First Look at ‘Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice’ VR Edition

To Helheim and Back

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Ninja Theory, the minds behind BAFTA award-winning action-adventure game Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice (2017), have brought the full, uncut title to Oculus Rift and HTC Vive headsets. We got an exclusive first look at the game’s new VR edition, which is coming free to all owners of the PC game when the update goes live on Steam July 31st. The short of it: it has a few flaws, but it’s a great game.

Update (July 31st, 2018): The VR edition of Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is now available as a free update to the base game. Both Steam and GOG versions of the game are said to arrive with the VR edition.

The original article follows below:

Original Article (July 25th, 2018): If you’ve never played Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, here’s a quick, spoiler-free primer. You can skip these two paragraphs if you’re already well-informed:

Played in the third-person, Senua is a warrior from the Orkney Islands, one of the many spots in the current day United Kingdom that was subject to Viking raids and later colonization throughout the eighth and ninth century. Battling against mythological creatures from both Scandinavian folklore and classic Norse mythology, you push Senua through difficult trials deep into Norse territory, all the while experiencing her pain and reliving her past. Senua suffers from psychosis, and according to the traditions of her people, she was sent to live in the forest alone to battle her own demons. Returning from the wilds, Senua, a fierce warrior, carries the skull of a loved one whose soul was taken hostage by the Norsemen, driving her to battle the gods in a fatalistic and shattered world of her own design.

One of Senua’s few happy memories, Image courtesy Ninja Theory

The game deftly addresses the very serious mental illness of psychosis—a descriptive term that can cover a host of maladies such as hearing voices, seeing hallucinations, and connecting dots that simply aren’t there, like assigning special meaning to everyday occurrences, or by creating elaborate fantasy worlds where the person is entirely immersed in solving cryptic puzzles that surround them in everyday life. This is the basis of the game; the world is constantly shifting, evil spirits confuse and battle you, and internal voices shout you down, casting doubt on your every move. For good reason, the game comes with a trigger warning—something doubly important for the VR version based on just how immersive it can be.

Now for VR

Ever since I started writing about virtual reality four years ago, I’ve found myself playing less and less traditional games, and replacing them almost entirely with VR titles. While I’m slightly ashamed to say I missed out on Hellblade’s PC release last year, my first opportunity to play it was in VR, and outside of a few minor niggles specific to the game’s VR implementation, I’m really glad my first experience with it was from within the immersive viewpoint of a VR headset.

Image courtesy Ninja Theory

I’ll start with some caveats, but I think you’ll find they’re easily outweighed by the game’s many (many) positives.

On a technical level, Hellblade at minimum requires an Intel i5 3570K or AMD FX-8350, 8 GB RAM, and either a NVIDIA GTX 1080 or AMD Radeon RX 580. Luckily, my testing rig meets those minimum specs, but I don’t suspect the majority of VR owners will. While I imagine lower-speced GPUs might be able to play on lower settings, as I was able to play on the highest possible settings without suffering reprojection with my GTX 1080, Ninja Theory was clear on the game’s minimum requirements for an acceptable experience.

Playing on ‘very high’ for all options—foliage, post-processing, shadows, textures, view distance, and view effects—I did notice at time that textures and some smaller game geometry take a noticeable bit to load in larger areas, which can sometimes detract from what would otherwise be a grand, detailed world. Knocking down to medium settings in some of those departments mitigated this somewhat, but overall the render distance on objects such as plants and rocks (read: far-field scenery loads consistently) appears to be a constant phenomenon, leading to some unsightly texture/geometry popping throughout the game.

Image captured by Road to VR

The game is in third-person, and there’s no chance of a first-person view coming. This is less of a hindrance than I thought it would be though, as the game can get pretty frightening at moments, what with all the binaurally-captured voices criticizing your every step (these can be turned down) and the ever winding path towards Senua’s declining mental state—it can be equally immersive and frightening, if not more so than many first-person VR games currently.

