Produced | 93913 Media Center
Written | Roger
Edited | William
Since the rise of the VR consumer market in 2016, AAA VR games have been the "white moonlight" that players are eagerly awaiting. Although Bethesda, Ubisoft and even R stars have transplanted or are transplanting their well-known IP works into VR, and some rich manufacturers such as V Society have come up with the "half-life: Alex" masterpiece, it is only a drop in the bucket compared to the current strong demand of players.
Released in October 2021, Resident Evil 4 VR is undoubtedly a feast for the VR market in the midst of the game wilderness. Developer Armature Studio worked on the remake of the game, porting it to meta Quest 2, which included the complete 16-hour campaign content of the original game. The game quickly exploded as soon as it was launched, and players also gave very positive reviews, setting a good benchmark for the porting of classic games to VR platforms.
Armature Studio is not a well-known studio, but it is experienced in game porting, and its participation in porting projects includes "MGS HD Collection Vita" and "Injustice: Gods Among Us" on the PSV platform, "Unfinished Swan" and "Borderlands: The Handsome" for the PS4 platform and Xbox platform Collection" and "Bayonetta + Vanquish", as well as "Duck Game" on the Nintendo Switch platform. Its partners include Sony, Microsoft, Riot Games, Epic Games, Oculus Studios, WBIE, Konami, 2K Games and more.
Six months after Resident Evil 4 VR went live, Armature Studio brought a free update to the game , The Mercenaries, a fan favorite. TheVirtualReport interviewed Tom Ivey, lead producer of Armory Studio, to discuss expectations for new models, the reasons for the success of Resident Evil 4 VR, and lessons learned from VR development. Here is the original text of the interview:
Q: First of all, congratulations on creating a VR version of the classic game, which not only pleases the players who are new to the game, but also provides a new way for players to relive the classic game IP. To paraphrase the old saying, "One person is hard to satisfy", but somehow you did! What's the secret?
A: Classic game IP is very important to us. Many of us have made very memories of playing the original version of Resident Evil 4 (RE4) on GameCube and have always made it one of our favorite games. So being able to work with people at Capcom and participate in the porting of the games in the series means a lot to us, and we do everything we can to make sure we make the best possible porting.
This means that we're both bringing out authentic gameplay on new platforms, adding VR-related features to gunfights, action, and controllers, and needing a lot of subtlety to make it work.
We're not sure if we're happy with every player with our work, but we're blown away by the feedback from our players. I'm very happy that our ported work has also maintained the consistent standard of this game, which means a lot to us.
Q: Resident Evil fans may be a fanatical group. This is especially true for fans of mercenary mode! How did you meet such a hard-to-please fan base?
A: I think the first thing to do is to make sure that the core experience of VR is reliable.
Resident Evil is a beautiful game that not only has a well-written (although significant for many) character development, but also many things that have been done in terms of gameplay, especially in character control, camera perspective, and action design, have undoubtedly completely changed and promoted the gameplay of the time.
So, we wanted to do the same with the VR version to make sure it was the best in its class in terms of plot presentation and player feel. If this is not done well, it becomes meaningless whether all the classic features are perfectly polished and ported to VR, because the player's fun of play disappears and is ruined.
That's how we started porting the game — making sure to refine the two core experiences — gunfights and character sports — as well as possible from day one, before doing anything else.
Q: The Mercenary Mode of Resident Evil dates back to the last century. What kind of pressure do you feel to recreate this tradition in VR, and how do you do it? Do you think the transplant should replicate the pattern in RE4, or can you play freely and reimagine the mode in VR in combination with other gameplay variants?
A: When we finished the primary goal of the transplant work, the story campaign, we had already trimmed its effect in mercenary mode through the gunfight gameplay, and we all thought it would be interesting.
We've also seen videos recorded by players as they make some crazy moves in the story campaign. This allowed us to get more involved in the development of mercenary mode. Mercenary mode will have more enemies and be more actionable than story battles. We're thinking about how players are going to bring some of the cool things they do in story mode into mercenary mode?
