A friend shared with me some threads that Digital Foundry’s John Linneman was posting about Gran Turismo 7 and Resident Evil Village on PlayStation VR2.¹ They way John was talking about both games makes me all the more surprised that PlayStation did not find a way to provide these games to press for the initial review embargo. Perhaps it was a combination of not being quite ready and wanting to have a rollout of positive game impressions during the launch period.

OK, GT7 in VR is unbelievable. One small detail that literally caught my eye – the HDR glare of headlights in your mirrors during night races. It’s bright to the point where it closely resembles reality in a similar situation. I’ve never seen anything quite like this in a game.

They really nailed the world scale in this. It just feels natural. I keep reaching for the wheel as visible through the headset when the racing wheel I’m using is, in fact, slightly smaller. This is one of the most immersive VR experiences I’ve encountered to date.

Also, steep corners and hills, such as at Laguna Seca, suddenly feel towering. I legit felt my stomach drop as if riding a rollercoaster when I first tackled that hill. Plus, you can see your helmet reflect in the steering wheel’s metallic pieces as you move your head around.

This sounds so unbelievably lifelike. I was streaming GT7 last week in preparation of PS VR2. The simple notion of being able to turn your head to look at traffic or look ahead while riding a tight line in a turn should be transformative for races. John has me looking at steering wheels again. Lord help me.

I mean, we are talking about helmet reflections, headlight HDR, and proper scale of hills and valleys. I’ve never experienced this in VR. This sounds transformative.

Well, RE Village VR is also tremendous. Proper black levels really elevate the tension. It looks super impressive in VR and the completely reworked interface brings it closer to something like HL Alyx. It’s a separate mode with its own saves for a reason but it’s brilliant.

The one weird caveat with Village are the cutscenes – they keep the original camera motion and it’s clear they weren’t made for VR so I suspect some might get motion sickness from it.

I noticed the cutscene camera movement in the previous trailers. I recall a scene where one of the vampire daughters drags you away and thinking that had some motion sickness potential, since you are not lying down. I’ve curious to see how I will feel.

The more important part is the true blacks and John’s comparison to Half-Life: Alyx. I was talking with Logan yesterday and he remarked how Alyx is still the landmark, must-play VR game: He was talking about how slow marquee VR game development is slowed. My counterpoint was that I think Alyx may have new games entering its hallowed halls with both Village and GT7. If John’s impressions are any indication, I think VR on the whole has two new must plays, experience defining games on its hands (head?).

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1. Don’t worry, I am and have been sticking with my departure from Twitter. I’ve actually enjoyed my time away for the most part. Some days I wish I could scroll, but most of the time I feel free. I have noticed some unhealthy trends to fill that time—more Discord and YouTube—but I have been reading and writing more. And I have certainly spent more time focus on and playing with my daughter. I consider this decision a major, major win.

Capcom via Twitter, Tweet #1 and Tweet #2, translated via Google Translate

『バイオハザード RE:4』のVRモードが開発スタート！
詳細は続報をお待ちください！

『バイオハザード RE:4』のVRモードはPlayStation5/PlayStationVR2向けの無料DLCとして配信される予定です。

VR mode of “Resident Evil RE: 4” has started development!
Stay tuned for more details!

VR mode of “Resident Evil RE: 4” will be distributed as free DLC for PlayStation5 / PlayStationVR2.

Feels both timely and strange to make this announcement. Resident Evil Village for PS VR2 just launched alongside the headset, so that makes sense to remind people that Resident Evil 4‘s remake will have some form of PS VR2 support as well. Capcom is roughly one month from RE4‘s release, so this indicates that the VR mode is further off.

But why is development starting now? This makes me wonder when Capcom and PlayStation made the deal to add VR to the game. Capcom has also yet detail what this mode is. Many, including myself, hope it is the entire game; just like Resident Evil 7: Biohazard and Resident Evil Village, but they have not outright confirmed that hope. I was hopeful that we’d see this mode in action at the State of Play tomorrow, but if development just started, then I doubt it.