The last niggle: the only supported controllers are Oculus Touch, gamepads, and keyboard. Vive controllers were likely left out considering the nature of quick inputs needed during fighting sequences; a touchpad simply won’t do. Hopefully Vive users have a spare Xbox One gamepad lying around, because otherwise you’ll be using a standard WASD layout, which isn’t really a great way of playing. Touch controllers are supported, but predictably take the place of a gamepad, as there is no motion controller-specific support.

Caveats Be Damned to Helheim

While these main caveats could stop you from engaging with the game ‘perfectly’, the base experience is anything but disappointing. Hellblade’s engaging narrative quickly takes over, and Senua’s masterful motion capture is delightful to see in VR, as you come face-to-face with the warrior bedecked in blue war paint, who transmits some very realistic and intense emotions. Textures here are dumbed down somewhat for the VR version, but it’s plain to see that the in-your-face view of the character really begins to immerse you in her pain, fears, and struggles through the trials of the game. Check out the gameplay video at the bottom to see what I mean.

Traversing Hellblade, solving its many illusory puzzles, and engaging in combat sequences is a fairly fluid experience. Enemies at times spawn behind you, but the beauty of having a 360 view is in choosing where to look and when, so you can naturally keep an eye on baddies as they come. Combat relies on quick dodges, decisive sword slashes and kicks, and the use of ‘focus’, which activates a slow-mo mode that can both make shadow monsters vulnerable to attack and allow you more time to tear through multiple enemies. Boss battles are, for the lack of a better word, absolutely epic in VR. Should you ever find yourself facing too hard of an adversary though, you can always toggle between easy, medium, hard or ‘auto’ difficulty modes. But watch out; every time you die, an evil rot takes greater hold of your arm, which eventually will lead to your permanent death and a loss of all progress.

Image courtesy Ninja Theory

Puzzles are especially fun (and rightfully unsettling) in VR, as one of the main features of the game includes the ability for the world to morph around you; a staircase that wasn’t previously there snaps into view after you cross the threshold of a magic gate. The first time it happens, you really begin to question your own sanity, but soon the pieces come together and you start to understand how to use your own illusions to further progress (eg: go through a magic gate to reveal a hole in a wall, go through the hole and unlock the door from the inside). The VR implementation is a natural fit, and I would love to see it in more games.

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Another core puzzle throughout Hellbade is lining up runes to open otherwise impenetrable doors—some of the “assigning meaning to things” of Senua’s psychosis—and this is handled really well in VR, as you use your gaze to search and align these runes using your perspective. At moments I would need to crane my neck to get the perfect view, as it’s usually a funny-shaped tree, a few well-placed beams of light, or a piece of a building that has to be lined up, but I tend to think this is based on my preferred game setting. I would routinely enable a higher vantage point in the settings so I could get a better view of the scenery without Senua blocking the way.

Image captured by Road to VR

The game also has some experimental VR modes too, which can let you view the world either in ‘tiny mode’, which changes your perspective to see the world as a miniature diorama, or ‘giant mode’, which shrinks you down by about by three quarters to make the world decidedly larger than life. I didn’t really faff about with either, as the 1:1 normal mode was exactly how I wanted to play in the first place. In normal mode, scaling on Senua felt slightly larger than reality, but not so far off that she was in any way freakishly large.

Intense Themes, Mostly Comfortable Gameplay

Because the game relies on snap-turning, it’s ultimately pretty comfortable—and that’s despite the game’s forewarning that it’s an ‘intense experience’. There are moments when you smoothly turn into a cinematic mode to face Senua, but these are both conducted slowly and are few and far between, so whatever discomfort you may feel from this artificial locomotion will likely fade in a few seconds. Smooth turning is only available in ‘focus’ mode, which lets you look around for runes and other artifacts.

