

It shaves off enough of the hard edges encoded in a shooter of its time (a third-person game at that) whilst giving it just enough graphical fidelity to make it feel like how your mind’s eye remembers it.

If you’ve played before on flatscreen, you may be happy to stop right here when I say that RE4 on Quest 2 is a pretty straight forward VR port that is a very competent translation of the 16 year-old game. As RE4 crosses the threshold into VR though, there’s an opportunity to see the game in a new light-pick through the good, the bad, the timeless, and the obsolete to get a fuller picture of what this game is for us today.

I remember playing Resident Evil 4 on GameCube back in the mid-2000s and marveling at its cinematic flair, memorable bosses, extensive weapon upgrade system, cutscene quick time events… all of it made for a potent experience that few games have lived up to in my memory since. Despite leaning on what have now become well-worn gaming tropes, RE4 for Quest proves to be an expert VR port that still manages to deliver a lot of fun. Resident Evil 4 for Oculus Quest 2 definitely shows its age-it would be impossible not to given its lineage as a groundbreaking survival horror game initially launched on GameCube in 2005.
