Doom VFR

Doom VFR
Information
VR/AR	Virtual Reality
Developer	id Software
Publisher	Bethesda Softworks
Platform	SteamVR, PlayStation VR
Device	HTC Vive, Windows Mixed Reality, PlayStation VR
Operating System	Windows, PlayStation 4
Type	Game
Genre	Shooter, Action
Input Device	Tracked motion controllers, PlayStation Move, PlayStation VR Aim, DualShock 4
Play Area	Room-scale
Game Mode	Single-player
Release Date	December 1, 2017
Price	US$29.99 (launch price)
App Store	Steam, PlayStation Store
Website	http://www.doom.com

See also: VR Apps and VR Games

Doom VFR (stylized DOOM VFR) is a virtual reality first-person shooter developed by id Software and published by Bethesda Softworks. It is a standalone game built for VR, set shortly after a demon invasion of the Union Aerospace Corporation (UAC) research facility on Mars, and it reuses locations, enemies and weapons from Doom (2016). Bethesda announced it at its E3 2017 press conference, and it was released on 1 December 2017 for PlayStation VR and for the HTC Vive through Steam, at a launch price of US$29.99.

The player is the last known human survivor of the facility, whose consciousness is transferred into an artificial brain matrix after death. Movement is built around teleportation and a short "jet-strafe" dash rather than continuous walking, and the melee Glory Kills of the 2016 game are replaced by "telefragging", teleporting into a stunned demon so that it explodes. Reviews were mixed: the game has Metascores of 71 on PlayStation 4 and 69 on PC on Metacritic. Several reviewers praised its combat and gore effects and criticized its control schemes, especially the PlayStation Move setup.

Reviewed 11 October 2026. Developer, publisher, E3 2017 reveal, release dates and launch prices, PSVR bundle, Japanese release, controller support, the 30 January 2018 PC patch, Rift workaround, gameplay and development claims and quotes, Metacritic, OpenCritic and review scores against the cited sources, and current Steam and US PlayStation Store prices. About review dates.

Gameplay

Doom VFR is a single-player campaign. Bethesda's store text describes the setting as the UAC facility on Mars and the depths of Hell, with the player as a cybernetic UAC security operative activated to fight the demons and "prevent catastrophic failure at the Mars facility". The player can take control of UAC devices and robots to solve puzzles and reach new areas, and Bethesda's announcement promised "two never-before-seen sections of the UAC Martian Research Facility". UploadVR's review described the campaign as a VR remix of the 2016 game rather than an all-new adventure: it reuses roughly a quarter of the earlier game's locations with the same enemies and weapons, adds a new story, and lasts about two to four hours depending on difficulty. Road to VR's reviewer needed about three and a half hours for a full run and counted five difficulty levels, two of which unlock after the earlier ones are beaten.

Movement and combat

With motion controllers, the left hand handles teleportation and the right hand holds the gun. In the E3 2017 build that UploadVR played on the Vive, holding the teleport button slowed time around the player, which allowed dodging and aiming in the middle of a fight, and a dash allowed a form of circle-strafing. In the released game the dash moves the player a short distance forward, backward or sideways; Road to VR called it a "halfway-to-full" locomotion scheme.

Health is restored mainly by staggering an enemy and then telefragging it. A crowd-control blast pushes nearby enemies away, and weapon upgrades can unlock alternate fire modes. The weapons named in previews and reviews include the pistol, shotgun, assault rifle, plasma rifle, Gatling gun and gauss rifle; the left hand also throws grenades or fires a grenade launcher. Two maps from the original 1993 Doom, "Toxic Refinery" and "Nuclear Plant", unlock through progress in the campaign.

Control schemes

On PlayStation 4 the game requires the PlayStation VR headset and PlayStation Camera, and supports the DualShock 4, two PlayStation Move controllers or the PlayStation VR Aim controller. At launch, smooth locomotion was available with the DualShock 4 and the Aim controller. The Move scheme had no smooth locomotion and limited turning to 180-degree steps. On the Vive the motion-controller scheme was teleport-based with no smooth locomotion, although the PC version could also be played with a gamepad. With a DualShock 4 or other gamepad, both weapons are aimed with head movement. In a hands-on with the Aim controller before release, Road to VR's Ben Lang found that it made two-handed weapons such as the plasma rifle "far more natural" to wield than with Move controllers, but called the control scheme, which "blends buttons, sticks, head aiming, and controller aiming", "supremely awkward".

The Steam version is VR-only, supports tracked motion controllers through SteamVR, and lists a room-scale play area of 2 m by 1.5 m as a minimum requirement.

Development

Bethesda first showed Doom in VR at E3 2016 as a tech demo on the HTC Vive. Road to VR's hands-on described a set of scenes (an inspection bunker, a cavern with large static enemies and a shooting gallery) in which the player was rooted to one spot with a pistol in one hand and a plasma rifle or frag grenade in the other, and called it a "curious but experimental tech demo" rather than a full game. A year later the project returned on stage at Bethesda's E3 2017 press conference as Doom VFR, a more developed game with teleport movement and dashing.