Since this is originally a PC/console title, the game includes many cutscenes to tell the story, which are refreshingly well handled. Instead of carelessly tossing your POV to fit the narrative, which can cause extreme discomfort, the world zooms out to a black void where you’re given a viewing window to help keep you grounded as things shake up. Had this not been a third-person game, I would say the cutscenes would be an overall a detriment to VR immersion, but somehow the whole narrative of Senua battling herself and her illusions makes this okay. Psychosis can make a person see the world in a different way, and provide out-of-body experiences, so it’s really a fortuitous match-up that I really enjoyed being a part of.

After playing the entire game in VR, which lasted around 7+ hours, I was left sobered and sympathetic to Senua’s plight. She fights for love, but carries her hate with her, something you witness at length throughout the game. I couldn’t help but feel a real connection with her, even though I wasn’t really apart of the story as such. At times she’ll look you in the eye, following the position of your head as you get closer to her. She’s distrustful of you, as you’re sometimes construed as just another illusory companion on her fatalistic journey.

In the end, Ninja Theory may have served up something of a gamepad throwback, which really hasn’t been on the menu since all major PC VR systems now have purpose-built motion control support, but there’s an undeniable charm to the game that will definitely keep you playing. As a high quality offering, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice does enough VR-specific refining to take it out the caste of ‘shoehorned VR ports’; it gives you just enough of the AAA game, which seems to have grasped VR well enough to make it worth your time if you aren’t scared away by the caveats mentioned above. More importantly, it serves as a lesson to other developers that good-looking traditional PC games can, and do work in VR.

Check out a full 14 minute gameplay session below to get a better idea of what Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice – VR Edition has to offer.

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Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • Westbrock

    best Game I played in 2017, can`t wait to play it again

  • CRASH_Override

    Man really wish they went with a first person view. 3rd person and VR is sorta like playing with action figures…

    • HybridEnergy

      That would require the remaking of the entire game since it’s combat is based around 3rd person.

      • Lucidfeuer

        What a typical bunch of bullshit. Have you even looked from afar at ONE game development process to say such a stupid thing?

        • HybridEnergy

          How is it stupid? how are you going to make the 3rd person sword combat work in VR genius in first person? Like Skyrim? you’re going to swing you motion controllers around ? lmfao

          • JJ

            It doesn’t have to work any different then how it already does. Just move the camera, the inputs stay the same which im guessing arent physical movements and are buttons. This is grossly over simplifying it but its surely possible and not a remake of the entire game. I’m not one to undermine how much work a vr port takes, it takes a ton of work, but fpv is possible.

          • HybridEnergy

            I’m not saying you can’t place the camera into the character’s eyes but have you played the flat screen version? having had tried it things would get daunting really quick. She rolls around and does some serious acrobatic moves,

          • Jerald Doerr

            I would kinda have to agree with HybridEnergy.. if you played the game you would understand.. they wouldn’t have to remake the game entirely from the ground up but you’d have to do a lot of work so why not just make a new game.. It’s almost like saying God Of War for the PS4 would work in 1st person without much work.

          • Lucidfeuer

            Not they would have to remake the battle part (5%), not the whole game (100%)

          • JJ

            Because making a new game compared to porting is ALWAYS more work unless you’re making a smaller game. So you should be saying why not port it instead of making a new game…

          • Jerald Doerr

            I’m not a programmer but I think I meant what I said.. new game as in a defernt game.. I thought porting is taking a existing game from one system Atari to say a PC… I think they used Unreal 4…so just adding VR should not be that much work.. the game was released on all systems so it’s not a port… correct me if I’m wrong..

            As for the God Of War reference I’m saying the game would just be a totally defernt experience in VR using motion controls in 1st person…. not that it can’t be done… I’m just saying your risking a high chance of a shit load of work and failure to fans…

          • Nevermind the player doing the attacks himself :)

            Crazy

          • Lucidfeuer

            No they would have to remake the character rig and interaction part (5%, lay 10% at most), not the whole game (100%), was my point.

          • J.C.

            You clearly have not played this game, nor have any idea what it’s about. In the game, you ARE NOT SENUA. Yes, she follows controller commands (most of the time) because it’s not really a game otherwise. But you’re…an etherial witness. Maybe just one of the voices in her head. She will turn and speak TO YOU. First person would literally make no sense at all.

