The Oculus Quest 2 has only been available for a little over six months, but Facebook’s latest headset has already made waves, especially in the fitness community. Given price, accessibility, and ease of use, there may not be a better option than the Oculus Quest 2 right now, but if the headset has had a potential downside, it lacked a single killer app.
Well, that seems to be changing later this year when Oculus recently announced that Armature Studio was converting Capcom’s beloved 2005 release of Resident Evil 4 into a new iteration of VR. The classic action adventure game that usually takes place behind the shoulder from a third person perspective has been created from the ground up and played from the first person perspective. The project looks ambitious to say the least, but it’s also one that has delighted many long-time fans.
Perhaps what is even more fascinating about Resident Evil 4 VR is how accessible it will be for those looking to use virtual reality for fitness purposes. By the time you’re reading this article, you will likely be interested in finding new games to help you stay in shape. And while this new remake, or RE4, isn’t a priority in terms of fitness, that doesn’t mean it can’t be beneficial when it comes to helping you stay active.
While there is still a lot to see in Resident Evil 4 VR, let’s examine what we’ve been shown so far and see if adding it to your own library is a good game if you’re trying to move your body around.
Freedom of movement
Probably the most beneficial component of Resident Evil 4 VR that we’ve seen so far for fitness enthusiasts is how movement works in the game. Rather than simply making RE4 a first-person experience that would be on rails (or something like that), Oculus, Armature, and Capcom still give players complete freedom to navigate the game’s iconic world.
Armature specially packaged a handful of different movement styles for Resident Evil 4 VR. The standard scheme allows users to move around with the Oculus Quest 2 thumb pins, allowing Leon to walk around the same way as in the original game. Conversely, those who cannot handle fluid movement of this type in VR will also have a teleportation option that allows them to simply point and choose where to go in a given area.
However, the best news for fitness fans is that Armature is also adding a room-scale exercise option. This means that you can move one on one in some of the Resident Evil 4 VR environments. The first step in making a good fitness game in VR is to encourage potential gamers to play a game standing up instead of sitting down. For the most part, it looks like RE4 VR is a game that is better experienced standing on your own two feet than slumped in a chair.
Constant upper body movement
This might go for granted, but not only does Resident Evil 4 VR leave you walking around quite a bit in your own house, but you should also move your hands and arms a lot. Not only does this mean that you aim to shoot enemies left and right, but you also have to take other actions all the time. Resident Evil 4 VR forces you to do a number of tasks manually, such as: B. reloading your weapons, using healing spray and interacting with objects in the area.
Speaking of items, a major change in Resident Evil 4 VR is that available items are actually placed in environments that you can pick up yourself. In the original game, ammo, medicinal herbs and other accessories that you might come across would simply be found on the ground and picked up with the push of a button. In order to obtain these items, you will have to physically move your hands and arms to where they are and pick them up like anything else in the real world.
And if you’ve played Resident Evil 4 before, you are probably well prepared to use your knife wisely. Although RE4 contains far more ammunition than other games in the series, there are times when you might want to conserve your ammunition in an attempt to take out some zombies with your knife. As such, you will be slapping your arms wilder and more frequently than you would probably expect.
While none of these tasks are going to cause you to move your hands and arms as much as they would in a game like Beat Saber or Supernatural, Resident Evil 4 VR constantly encourages upper body movement, which is great to see.
Horror makes the heart race
This may be an element of Resident Evil 4 VR that you might not consider beneficial for your health, but the fact that the game falls into the horror genre could prove to be a good thing for you. While it’s by no means the scariest game in the Resident Evil series, there are absolutely some stressful and tense moments in RE4. I dare you not to freak out the first time you see a psycho sprinting at you with a chainsaw.
All of this means that the game may have more than one way to get your heart rate up. While moving both your body and hands can be a good first step in getting your heart pumping a little harder, the increased stress, anxiety, and anxiety you get while playing can also add to this.
Not to mention that Oculus also said it was trying to make Resident Evil 4 a little bit more scary. While it doesn’t do this by adding something entirely new to the core game, it did use the Oculus Quest 2’s spatial audio to create environments more sinister than any other iteration of Resident Evil 4 we’ve seen before. Even if you’ve played through RE4 before and don’t think the game has anything more scary in store for you, this new installment might turn out to be very different in virtual reality.
Is it worth your time? + Release plans
So is Resident Evil 4 VR going to be a marquee game that fitness enthusiasts should pick up on? Maybe. Everything we’ve seen of this remake so far tells us that it does far more to promote real-time movement than you might expect. While it doesn’t go one-on-one with games designed specifically for fitness, there are plenty of positive takeaways here. Not to mention the fact that the game is coming to VR in some form or another is just fantastic. If you’re looking for a nice change of pace when it comes to what your time playing games is, this could be just that.
At this point, we don’t know exactly when Resident Evil 4 will launch. Oculus and Armature have only said so far that the VR remake will come out later in 2021. A certain window within the year has yet to be narrowed down.
What we do know for sure, however, is that this is a game that will only be available on Oculus Quest 2. Yes, even if you have the original Oculus Quest, this new installment of Resident Evil 4 won’t be available until the second version of the headset. So if this is a game you want to play later in the year, you might want to buy one in the near future.
If this is an investment you’re going to make, there are far more reasons to choose Quest 2 than Resident Evil 4 VR. You can check out some of the other great fitness uses for the machine in our dedicated article here.
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