Resident Evil Village

Resident Evil Village
Information
VR/AR	Virtual Reality
Developer	Capcom
Publisher	Capcom
Platform	PlayStation VR2
Device	PlayStation VR2
Operating System	PlayStation 5
Type	Game
Genre	Survival horror, First-person shooter
Input Device	PlayStation VR2 Sense controllers
Play Area	Seated, Standing
Game Mode	Single-player
Release Date	February 22, 2023 (VR Mode)
Price	Free DLC (requires base game)
Website	https://www.residentevil.com/village/

See also: VR Apps and VR Games

Resident Evil Village is a first-person survival horror game developed and published by Capcom. It released on May 7, 2021 for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and Windows. On February 22, 2023, the same day the PlayStation VR2 headset launched, Capcom added a free VR Mode update that lets the full main campaign be played in virtual reality on PS5.

The VR Mode reworks the game's first-person controls for tracked motion controllers, adding interactive hands, two-handed weapon handling, and manual reloading, and it uses PlayStation VR2 hardware features including eye tracking based foveated rendering, headset feedback, the adaptive triggers of the Sense controllers, and an OLED HDR display. It was one of the launch titles available for PlayStation VR2.

Background

Resident Evil Village is the eighth main entry in Capcom's Resident Evil series and a direct sequel to Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. It is built on Capcom's RE Engine and continues the first-person presentation introduced with Resident Evil 7, following protagonist Ethan Winters into a remote European village. The flatscreen version received generally favorable reviews, holding a Metacritic score of 84. Capcom reported in June 2024 that worldwide sales had passed 10 million units in the three years since the game's 2021 release, the fastest title in the series to reach that figure.

The base game shipped without virtual reality support. Capcom announced the PlayStation VR2 VR Mode in December 2022, confirming it would arrive as free downloadable content on the headset's launch day. Playing the VR Mode requires owning the full PS5 version of the game.

Gameplay

The VR Mode presents the entire main story campaign from a first-person viewpoint in virtual reality. The original third-person inventory and weapon-switching menus were redesigned around physical interaction: weapons are stored on Ethan's body and drawn by reaching for them, with the handgun and ammunition at the waist, the shotgun over the shoulder, and a sniper rifle at the rear, while throwable items such as pipe bombs and mines and the flashlight are kept inside Ethan's jacket. The in-game map becomes a physical object the player pulls out and holds.

Firearms are handled with both hands and must be manually readied and reloaded. Reloading is a multi-step action: the handgun requires inserting a magazine and pulling back the slide, and the shotgun requires loading individual shells and then working the slide. Pull-out hand interactions also cover opening drawers, picking up supplies, and other manipulation that the flatscreen game handled with button presses. The director, Kazuhiro Takahara, said the team "put a lot of trial and error into getting the feeling right and making it seem like you were handling a real firearm while also having the inputs be intuitive and unobtrusive."

For comfort, the VR Mode uses smooth stick-based locomotion rather than teleportation, with a screen vignette enabled by default while sprinting and an adjustable intensity setting. Players can choose between smooth turning and 30-degree snap turning, and optional assists can disable the manual reload requirement and automate camera positioning during scripted sequences. Reviewers noted that the increased physical demands make the VR version harder than the flatscreen game.

Development

Resident Evil Village was not designed with VR in mind, which Capcom described as the central challenge of the conversion. Takahara, credited as director of the VR Mode, said: "The main story mode was not developed with VR in mind. The game contained a lot of elements that made adapting it to VR a very difficult project." Rather than map weapon switching to buttons, the team moved equipment onto Ethan's coat, with Takahara explaining that "pressing buttons to switch weapons would have really deviated from our main goal of creating an immersive VR experience."

On the PlayStation VR2 hardware, the VR Mode uses eye tracking to drive foveated rendering, rendering the area the player is looking at in higher detail to save performance. Capcom ran the game at 60 frames per second reprojected to 120 Hz, and used headset vibration during cutscenes alongside the Sense controllers' haptics and adaptive triggers. Capcom said it had no plans to bring the Mercenaries mode or the Shadows of Rose story DLC to VR. In the same interview Capcom stated that "a very large majority of PS VR2 owners have played Resident Evil Village in VR" since launch.

Release

The VR Mode is distributed only as a free add-on to the existing PlayStation 5 game; it was not sold separately and was not released for the original PlayStation VR or for PC VR.

Platform / version	Release date	Notes
PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Windows (base game)	May 7, 2021	Flatscreen survival horror, no VR
PlayStation VR2 (VR Mode)	February 22, 2023	Free DLC, PS5 only, day-one PSVR2 title

Reception

Reviewers covering the PlayStation VR2 version described it as one of the headset's strongest launch titles. UploadVR gave the VR Mode a "Recommended" verdict, writing that the conversion delivered "a level of detail and scale present that I haven't experienced since Half-Life: Alyx," and praised the OLED HDR display, the Sense controllers' haptics and variable-resistance adaptive triggers, and the 3D audio for locating enemies; it also reported bugs in how scripted sequences direct the player's gaze and orientation.

Push Square scored it 8 out of 10, calling it "an even more intense version of a PS5 great" and saying Capcom "translated the Resident Evil Village experience to VR in supreme style, but it comes with a few caveats." The review noted that the freedom of the VR camera can cause players to miss cinematic moments, that some cutscenes drop into a flat Cinematic Mode, and that the manual reloading can leave players stuck in animations if their hands are not positioned correctly. In a hands-on preview, Road to VR highlighted the OLED display's expanded contrast in the castle's dark interiors and the brightness of light sources such as fireplaces and sunlit windows.