          • Lucidfeuer

            I’ve played the first few hours of the game, and never said it should be first person (although that would be a fun twist): you said making it first person would necessitate to redo the whole game.

            Now my bad if you meant that as a narrative stand-point, in which case I can agree, but usually when I see that point it’s about a completely non-true notion that porting a game to VR is significant production let alone redoing the whole game, which is BS.

          • A VR 3rd person port wont take nearly as much effort as a 1st person port unless they ditch motion controls.

            Although 1st person shooters would require less effort than melee based games perhaps.

            But going from 3rd person to first person w/ motion controls sounds like a nightmare.

            That is another game. If devs thought they had to go that route, the VR ports would die.

          • Steve Brown

            Exactly! With First person view that they are demanding, the character is obviously masterful in sword play. Are they now to dumb down the rest of the experience so us the users can swing our swords around like lunatics? Comon man!

    • Riley Prescott

      It’s really ok for a game like this where the main story is more about watching the character and following them on their journey.

      • NooYawker

        Her expressions and reactions is an important part of the game.

        • CRASH_Override

          That’s fair and I can understand that. However, in VR, I want to be immersed as the player, not feel like I am controlling and watching a puppet.

          • NooYawker

            I get that too, especially in a game like this. I can see this being one of the most immersive games to date.

          • Although some 3rd person games(such as games like Bayonetta and Final Fantasy and others) w/ over the top combat would be a wild ride in 1st person VR.

          • J.C.

            then “it’s not for you, Jen”.

          • players still immersed. What you smoking?

    • Westbrock

      I really really like 3rd Person VR. In this Game you have to see the Charakter to feel her Pain. Maybe it`s not your Game

      • CRASH_Override

        Maybe it`s not your Game

        Probably not, for VR anyways.

        • No difference between VR and standard(other than immersiveness).

    • Not a bad thing. It could be because of today’s VR tech. Soon, you’ll see little humans.

      Although 1st person w/o motion controls would feel wierd.

    • J.C.

      You clearly haven’t played the game and yet you think you NEED to be in first person for it. I want to avoid spoilers, but let’s just say… you THINK you want it first person, but that would literally destroy the story.

      • Guess he wants 1st person action/3rd person cutscenes.

    • Also your character is as big as you so it may not be an action figure.

      idk about life sized one but you should try it.

  • HybridEnergy

    Holy shit had no idea this was happening even! I’ll be getting now!

  • ymo1965

    Drat, got this from GoG. Looks like i’ll be double dipping :/

    • Jordan_c

      OpenVR(the core software behind SteamVR) does not require developers to release their game on Steam. Perhaps it wouldn’t be a bad idea reminding Ninja Theory ;)

      • but u will need to install steamvr to play it so u might as well get it on steam

        • Jordan_c

          You can actually uninstall Steam right after you install OpenVR. In fact OpenVR can be disturbed with the game package itself if the dev desires to do so. This is people how got VR working on Linux Valve officially supported it.

          There really isn’t a need to only have VR on only 3 store fronts. VR is way too smart this walled garden carp Sony and Oculus are pushing.

    • Andrew Jakobs

      It’ll propably also be available for free on Gog, so just wait until it’s actually released.

      • ymo1965

        .. thanks for that. Might just hold out then.

  • Sven Viking

    “In normal mode, scaling on Senua felt slightly larger than reality…”

    Perhaps they could use a slider?

    • JJ

      not as simple as that but in the end yeah they could

  • Raphael

    It was looking good right up to the words that said “no motion controller support”. Bye bye.

    • What did ya expect them to do w/ it?

      Anything they add may not have been enough to please anyone.

      • Andrew Jakobs

        Well, to be honest, with a VR version I expect the game to progress through the eyes of the protagonist and being able to swing the weapons myself using motion controllers. Yes, that requires more work, and NO they didn’t have to do it for free.

