I know I’m not alone when it comes to dodging horror titles in virtual reality. I can’t take most horror movies and games as is, and the prospect of being immersed in that environment is likely to either give me a panic attack or result in me smashing something around me.
So I can completely empathise with this poor gamer, who clearly has as much of a disposition for horror as me.
It’s courtesy of the Karl & Renate on YouTube, which is a very small and very new channel featuring a couple playing their way through a series of VR games.
The game in question is The Brookhaven Experiments, a VR survival shooter due out June 23 Australian time. It’s not a bad looking game, and if you were playing it on a standard screen it would probably be about as frightening as the Painkiller series.
But this is VR … and VR is a whole different kettle of fish. And for Renate, it’s way too much.
There’s two elements to this that stuck out to me. For one, the quality of FPS games in VR are improving all the time, even if the texturing seems isn’t as detailed or as crisp as what you’d normally expect from a shooter in 2016.
But more importantly was Renate’s hands. At the end, she’s physically shaking. Her breathing is a little unstable. She can’t hold the controllers or her hand steady.
It’s a reminder of the power that VR has — and also a little reminder to people like me: Don’t. Play. Horror. Games. In. VR.
Comments
6 responses to “For Some People, VR Can Be Truly Frightening”
Wonder what the neighbors were thinking? (She’s never been that loud before?)
I’m mostly not convinced by VR, but that looked like a damn good time to me.
…Perhaps I have a strange idea of what’s a good time.
Lightgun games getting a rebirth!
Come on Sega, bring us some House of the Dead. Overkill 2, preferably 😛
I worry about what this stuff does to your mind. I watch a guy called ukrifter. He does review of horror games and things. Not something I would do in a million yrs.
I just want a goddamn star wars lightsaber dueling game. (Beyond the ho hum tech demo that’s been teased)
Im terrible at scary games, movies, anything that scares basically.
I think the thing that would do it for me would be the fact that when watching off a monitor you turn away and its gone, in VR if you turn away your still in the scary place with the scary thing