Bethesda is giving VR gamers what they’ve been begging for. Later this year, the publisher is releasing not one but three high-profile titles based on its most popular IP. The first is Doom VFR, a new game that combines new locations and some seen in 2016’s fun as hell shooter that promises bloody thrills. Perhaps more exciting, though, are the two VR ports of its biggest games of recent years; Fallout 4 and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
Playing both games in VR is something of a dream come true for pretty much anyone that’s been following the industry for the past few years, and it shows that the studio isn’t afraid to embrace this unproven new technology. But between its own internally developed hits and games it publishes from other studios, there’s plenty of other games — both new and old — we’d love to see made for VR. Here’s just a few of them.
Wolfenstein VR Spin-Off
You’ll know videogaming has truly come full circle when there’s a full, immersive Wolfenstein game in VR. As one of the first true first-person shooter games, this series has immortailized itself in gaming history, and recently made a triumphant return with 2014’s Wolfenstein: The New Order. With the standalone expansion, The Old Blood, also available and a sequel on-track for later this year we’d love to see developer MachineGames take a page from id Software’s book and remix some of its pre-existing content with some unique locations to give us a takes of Wolfenstein in VR. Now more than ever we need a VR Nazi beatdown simulator, and this is the perfect venue for it.
Dishonored VR
Many say that teleportation locomotion, though uncomfortable, is unimmersive and distracting when trying to explore a new world. Well it just so happens that one of the original Dishonored’s primary mechanics is a teleportation option, so that kind of kills that argument, huh? In truth there’s a lot of Arkane Studios’ 2012 action game that we’d love to experience once again in VR, from the badass thrills of sneaking through the shadows to the sheer joy of mastering the game’s wide range of abilities. Plus you hold a heart in your hand. Who doesn’t want to do that in VR?
The Evil Within VR Spin-Off
Expectations may not have been high for The Evil Within when it launched back in 2014, but seeing as it’s soon to get a major sequel I’d say it’s done quite well for itself. In fact, the game’s intense brand of psychological horror is so well-suited for VR I’m surprised some sort of short VR tie-in the next entry hasn’t already been announced. Traditionally this is a third-person franchise, and games like Edge of Nowhere prove those can still work in VR, but we’d still love a first-person spin-off that puts us right in the heart of the scares. Well, some people might anyways, I probably wouldn’t play it. I prefer my underwear clean.
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind VR
Yes, Skyrim VR is the game we’ve been asking for since day one of the Oculus Rift Kickstarter campaign, but why stop there? Why not give us the next best Elder Scrolls game (sorry, Oblivion) in VR too? In fact, for many Morrowind is still the definitive Elder Scrolls experience and it’s not hard to see why. It’s been far too long since we’ve travelled back to the dense forests of this wonderland, and the chance to revisit it all with an updated VR build is just too good to resist.
The Elder Scrolls VI/Fallout 5/New IP
We’ve saved the big one for last. If Bethesda’s last two big games got VR ports then surely we can cross our fingers in hope that it’s future titles will come with VR support out of the box, right? We know that whatever the team’s working on next, it won’t be another Elder Scrolls or Fallout game, but we can still expect it to be a big deal and we’d love for VR to play a part in that. And then, when it does return to these pillar franchises, we’d love to see the big new worlds they present in VR first.