Once you've decided what the player can do, the next step of thinking is logical. Mercenary mode gives players more positive and exciting feedback on what they can accomplish. So, just like the story battles, the question we have to think about mercenary mode is: What can we do to amplify the highlights of mercenary mode?
We first copied the RE4's mercenary mode and placed it in the enclosed area of Classic Mode. Players get the same gameplay as the RE4 Mercenary Mode, with identical characters and levels. We've changed the scoring mechanism to make it easier for players to get higher scores through new ways of acting, dual-wielding weapon settings, and a combination of shooting and strafing.
The next thing we're going to do is strip away the core of mercenary mode — how to build a timed mode where players can destroy enemies to get points and combos, and then improve them. The end result is Challenge Mode, an extension of classic mode.
Compared to classic mode, Challenge mode has up to 20 new elements. New weapons at the player's disposal, dealing with new enemies, map changes, or complete changes in the rules of the game. We've set up a number of game-changing challenges to bring players a new, different and exciting way to play.
▲ New gameplay in Challenge Mode: Wild West
Q: According to you, Resident Evil 4 VR has almost recreated its former popularity in the hands of players. So how does the game's two-year development process feel to you?
A: It's exciting because I see players enjoying the game. I think we've developed a great product, but we still have to get it into the hands of the players and listen to them and see if they feel the same way. The experience of the game from development to marketing was interesting, and it really felt great to see players create interesting content using the games we developed.
Q: In the new Mercenary Mode, what do you most expect players to experience first?
A: I'm most looking forward to seeing players set new high scores, learning about the skills they're using and getting their feedback on the challenge mode. Our colleagues on the QA team are very good at the game and are able to achieve higher scores, but we know that in the hands of players, the score can be higher. What I'm most curious about is how high a score players can create and how they do it!
In Mercenary Mode, we've also added new unlockable content where players can complete Challenge Mode to get new costumes, guns, and more. In addition, we've added an enhanced mode to the story campaign, allowing players to relive the main story of the game in different ways, one of which is the classic horror mode of black and white film, and the other is the fast mode, which is convenient for players to create a fast-track record.
Of these unlockable content, my favorite is Big Head Mode, which includes monsters Ganados (the game's host parasitized by Las Plagas) and Ashley, both with oversized heads. Every time I load this pattern, it makes me shudder, and I really want to see what people do in this mode, especially what chemistry the combination of big head mode and other modes can produce.
Big Head Mode
Through these modes, players can earn a lot of achievements and unlockable content, and then apply any combination of the unlocked content to the story campaign, thus providing players with another interesting way to play. I'd love to see how this content will give players feedback.
Q: Before the VR version of RE4 was released, some players expressed dissatisfaction with the game's changes. Do you think you should follow the classics or innovate?
A: Capcom is open to innovation in the game: "Hey, whatever it is, if it's fun, then do it!" "But obviously, there are also some limitations, like you can't turn the protagonist Leon's arm into a rocket launcher, and you can't let him carry other ridiculous things.
On the other hand, we are already in 2022, and as far as the new content is concerned, although some of the content is not mature, it is necessary to bring Resident Evil 4 into 2022, and we have to take into account the impact of time. There are some new additions that aren't inherent to the game's story or characters, so we've worked closely with Capcom. We believe that this is the right way to ensure that porting games does not become obsolete.
Q: There is a lot of information that shows that the physical characteristics of RE4 are important for vr versions. What lessons have you learned from this game that will be important for future VR game development?
A: Since our studio began to venture into vr, we have been learning from the projects we have developed. The first VR game we developed was called Sailed Factory, which was a single-scene game where the player only had to stand still; the next game we developed was Sports Scramble, which applied room-scale tracking, where the player could move in the environment and have more physical representation of objects in their hands.
We learned how to get the player to feel good when they grab objects, pose them, and touch them. Sometimes, we use fake physics to give players a better sense of the game — objects move the way players imagine, rather than being exactly what physics is.
