle for spell targeting to be more comfortable
- The existing swimming has been moved to a new option for “Realistic Swimming”. Swimming by default now uses Direct Movement style controls
- Added option for HMD-relative direct movement instead of controller-relative direct movement.
- Added a new option for “Realistic Bow Aiming” which uses both PS Move controllers to aim
- Players can now point at map markers and get information on them in local map mode