At the E3 2017 reveal, Bethesda described Doom VFR as a standalone game made for VR, and game director Marty Stratton said that because "the hallmark of any DOOM game is combat", the team's top priority was to make moving, shooting and killing demons in VR as brutal and rewarding as in the 2016 game. A Bethesda representative told UploadVR that the team concentrated on teleportation because it is comfortable and avoids motion sickness, and that, instead of porting the whole game as Bethesda did with Fallout 4 VR and Skyrim VR, it built a VR-specific experience around those mechanics. In an August 2017 Bethesda.net article, id Software chief technology officer Robert Duffy said: "We're really architecting the gameplay to take advantage of VR", adding: "It's every bit as fast. It's just a different type of movement."

Release

Steam and the PlayStation Store listed the game at US$29.99 during E3 2017, with a fourth-quarter 2017 window on PC. In August 2017 Bethesda set the release date as 1 December 2017 for PlayStation VR and HTC Vive, alongside the launch dates of its other VR titles. On 15 November 2017 Sony announced a PlayStation VR bundle for the United States and Canada containing the headset, the PlayStation Camera, an updated demo disc and a Blu-ray copy of Doom VFR, priced at US$399.99 / CA$499.99 and released alongside the game on 1 December.

Platform	Release date	Notes
PlayStation VR (PlayStation 4)	1 December 2017	US$29.99 at launch; also in a US and Canada headset bundle
HTC Vive (Steam)	1 December 2017	Steam lists 30 November 2017; US$29.99 at launch
PlayStation VR (Japan)	21 December 2017	Japanese-language version, 4,298 yen including tax for download or package
Windows Mixed Reality (Steam)	30 January 2018	Official support added in a PC update

As of October 2026 the game is still sold on Steam and on the US PlayStation Store, at US$14.99 on both. The PlayStation Store listing carries an ESRB Mature rating for blood and gore, intense violence and strong language.

The Oculus Rift was never an officially supported headset. Rift owners reported that the Steam version shut down right after launch; less than 24 hours after release Valve put out a SteamVR beta update with a "placeholder hidden area mesh for Rift users" as a workaround. Road to VR noted that Bethesda had repeatedly avoided questions about Rift support.

PC update

A PC patch released through Steam on 30 January 2018, announced by UploadVR the day before, added official Windows Mixed Reality headset support, smooth locomotion control and movement speed options, a weapon pitch setting for adjusting the angle of the weapon on the controller, jump options while using VR controllers with smooth movement on, a dash toggle for smooth movement, a jump button in the gamepad scheme and a fix for discoloring seen on some headsets. UploadVR wrote that, as far as it knew, the update did not add official Rift support.

Reception

On Metacritic, the PlayStation 4 version has a Metascore of 71 ("mixed or average") based on 48 critic reviews and the PC version a Metascore of 69 from 11 critic reviews. On OpenCritic the game has a Top Critic Average of 70, a "Fair" rating, with 29% of critics recommending it.

Publication	Score	Notes
Metacritic (PS4 aggregate)	71/100	48 critic reviews
Metacritic (PC aggregate)	69/100	11 critic reviews
OpenCritic	70	Top Critic Average; 29% recommend
IGN	8/10	Reviewer Dan Stapleton
GameSpot	7/10	Reviewer Justin Clark
Game Informer	5/10	Reviewer Javy Gwaltney
Push Square	6/10	Reviewer Sammy Barker
UploadVR	75/100	PC score as listed by Metacritic
Road to VR	6/10	HTC Vive; Gameplay 6.5, Immersion 5, Comfort 7

In IGN's review, Dan Stapleton called it "a brave shooter that proves that VR games don't have to be conservative with movement to work", and GameSpot's Justin Clark wrote that "Doom's trademark demon slaying translates well to virtual reality". Game Informer's Javy Gwaltney was less positive, writing that the game "mostly struggles to work as both a VR shooter and a Doom entry".

Several reviews singled out the controls. Jamie Feltham of UploadVR called the Move controls on PSVR "easily the worst way to play" and wrote that "the real fight is with its awkward control setups", although he found the game easier and more enjoyable with smooth locomotion on the DualShock 4 and Aim controller. Matthew Magee of Road to VR, reviewing on the Vive, praised the rendering of gore and particle effects but listed inconsistent teleporting, glitchy interactions, an off sense of scale, weak-feeling gunplay and clipping in close combat, and noted that the left-hand teleport and right-hand shooting layout could not be remapped for left-handed players. He wrote that a substantial patch could raise his score by a point. Sam Machkovech of Ars Technica summed up his advice as "If you have a room-scale VR system, try. Otherwise, avoid."

See also

• Fallout 4 VR
• Skyrim VR
• Wolfenstein: Cyberpilot