RE4 goes a step further. When we first added guns to the game development, we only borrowed the basic function of Sports Scramble to pick up objects, and later we achieved more control of guns, and also added a slot system to the two-handed model to play animations and smooth transitions.
This is the first game we developed that lets players move around the world. Issues we have to consider include how the character should move when the player uses the analog stick, whether the screen should be motion blur when moving, whether adding a teleport mode can ensure the experience of the game, and so on. These are the problems to solve when implementing game mobility.
We always advance and solve these problems in our trial and learning so that when we start solving new problems, we don't start all over again. This approach is important, and it applies to everything from how to use the game engine to art-related things. We tried to find solutions from previous project experiences, so that we could focus more on the fun of the game to ensure that the game was perfect, rather than spending our energy unnecessarily on the technical problems that had been solved.
▲ Unlockable skins include Leon's Mafia suit...
▲ There is also a set of armor of Ashley
Q: Did you learn anything that surprised you?
A: Oculus itself has done a lot of subtle work on the hardware, adding a lot of support to help alleviate the player's vertigo, thus enhancing the accessibility part of VR (pointer to some disabled gamers).
I'm a big supporter of accessibility options, whether it's for different game styles or for people to be able to set things like custom difficulty. But beyond all the gamification options, VR itself also involves a lot of things related to accessibility, such as body posture and accessibility.
In the past, we've done a lot of work to ensure that the features players need can be used on a single gamepad. But in VR, we have a lot of other things to ensure, such as grenades or where should the hands be on the body? Are items easy to grab? Should the guns in hand be realistic enough but not too realistic to prevent the shooting process from being too cumbersome and ensuring that the players feel the game?
There are many similar issues to consider, which means we need to study and work with Oculus. Oculus does a lot of work at the bottom of the system to make it easier for developers to automatically integrate some of these features into their tools.
I think the VR space is facing a whole bunch of new challenges that are complex, but I'm sure people who are much smarter than I am are working on them. I'm curious about how the future holds and how we'll use them in the game. I also hope that as many players as possible play our game and enjoy it.
Q: Compared to PC VR. Working on quest 2 meant making compromises – would you want to make a Pro version of RE4?
A: We don't have any plans at the moment. The advantage of the Quest 2 device is that it can be connected to a PC for as long as you want. I think that future VR all-in-ones will support such a hybrid approach. The Nintendo Switch is also very similar to the Quest 2, which can be both portable and can be used on a large-screen TV.
In contrast, I'm more interested in the capabilities of future hardware in terms of haptic feedback because it can make you feel more immersive— not on a visual level, but from an experiential level. I'd love to know what we can do with haptic feedback.
▲ Golden rocket launcher
Q: Armature has developed games on multiple platforms. How is VR development different? What are the challenges and opportunities compared to traditional games?
A: VR development is fun. Part of the work of developing a VR game is purely about how something feels, when something happens, or something to reveal; the other part is about how the player feels, especially the so-called feel, and every game has its own approach.
During the development of Resident Evil 4 VR, we were guided by an existing story and concept, so the first half of the question could be set aside so that we could focus on showing how to defeat those enemies and unfold the story. The question of feel is the key to my next remarks.
I started out with platforming, where it's all about honing the details, the player's grasp of timing, the subtle feedback, and how to fake things — like giving them extra frames when the player controls a character to jump off a cliff, because it's in line with the player's intuition.
For VR, the problem we're going to solve is that the player doesn't actually hit the target physically, but we should give the player a buffer to help them hit it, because the game will show the picture that makes them feel like they hit the target. Another example is a sword that is very long in reality, but in the game we need to shorten it so that it doesn't look strange.
You'll find that there are hidden details or tricks in game development that make the game feel more realistic and intuitive. These are some of the beneficial things you do behind the scenes for your players.
Although different game performances mean that developers face different problems, these problems are common to how to make the game feel perfect, that is, how to calibrate the player's actions in reality with the feedback in the game.
It's interesting to know about the VR version that corresponds to all of these issues, and while some of them weren't something we focused on when we were developing Resident Evil 4 VR, we might encounter and find a solution in the development of the next game.