        • Jordan Stephens

          In the game, you play a voice following Senua on her journey. That is what’s happening in the 2D game. If they switched it to where you were playing from her perspective, the entire story would change as she wouldn’t be talking to, and looking directly into the eyes of, the player. Also, large parts of the budget were spent on performance and motion capture for animations and facial animations. All of that would be completely lost with a first person port.

        • Don’t know why you guys want a crappy VR port(like they can actually accomplish what you want they way it should be done w/ this game) or some short hellblade “experience” overpriced.

          Well, this is better than nothing.

          Rather play this than some stupid short hellblade experience.

        • HybridEnergy

          AS to some of the comments above, you don’t have to be a fan of seated VR or 3rd person titles, but it’s okay to enjoy one here and there. This one is specially quite good.

      • gothicvillas

        I expected to have a sword fight using motion controls.

        • Jordan Stephens

          You have to dumb down the difficulty and animations considerably in this case, which they put considerable effort into looking and feeling real. Motion controls have no weight to attacks and blocks, so striking with a motion controlled sword has to swing straight through the enemy instead of being able to be parried, blocked, or transition into an animated sequence, because if it does one of those, the motion would instantly be out of sync with what you’re seeing on screen.

        • Unless you mean twilight sword(zelda) controls. You’re askin so much from a 3rd persion game w/ a battle system complete different from the likes of Skyrim.

          Can’t imagine a dev going through that much hell to please the motion crowd w/ game like this jus to port it to VR.

          At least it’s playable in VR. Better than nothing.

      • Raphael

        Expected motion controls… this is 2018. Your statement is utter gibberish. Stop doing drugs flappy.

        • Says the person who expected motion controls from a 3rd person port.

          What? You wanted Zelda Twilight Sword controls? Tough shit

          This ain’t the Wii.

          Fine import indeed. More 3rd persons ports now :D

          Indeed better than nothin, pumpkin.

          • Raphael

            I haz no issue sitting for VR. I looked at this game on youtube last night. Amazing character animation and graphics. I suppose there is an element of hypocrisy in my judgement as I couldn’t get enough of HL2 on my DK2 back when valve modded the game. It was one of the best games I played on DK2 using mouse and keys.

            It’s great that Hellblade developer made the effort to bring this to VR.

          • HybridEnergy

            Raphael, don’t pass this one up. I’m a immersion standing with motion controls fanboy too (lmao) but throwing in a 3rd person game into the VR library, one of this scale, is a great thing here and there. I’ve already put 4 hours into it :)

  • Luke

    devs please make it run good on the gtx 1070

    • david vincent

      Yeah the game is pretty badly optimized. It can stutter even when there is nothing to show ! As if there was no Occlusion Culling…

  • Trip

    I’m sold. I won’t have time to play it until at least fall, but I’m looking forward to it. I absolutely loved “Edge of Nowhere”, totally underrated game IMO and it was similar in some ways. I’ve been hoping for more games similar to that one.

  • crim3

    “which is coming free to all owners of the PC game”

    Hmmmm… two other games that ask for full price for the VR version came to my mind immediately after reading this :D

    • 3(SuperHot)

    • HybridEnergy

      While true, to be fair, Bethesda put a year to help the VR mechanics work in their games. I really don’t mind supporting with my wallet as an early adopter VR devs, it’s of course extra awesome when it’s free. I don’t own Hellblade on steam and I’ll be getting it specifically for VR so that supports my reply I guess.

      • JJ

        Right, this is just kinda like a vr theater mode for the game nothing too different

        • HybridEnergy

          No, it’s not just theater mode or SBS. wth

          • JJ

            I said kind of like a vr theater because yeah most of the time you’re just watching from one perspective behind the player. Which is a stones throw away from a 360 video.

  • MadMax1998

    Third person, with cutscenes in windows and controls via gamepad… so basically it’s a giant 3D theater version of the flat game. I’m glad they put the effort in; I loved the game when it came out and if I ever replay it, might as well do it in VR. But I was expecting more when I saw the headline… at least first person view and motion controls. Otherwise, what’s the point of it being VR?

