The horror and suspense genres are ones that have benefited immediately from the growth of virtual reality. Jump scares, creepy ambiance, and such can already increase heart rates while watching on 2D monitors, but the isolated environment VR headsets provide enhances those tense elements in a huge way.
The Souls franchise, including Demon’s Souls, Bloodborne, and the three Dark Souls entries, is a collection of western action RPGs that lean heavily on horrific monsters and environments and the developers may turn to VR to highlight those components in 2017. Games like Chronos and Edge of Nowhere channel parts of what make the series so special.
The 2016 Golden Joystick Awards were held back on November 18th and there was a little nugget of information revealed during the pre-show live stream. Host Julia Hardy spoke with Atsuo Yoshimura, the producer for Dark Souls 3, about the Souls franchise and its notoriety for being difficult and horrifying. Further into that interview, Hardy shot off a rapid fire of questions like “What’s your take on VR? Are you for or against? Do you like the idea of it?” and then went for the more pointed question before he could even respond to the previous ones: “Are we going to see Dark Souls in VR? Because that would be so terrifying.”
Yoshimura responded “Yes,” before further clarifying that the development team is “hoping” to produce a Souls VR title. With such pressure from Hardy with her barrage of questions, Yoshimura may not have wanted to reveal that bit of information as soon as this. PlayStation VR has a solid stable of games thus far, but having a franchise as deep as the Souls games come to the platform would be monumental. The PlayStation Experience in Anaheim, CA is this December and we may get some more information then, but it still may be too soon for them to share a significant amount of information or gameplay. Fingers crossed that whatever they’re working on is a full game and not just a brief experience like some of the other PS VR exclusives.