I would have thought the mode would have been developed alongside the game, rather than at the end of its base development.

I still cannot believe that Capcom is giving these VR versions away for free with the base game to PS VR owners. What remarkable goodwill to garner with fans/consumers. I wonder how much Sony pays Capcom for these exclusives. These are huge second-party exclusives for the platform. VR is the method I prefer to play Resident Evil in and I will definitely be tackling Village with my PS VR2 for Chapter Select.

Last week’s Nintendo Direct was a solid one. Phil Summers and I talked it through on The Max Frequency Podcast last week, but I wanted to whip up a post about my favorite bounty hunter’s return. It feels good to get this long-standing rumor out into the open. Yet, it still felt surprising in some ways. The shadow drop the day of the Direct was the biggest of the bunch, with the physical release next week.

I was happy to see Retro at the helm. This is their first release since Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze for the Switch in 2018. It’s technically their first “new” game since Frozen Ape hit the Wii U in 2014; nearly a decade! Like I said on the show, someone has to tell the story of Retro Studios some day.

I was bummed to hear that the original credits are not represented in the game, leaving out that exceptional development team. It was also interesting to learn that there were nine support studios that worked on the remaster.¹ Only two of them have updated their sites with the news that they worked on the game (Airship Interactive and Mineloader). A lot of these teams also worked on Halo Infinite, which speaks more to the state of that game than Prime. It’s no wonder this game leaked.

And of course, the best bit of coverage on the game is Digital Foundry’s analysis. A beautiful showcase of the remastered assets and game performance. Interesting to see 900p be the resolution docked, but I am happy to hear that the framerate is stable. Metroid Prime has been stuck on the GameCube and Wii/Wii U for years now. With the digital version of the Trilogy going away, it’s nice to have the game brought forward into the modern era. I hope Echoes and Corruption get similar treatment, but the rumor mill says otherwise.

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1. The studios were Airship Images Limited (characters and hair), Atomhawk Design, CGBot, Gamesim Inc, Iron Galaxy Studio, Liquid Development, Original Force LTD, Shanghai Mineloader Digital Technology (lots of stuff), and Zombot Studio.

Our time in Kansas City has come to an end with the conclusion of what may be the season’s only two part story. Last week’s episode had disappointment by way of attempts at humanizing the raiders dubbed Hunters. We got more of that, which continued to fall flat, but not before we are introduced to the brother duo of Henry and Sam.

The boys get a twenty-ish minute flashback that gives their struggle some context. We see the aftermath of liberating the quarantine zone, which comes off far more like a party than pillaging. It actually disconnected me from the setting until we saw a body dragged through the streets with knifes jutting out of its chest. The whiplash I experienced here threw me off the Hunters even more.

Henry and Sam are tweaked. Both come are younger than their in-game counter parts, and Sam is also deaf, which isn’t from the source. Henry is less experienced, but swift, smart, and bold, if not rash. When the brothers’ supplies run low, Henry prepares to try and leave the city. He witnesses Joel’s laundry mat encounter and knows that he could be their savior.

We then get this melding of the sewers and Pittsburgh as the four fugitives skulk their way through the tunnels of Kansas City. Shifting to television, most gameplay chunks are stripped away (except for two choice moments later in the episode). One cut was the sewer encounters and Ish’s community. The underground threat is established by Henry, but the tunnels are clear for the crew. We get no separation of Joel and Ellie and learn little of the horrors that happened down below the surface. It’s a scene that is robbed – partially if you know what you are missing – but the foursome is robbed of any real time to grow.

They try with underground soccer and brooding side conversations, but there just isn’t enough time for the relationships to take root. Cutting Sam’s age down by five years (from 13 to 8) feels like a cheap method of nixing the need for growth. Ellie feels more like a caretaker than a friend to Sam. Henry only opens up about his failures and dedication to his brother. We don’t see the motorcycle daydreaming, barbecue loving man. With their fate sealed by the end of the episode, they are gone just as swiftly as they appeared. I wish they could have been introduced last week more fully. The cuts from the game are felt this week in a way I think impacts both players and newcomers. There just isn’t enough time to even mourn Sam and Henry.