    • Pablo C

      I love this, because I almost just cannot play flat games anymore, and I really wanted to play this.

    • Sven Viking

      Stereoscopic 3D, lifelike scaling, 360 degree view (apart from cutscenes), head tracking for depth cues etc. The protagonist also apparently follows you with her gaze when addressing the player in the story, which is a minor but nice touch.

      • MadMax1998

        I want to be convinced. I hope the game manages to pull me in in spite of its VR shortcomings.

    • HybridEnergy

      Theater mode is based on SBS or just flat gaming inside a screen in the headset. It is not the same to a VR 3rd person title.

  • Whoever expect motions controls from a 3rd person port like hellblade can’t be right in the head.

    You all are drunk/high, go home.

  • Don’t know why everyone thinks you have to move your ass for VR to be fun.

    can’t expect a 3rd person game to go 1st person for VR. Makes no sense.

    • Get Schwifty!

      This is a fundamental problem…. VR for the masses and game play in general is still very much a seated experience. I personally have felt too much undue emphasis was on the standing room scale experience. When I want to play Overwatch or say Fallout 4, I DON’T want to stand, or even flail about as though I am literally doing the game character. I think VR room scale gaming is a niche, and may one day become the dominant form, but that is still a ways away.

      • JJ

        Yeah I play skyrim sitting otherwise its like hours on end of standing for not a good enough reason. but games like BAM and pavlov, good luck playing that seated, maybe as a sniper though.

        • nullptr

          This is just plain wrong. Plenty of examples: Realities, Nefertari, etc.. all didn’t work on Odyssey in the beginning and had to be fixed.

      • At least it’s fun to shoot things yourself :3

        Melee is what’s tiresome.

      • Pablo C

        Thing is, seated experiences in general don´t let you use your hands, which is a big deal of the standing experience (i.e. for shooting). Also, in my experience, FP games get way less dissier and more immersive when you turn with your feet. VR for the masses up untill now means Gear VR, with 3DOF, no need to stand.

        • turn w/ your feet and tie yourelf up w/ the cord :3

          (Cord users only)

          • Pablo C

            That´s an issue. After every session I have to fix the cord supercoiling.

          • HybridEnergy

            The chord is a temporary nuisance of gen 1 adoption VR. Like all tech, we’ll eventually cut the chord.

        • david vincent

          Also while seated you tend to much less look around you.

      • HybridEnergy

        To like Hellblade in VR, which I very much do, doesn’t mean you have to trash talk room scale because you’re secretly fat. Same vice-versa. I love hellblade, but man is Skyrim seated and Fallout 4 seated dumb to me. I’m not playing Robo Recall and Arizona Sunshine seated either, F that, or lone echo. If my character stands, it’s massively more immersive to stand also. I’d rather hellblade be first person standing, but it’s not, and that’s okay and it’s still awesome. Maybe I’m just not fat.

        • Raphael

          For decades computer and console gaming has been about sitting for hours pushing a mouse and pressing keys to make your character move. Or a thumbstick on a console controller… So we have a generation who grew up sitting down for hours, days, weeks, months, years. I too was part of that. I remember playing CSS online every day for more than a year. A friend a mine played it every night for so many years that his wife nearly left him. Along the way I became so tired of staring at a tiny 2d rectangle. I knew VR was the future when I bought my first low res, low contrast headset in 2006.

          When I pre-ordered Vive… I was sure I had little interest in standing/room scale VR… My primary application was flight simulation. When I actually tried my first room-scale games I was blown away. Sitting is obviously necessary for flying/driving and it’s ok for some types of game. Now I’ve grown-up I don’t like the idea of being lazy and sitting all day long staring at a 2d rectangle for gaming.

          I use BoxVR for exercise… 1kg weights on each wrist. Beatsaber is ok… fun but that’s more mental agility. It doesn’t really push the body like boxvr.

          I believe the couch potato gamers are dying out as VR begins to penetrate mainstream. Anti-VR muppets hate VR because they see it as a threat to their way of existence. The idea of standing or moving around using real legs is terrifying to them.

