I recently spoke to Dishonored 2's level designer Christophe Carrier who interestingly talked quite a lot about VR, saying that "we’re thinking about it" in reference to Arkane's supernatural stealth-em-up.
Christophe calls the idea of Dishonored VR "a level design dream," adding, "Far Reach, Blink... yeah! Possession... there’s a lot of things that would be transferrable to VR very quickly and would be immediately fun". However, if Arkane do go down a virtual route don't expect a straight port of the original game. "Your only transportation or mobility would be Blink," says Christophe, clearly favouring the teleportation style of movement that solves a lot of motion sickness problems caused by FPS movement. "And you wouldn’t have all the fatalities because they are animated and you don’t want to do that because you’re going to throw up!"
So what does that mean for a potential VR Dishonored? "When I think VR with Dishonored – of course I want to be in a room like the Clockwork Mansion and see the gears and see all the objects and look at them from very close because they are very beautiful and unique" says Christophe. "Because part of the VR [experience] is also being somewhere; not only playing but just being somewhere and looking at the scenery and manipulating object."
A VR Dishonored experience, if it happens, is likely to be something tailored more carefully for the format. "I don’t believe that games could be ported on VR at the moment," Christophe says. "They have to be thought about thoroughly and it has to be created for VR."
A great example of a game stepping away from a familiar template to create an entirely new, VR focused experience is something like Batman Arkham VR. That built something unique, that beautifully fitted what virtual reality can do and making it one of the best things you can play on PS VR.
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