On the Hunter side of things, Kathleen was introduced last week, but I feel like the show really struggled to give her humanity. They tried with the childhood bedroom (which was far more clean and intact than I would have expected), but the act of “tell don’t show” falls flat here.¹ Her older brother, who led the resistance, is too ethereal. The audience is painting up pictures of an infallible leader as the characters reminisce, including Henry. These somber images fail to engage the audience emotionally though. The driving force behind Kathleen is dead and empty, presumably just like her brother is now.

The best part of the episode, turns out, was the most gamified part of the show to date. The house sniper and hoard are put on full display. This is the biggest set piece in the show so far and HBO went all out. We see Joel flank a sniper with deft observation and assertion. Joel asking the man to just walk away gives the audience a peek at the softness inside. His mask of firmness falls away revealing an exhausted man, tired of killing others.

The victory against the sniper is short lived as Kathleen and her goons roll up with the infamous “Run” truck from the game, which doesn’t last very long as Joel caps the driver. This gives Kathleen a moment for her obsession to evolve into full-blown evil as she intends to kill a deaf eight-year-old boy, a fourteen-year old girl, and Henry: Proof of just how far gone she is, how unwaveringly loyal her crew is, and establishes that the true horror is humanity.

Kathleen never gets to go for broke though, as the truck collapses into the earth and unleashes the hoard of Infected that were forced underground years ago, according to Henry. This is a great concept realized. The Bloater emerges like a mutated nightmare, leading waves of Clickers and Runners. The scariest creature of the bunch though was the child-Clicker that pursues Ellie inside a locked mini van. It’s a path the games have never gone down, and it pays off in spades here as tragic and horrifying. It’s this kid, likely between the ages of eight and fourteen, that ends up murdering Kathleen.

Safe in a motel, we are treated to a scene between Ellie and Sam. This is where Sam’s age difference is most effective. The fear of turning into a monster takes hold as he confides in his new friend. Ellie doesn’t go tell the others or act scared. She pivots into that caretaker mode and offers Sam hope. She reveals her immunity and promises her blood is a cure of sorts. She immediately cuts open her hand and presses the blood into Sam’s wound. She promises to stay up with Sam as he drifts off to sleep, fear combated with hope.

It’s a remarkable scene, one that shows how selfless Ellie can be. She is adamant about helping people. This is groundwork done right. I think even Ellie believes her own lie a bit, as she stays (somewhat) true to her word and stays with Sam all night. The hopeful relief on her face in the morning light followed by fear crashing down upon her is gripping.

The rest of the scene plays out like the game. We see the burial mentioned in the game, but more importantly, we see Ellie act a little bit like Joel. She’s quiet, hurt, and wants to leave immediately. She has no desire to talk about the morning. Best to get along and forget, at least for the time being. Are more seeds being planted here? If so, what fruit will they bare?

As we march off into the back half of the season, I wonder what payoffs we’ll see come to light. This entire season was written without season two being locked in. This had to stand alone, if the studios said no—not unlike the original game. The writers and directors have deviated bit by bit, week by week. As we enter the part of the season for harvest, I wonder what Joel will look like at the end. How will Ellie behave during the trials to come? There are only four more episodes left. It’s due time for HBO to reap what they have sown.

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What an episode filled with and surrounded by contrast. Lots of highs and lows, which I hope I articulated above. I really enjoyed the action focus and haven’t stopped thinking about that kid Clicker all week. As the show goes in to the Fall and Winter seasons, I am curious to see what the reception will be to what’s on deck. It’s cultural moments like these that make me miss Twitter. C’est la vie. Before I go, here are a few observations from the episode that didn’t make the cut above.

