Resident Evil Village VR might come to PC
Back in June, Sony announced that RE-series-highlight-mashup-reel Resident Evil Village was going to get a PSVR2 release (opens in new tab) complete with 4K, eye-tracking, 3D audio, and all the other fanciness that a modern VR version brings. Much as we’d like one of the best horror games on PC to get the same treatment on our platform of choice, given that Resident Evil 7’s VR release has yet to make the jump it seemed unlikely.
Until now. Redditor u/LitheBeep has datamined a hint (opens in new tab) that Village VR might make it to PC after all. In the game’s executable they found references to PSVR followed by “OpenVR”, “OculusTouch”, “OculusVR”, and “OculusRemote”, as well as the string “autoLaunchSteamVROnButtonPress”.
They also point out that on October 28 Capcom updated Resident Evil Village’s Steam store tags (opens in new tab) to add one for “VR”. While store tags can be added by Steam users, publishers can also add or remove tags themselves. Doing so is an important bit of marketing as these tags determine whether a game will show up in the “more like this” section, as well as whether it will be highlighted in “recommended for you” boxes, themed sales, and so on.
However, to pour a little cold water of skepticism on the rumor fire before it gets fully burning, it’s worth noting that Capcom also added the VR tag to Resident Evil 7 (opens in new tab) in June of 2017 and we’re still waiting for that to amount to anything. What’s more, looking over its history on SteamDB shows the VR tag was first added to Village in May of 2021 (opens in new tab) before being removed (opens in new tab) and then added again (opens in new tab) multiple times alongside various other tags of dubious relevance like “hentai” and “dating sim”. Presumably there’s logic behind this constant tinkering with tags—maybe the mysterious Steam algorithm likes it? A lot of what goes on behind the scenes with Steam’s store pages is as much superstition as anything.
Until an official announcement is made we’ll have to make do with the mod that adds VR support to Resident Evil Village. It’s the work of modder Praydog, and it also works with Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 3, and Resident Evil 7. Which is nice.
The recently released Resident Evil Village DLC Winter’s Expansion included a third-person camera, extra characters for the Mercenaries mode, and a story scenario in which you play Ethan’s daughter Rose. We found it to be a satisfactory but sparse addition.
