This industry never ceases to amaze. I can say that during CES week I honestly never expected to learn about a scented candle that was designed to smell like an old, musty timber wood and blood cocktail. Refrigerators with touch screens, talking trashcans, and robots that watch your kids sure — that’s a given — but I didn’t expect a candle.
In a post-Nosulus Rift world, I don’t know why I’m so surprised. Luckily online geek merchandise retailer Merchoid was here to debut an officially licensed Resident Evil 7 4D VR candle. It’s truly a site for sore noses if I ever saw one.
“The 4D candle is 100% officially licensed Resident Evil merchandise; this means Capcom have smelt the candle and found it scary to enough to give their seal of approval,” explains Merchoid Community Manager Jessica Adams in a prepared statement to press. “We’d even suggest that using the Blood, Sweat and Fears 4D Candle is the definitive way to experience the game…The virtual reality experience is incredible, but we want to take you one step further than that. While playing the game, imagine if you could smell everything you could see and hear. The game becomes incredibly immersive as it tricks all your senses into thinking that you’re really there.”
According to the statement, the candle is expected to provide between 18 and 20 hours of smell, not counting the lingering odor that will surely be left behind after it’s extinguished.
I’m not sure I’d want to have been part of the research and development team that was tasked with identifying the smell profile of blood and molding wood, but it certainly sounds like an impressive feat. When it comes to immersion in VR, there are a few things that many people are still yearning for — a sense of touch and freedom of movement chief among them — but I’m not sure the smell of an old cabin full of murder is on the list. Although, I can’t deny it would very likely help complete the survival horror experience.
The Resident Evil 7 4D VR scented candle will become available to pre-order starting today from Merchoid.com for £14.99/€17,99/$15.99; it ships on January 20th. Resident Evil 7: Biohazard is poised to be one terrifying survival horror experience and it’s scheduled for release on January 24th, 2017, for PlayStation 4 with optional PS VR support, as well as Xbox One, and PC. It may come to other VR headsets in 2018.