• I mentioned Henry’s lack of experience above. It’s interesting to have him never kill before. It seems like he’s lived in KC the entire time too. I suppose that makes his betrayal sting all the more. My big takeaway though was the term they used for snitch—a collaborator. Joel knew this term immediately. It gives the QZs and world a more connected feeling. This term has risen up socially to mean a snitch to FEDRA. Subtle, linguistic world building.
• The Ish and Danny art is straight from the game. The story, not so much. That room is a spot-on recreation of the room with all the Stalkers in it. Ish was robbed in the show. Such a good side story, that I know could have never been fully explored in the TV show. I would have traded Kansas City for a Tunnels/Sewer two parter. Definitely would have given Sam and Henry more time to develop.
• Obviously, the best part of the episode was Perry (aka Tommy from the games) getting the iconic Bloater kill done to him. What a way to end a cameo. RIP. 😬

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1. This little scene also implies that Kathleen and her family have lived in Kansas City since before the outbreak. They’ve somehow maintained living in their original home, or at least access to it. I like the concept of people that stayed put during the outbreak, especially in contrast to our heroes who are traveling across the country.

Turns out the word on the street was one day off, but the embargo for PS VR2 has been lifted. Reviews have hit the web. I thought I’d share what I read and watched, along with some observations.

The Hardware

Video Games Chronicle’s review by Jordan Middler

While the MetaQuestPro can boast its wirelessness, the selling point for PSVR 2 is clear, you simply can’t get VR performance that’s this good on a PC, for this price.

This is the trade-off between said wirelessness and wired VR. When factoring in the $500 price of a disc-based PS5, PS VR2 still comes in cheaper than a primo gaming PC and comparable headset. That’s a trade-off I’m willing to make, but the convenience of wireless VR is undeniable.

Speaking of PCs, the PS VR2 is not compatible with those towers of power. It is possible that Sony will unlock this type of support, but never bank on non-promised features to come to market. I do believe Sony will add it someday, because of their recent push into that market. The headset is a leader in that space from a technical perspective, but who knows how long that lead will stay. Tom Warren from The Verge feels the same way:

I’m hopeful that someone might get it working eventually, in much the same way that PSVR has been modded to work on PC. It would be far better if Sony officially supported it, though, particularly with its recent PlayStation PC push. Official support just isn’t there yet, and there’s no sign Sony will ever do it.

The Verge’s review team (Sean Hollister, Adi Robertson, and the aforementioned Tom Warren) also had an issue maintaining the crystal clear sweet spot in VR, something I haven’t come across in other reviews.

…we keep finding ourselves adjusting our headsets to stay in the tiny sweet spot where the lenses are clear. It’s way smaller than the sweet spot than the original PSVR, smaller than the Oculus Quest 2, and unless we cinched down tight, the slight amount of sag at the front of the headset was enough to push our eyes into a blurrier region of the lens.

John Linneman of Digital Foundry (here’s DF’s written review) doesn’t mention this sweet spot issue at all, praising the visual clarity and comfort.

PS VR2 has a rated field of view of [110] degrees. It’s much wider than Oculus Quest and the original PSVR but not quite on par with the Valve Index or Vive Pro 2. However, in practice, it crosses that important line between looking through a porthole and having a full view of the action. You’ll notice the left and right edges of the screens, like most headsets, but vertical visibility is nearly perfect. It instantly feels more engaging and immersive.

John is talking about the display here and not potential headset sag, but I would think John would mention a consistent impact to the visuals.

The Verge makes eye-tracking sound as dope and transformative as I hoped.

Call of the Mountain makes a great case for eye tracking, though. The game supports foveated rendering, which makes everything in front of you look sharp while reducing computing load by lowering the resolution elsewhere. More obviously, you can select dialog choices with characters by simply looking at an option and hitting a face button instead of swiping around with an analog wheel. It’s so seamless that I almost forgot I was doing it sometimes — and I never want to go back.

There was one question on each critic’s minds. Heck, The Verge opens with it.

