You'll need nerves (and a stomach) of steel to play this Flat2VR mod for Amnesia: The Dark Descent!
Keeping the frights on.
If there's one thing VR excels in, it's the horror game genre. Traditional flat horror games can be scary, sure, but there's always a safety blanket there. Because you're watching the action play out on a screen in front of you a slight turn of your head will break the illusion. Suddenly you're back in your room, safe from whatever is lurking inside your monitor.
The same cannot be said for VR however. Turn your head in a VR horror game and there'll be no blanket for you, only the possibility of more nightmares come to life, charging at you from out of the shadows...
Which leads me to this week's epsiode of Ian's VR Corner, in which I play a flatscreen to VR mod for perhaps one of the scariest games ever made, Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Check it out in the video below!
Made by a group of modders named CreaTeam, Sclerosis: An Amnesia VR Remake released earlier this week after a lengthy three year development process.
The reason that this mod has taken much longer to develop than the majority of the other flatscreen to VR mods that I've featured on VR Corner is down to one impressive fact. Sclerosis is actually a 1:1 recreation of Amnesia, made in the Unity Engine. This has allowed CreaTeam to completely adapt the game to VR and give the player full motion controls so they can feel extra immersed in Frictional's frightening world.
It's a tremendous achievement from CreaTeam, especially considering they have released it for free (although you do need a copy of the original game) but, while it's great for the majority of the experience, there are a few flaws that still need a bit of ironing out.
For me, the biggest problem was in turning valves and crank handles. Something about the interactions with these is really off. There's no simple 'grab and twist' here, in order to get these things to move even the slightest I had to flail my arms wildy or turn my wrists in incredibly uncomfortable directions. Grabbing and pulling drawers and doors and picking up objects was fine and super responsive, but hoo boy did valve handles leave me raging. A few updates for the controls to make turning off and refilling the lamp more intuitive would also be warmly welcomed, but apart from that the mod is a pretty impressive achievement all round!
One (massive) word of warning though - the 'Sanity' effects in Sclerosis VR are at the very extreme end of the visual scale in VR. They actually don't look that bad in my video above, but inside the headset the way the world warps, stretches, twists and shakes will test even the strongest of stomachs. Thankfully you can turn these effects off in the menus, which I'd throughly recommend you do if you don't have much VR experience.
Oh, and you can also play the game in a monster free 'Safe Mode' if you want to experience the story without the scares, but really, where's the fun in that?! You're in VR for a reason, so go get immersed in this incredible mod and don't come back again until you're shaking with fear!