When devs tease new work the one thing that is certain is that speculation about it will be all over the place.
So you can imagine when Japanese publishing and games development titan Bandai Namco outlined plans for a new horror game, rumors have sprung up in its wake about what exactly the company could be working on for its new future title.
And – in one of the juicier tidbits to emerge – some are wondering aloud if the new horror game could be a virtual reality title given the platform’s ability to immerse players in ways previously thought impossible.
Teasing a new game for a possible reveal later this month, Bandai Namco has maintained an air of mystery about the new project and hasn’t really said one way or the other what exactly we should expect. What we currently know points to an August 30th reveal of the new horror title, whatever it might be.
Game Rant is reporting that some sleuthing done by games’ website Gematsu has revealed files with keywords like “zombie” and “horror,” leading to speculation that perhaps we’re getting something along the lines of the survival horror genre rather than something like Dark Souls or the more manga-inspired horror action games that Bandai Namco has become popular for in the past four years.
One of the main reasons people are speculating that this could be a horror VR title is that the segment is ripe for a game built from the ground up for it. Resident Evil 7: Biohazard’s VR treatment was not only immersive and terrifying but also showed devs what they could in VR that they couldn’t do in the regular game.
When you consider the mechanics that a skilled game designer could employ in a VR game as opposed to a traditional survival horror game then it really isn’t that out of the realm of the possible. Instead of simply pressing a button to open a door you could turn the handle itself and instead of waggling controls to fend off a zombie you could physically push the assailant away in real time.
When you think about the potential for merging the simulated real with the very fantasy-based settings found in most video games it is readily apparent that VR gives devs a ton to work within the creativity department.
Of course, the things going against this theory are that doing such a thing would make the game a niche title at the onset and, given that status, how much money could we really expect devs to spend on a VR-only game. Since publishers and their partners typically have to make a ton of money on a new IP in order for it to be successful, this further limits the chances that it is a VR-only blockbuster title.
Then again, there’s also the possibility that the game spans both realms like the other titles mentioned in this article but we’ll have to wait until August 30th to find out for certain.