          Lazy counch potato gamers are dying out slowly. VR certainly accommodates sitting for a percentage of games though but I have no issue standing up using physical legs.

          • HybridEnergy

            I too wasted far too much time in counter strike source back in the day and not even on a wide screen monitor yet (haha). However, I don’t think 3rd perspective is something that’s supposed to be replaced or compete with room-scale. I heard people saying that in the flat screen era too that after FPS games , third person is dead, but it’s still here. I think both is fine by me and I am enjoying Hellblade very much in VR and I liked something like MOSS as well. However, like you I way prefer the immersion of full tracking/motion controller and think it’s more convincing to draw new people into VR. I picked up for example Hellblade yesterday and Red Matter, while Hellblade is the talk of the town and I like it, instantly the fact I had hands and was standing like my character made Red Matter the better VR game to me, maybe not the better game but definitely the better VR game. I understand seated options with snap turning for crippled people who want to play, but how lazy are some of these other gamers is kind of of sad. Hell, I’m usually playing it standing like a real sport in SPARC as it is working my muscles. I just don’t rule out good 3rd person, and I think it will be around forever. I wouldn’t pass by Hellblade.

    • mirak

      I don’t know why you think you have to move yout ass for VR to played in first person.

      Silent Hill had a first person mode when you played the game after beating it once.
      That was pretty fun, and hoped more game had this.

  • nullptr

    Can you confirm this running on WMR/Odyssey?

    • JJ

      if it runs on a vive it runs on WMR/odyssey no extra confirmation needed.

  • Graham

    Wow – I think this is a great announcement – and for free. I don’t have pc vr and am very jealous. Surprised at the amount of negative comments below but guess you can’t please everyone. Hope it comes to psvr but suspect (like fallout) it won’t have the power to cope.

  • MatBrady

    This conversion will 1. prove the naysayers wrong and 2. be the surprise killer-app for Vive.

  • You’re welcome :3

    No wall o text too. Bonus.You may could have went that route.

  • Eisberg77

    Are they going to update the GoG version as well for VR? If not, are they going to give GoG users a Steam key so they can play in VR?

  • NooYawker

    Downloading now!! Can’t wait to play it!

  • I dislike this type of game VR or not so I was more interested in graphics that anything else. Skyrim a 7 year old game looks better than this. The graphics are horrible in the highest settings. I’m disappointed.

    • NooYawker

      What kind of card do you have? Min is 1080. Put the vr graphics on card specific option. I had it on dynamic resolution and it looked blurry, but on card specific it looked pretty great. It definitely looks better than Skyrim.

      • david vincent

        It’s artistically better than Skyrim. Technically, not so much (making me wander why the game is so demanding)

        • NooYawker

          There’s alot of details in Hellblade.. get really close to her face.. her eyeballs are fully formed, iris, eyelashes, everything. It’s pretty crazy.

  • oompah

    Looks convincing but who can afford high h/w specs?
    but I wonder how TES manages so well with average h/w

  • david vincent

    Great game but strangely demanding for no reason. As if there was no occlusion culling…

  • Andrew McEvoy

    You know what, after playing this game for an admittedly relatively short period of time, and as outstandingly beautiful and powerfully intense this game is, I feel somewhat numb and disconnected playing it, as its based purely on xbox/keyboard controls. I miss the touch controllers and the interaction in vr that they bring. Had the same issue with Subnautica.
    I’m now back playing Stand out, The Forest and Skyrim again. However I will give it another go this weekend.

  • STL

    How can I improve at playing this game? I recently purchased an Xbox One gamepad, but I'm still struggling with basic movements; climbing seems impossible, and overall movement feels awkward. When I try to move the camera around Senura, it just rotates awkwardly. She can walk and run, but that's about it. This game would have really benefited from an integrated tutorial. I ended up giving up on it. In contrast, playing Skyrim VR was an incredibly smooth and enjoyable experience.