How Resident Evil 4 VR Channels RE4: Wii Edition | Screen Rant
Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition complimented the series’ new controls well, and the RE4 VR port may recapture that feeling of aiming at evil by hand.
The newly announced remake of Resident Evil 4 as an Oculus Quest 2 virtual reality game suggests one of the series' greats will soon be more immersive than ever. It is far from the first time the title has been remade, remastered, or enhanced, however, and not even its first use of motion controls. The Resident Evil 4 VR port may replicate an experience not felt since RE4: Wii Edition, taken to the next level with first-person aiming.
Resident Evil 4 made its debut on GameCube in 2005. The game was subsequently released on PlayStation 2, mobile devices, and the Wii, remastered in HD for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and is now available on numerous platforms, including PC, last-gen Xbox and PlayStation consoles (and current-gen ones, through backwards compatibility), and Nintendo Switch. The Wii version is still held in high regard by many fans, as Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition's motion controls provided an RE4 playthrough unlike any other. The upcoming VR release may let fans recapture the feeling of taking aim at RE4's parasite-controlled mobs with their own hands.
The motion controls of the Wii were a better fit for RE4 than prior games in the Resident Evil series - at least in their original formats. Earlier RE titles used what fans call "tank controls," where pressing "up" always triggers forward movement and "left" and "right" initiate turns, regardless of the character's position relative to the fixed camera angles. This allowed the Resident Evil games to make use of dynamic camera viewpoints without altering character movement, but as a practical matter, the third-person tank controls didn't age well.
While the somewhat unintuitive control scheme and cumbersome movement arguably added to the horror of the initial Resident Evil trilogy, RE4's more familiar third-person, over-the-shoulder action was widely well received. The game still captured a horror vibe, but players could more freely control movement than when struggling against tank controls. Aiming also rewarded more conventional gaming skills in RE4, as players were able to line up shots without having to guess based on dramatically effective, but less than functional, camera angles.
With aiming aligned more closely to the player’s perspective, the Wii was an ideal choice for a port of Resident Evil 4. Many Wii games made use of the Wii Remote and Nunchuck to deliver a style of aiming by hand previously only available in light gun games of the '80s and '90s. RE4 Wii used the Wii Remote to aim and assigned movement control to the Nunchuck, rather than implementing a fixed view and automated movement like a rail shooter game. The combination worked well for the title, and RE4's quick time events were also reinvigorated with the novelty of motion controls instead of timed button presses.
There are still many unknowns regarding the Resident Evil 4 VR game, including whether it will remain exclusive to Oculus Quest 2 or receive ports to other VR hardware. It's also unclear if it will include all of the original RE4's content, a streamlined, VR-curated experience, or additional, new content. Regardless, the Resident Evil 4 VR debut trailer appears to show a return to the motion-aiming last featured in the Wii port. If so, virtual reality will no doubt submerge players' senses in the terror of Resident Evil 4, but time will tell if the experience of playing it with VR controls can replace the game’s beloved Wii edition.