But we also agree there’s a big, familiar question mark hanging over the PSVR 2. Will it have the games?

The Games

My biggest takeaway from these reviews was the small slate of games provided for review. It looks like press had access to roughly six or so games: Horizon Call of the Mountain, Moss Book I & II, Rez Infinite, Tetris Effect: Connected, Song in the Smoke Rekindled, and Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge – Enhanced Edition. The Verge seems to also have had access to Tentacular, What the Bat?, and Cosmonious High.

Those familiar with VR will recognize that all of those, except for Call of the Mountain, are ports. There’s nothing wrong with ports, especially for some of VR’s best, but I am surprised Sony did not include Gran Turismo 7 or work with Capcom to provide Resident Evil Village. Both are launch games that I believe will be fantastic. Sure, both are new VR modes for existing games, but they are exclusive to PS VR. The Verge picked up on this too.

But we’re not quite seeing it yet — partly because the overwhelming majority of Sony’s launch lineup are ports from other VR headsets and partly because Sony didn’t include some of its most intriguing launch games with our review units.

Middler calls out the repetition VR players are signing up for with PS VR2’s launch.

The software library at launch is deep, with many of the best VR titles ever released, such as Tetris Effect, Rez Infinite, No Man’s Sky, and other virtual staples joining the roster soon, but if you’re already a VR devotee, there’s a chance you’ve played these on another headset. For those new to the virtual reality ecosystem, however, it’s a very strong, if somewhat dated, start.

Linneman chose to focus on what this slate of back catalog titles shows off in the new headset.

Rez Infinite makes a return with an updated version for PSVR2. This is a fantastic showcase for the new HDR capabilities and controls possible with the new hardware. The contrast is perfect and colours highlights are far brighter than any VR headset I’ve used. The haptics are used to enhance the experience while the controllers can be used to aim using your hands. Or you can opt for eye or head tracking targeting making it very flexible.

Moss Book 1 and 2 have been updated for PSVR2 – this game has you sitting within various dioramas while controlling your character and serves as a great demonstration for the increased pixel count in the headset. If you try Moss on the original PSVR then switch to PSVR2, the leap in quality is genuinely surprising.

Games are vital for any new hardware to succeed. There are some promising games on the horizon: Firewall Ultra and whatever Resident Evil 4‘s VR¹ support is come to mind. My biggest hope is that Sony keeps the exclusive train chugging. Give us more first-party experiences and woo developer partners to support PS VR2. I hope this summer offers a picture at PS VR2’s future after being on the market for 3-5 months.

At embargo, PlayStation VR2 sounds technologically impressive and immersive. The concern for the console’s library looms over the launch, but I remain as optimistic as ever. Perhaps I am too soft on Sony or maybe I am trying to justify my purchase, but I believe in VR and this particular hardware.r We’ll see if my belief pans out when I get my own headset next week.²

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1. IGN seems to think this is the entire game in VR to rival that of the Oculus Quest 2 version of the original, but I couldn’t find a source from Capcom on this. — Looking back at the IGN feature, they don’t call out the entire game. Either it read that way to me or they updated the article after I read it yesterday. I vote for reader error.

2. There was a quote from VGC’s Call of the Mountain review that I just had to include.

Another element of Call of the Mountain that is very authentic to the main series is the main character’s point-blank refusal to let any moment of silence linger for more than a few seconds.

PlayStation VR2 Unboxing by PlayStation

PS VR2 is out in the press’ hands and it finally feels like Sony is ramping up the previews and promotion. We are only 12 days away from the first deliveries being made. I’d wager on reviews being live late next week or the beginning of launch week. It’s positive to see units out and about two weeks early.

One tidbit from the official unboxing that I wasn’t aware of before. I was surprised to see the earbud integration with the headset. They nestle into the headband area and then the buds chill out in the cutouts along the outside. So slick and clean. This keeps wires from dangling down. I really hope that I can use the Pulse headset in the same manner.