Exploring The Abyss in In Death: Unchained for Oculus Quest
Hela cool.
One of my favourite PSVR games is finally getting the wire-free treatment as In Death: Unchained heads to Oculus Quest on July 23rd.
I was invited to try out the press build of In Death: Unchained, and you can watch me yelp my way through a couple of runs of the brand new Abyss level in this week's episode of Ian's VR Corner.
Rather than being a simple port, In Death: Unchained is more of an extended edition as a brand new level named The Abyss has been added specifically for the Quest. The Abyss is set in hell, as the overarching red colour scheme would suggest but, while there are some new structures and demons to encounter, the gameplay doesn't deviate too far from what's on offer in previous levels.
The Quest build plays exactly like the PSVR and PC versions so fans of In Death will know exactly what to expect, however the usual graphical cutbacks have been made in order to get this running on a portable headset. That said, the visuals didn't seem too dissimilar to how they appear on the PSVR and even with these downgrades the game still retained its classic unnerving vibe.
Having only played the PSVR version before, I was quite surprised at the Quest's lack of smooth move options. Teleport locomotion via magic arrows and click turning were mandatory in the preview build so here's hoping thumbstick controls will be added in the final release - if the PSVR can have smooth locomotion with the Move, surely this can!
Obviously with the Quest's wire-free headset you can easily turn your body to face your foes and (as long as you have space) use room-scale to physically dodge enemies and projectiles. I couldn't help but miss being able to fine tune my position with a controller during more intense moments though. That is something I was very used to doing on the PSVR so not having the option made it feel like movement was restricted, even with the lack of wires.
If you enjoy rogue-lite games and especially those that lean towards a horror experience, In Death: Unchained seems like it will be well worth checking out on the Quest. It's rock hard and occasionally pretty scary, but it's also incredibly immersive, genuinely tense and the procedurally generated levels will keep things feeling fresh for quite a while.
If you enjoyed this episode of Ian's VR Corner, you can catch up with my previous adventures over on YouTube in our VR playlist, where I've covered Valheim VR's motion controls mod, Doom 3 VR Edition and everything we know about PSVR 2 so far. You can also read our list of the best VR games.
