The Bloober team brings back The Blair WItch, but this time to your Oculus headsets in VR mode!
Back in September of 2019, GeekDad reviewed The Blair Witch on PC and Xbox One. To make a long review short, we enjoyed the terrors the game had to offer and felt that it was a pretty immersive horror title. Little did we GeekDads know that the experience would be further heightened by jumping into the world of virtual reality.
When I first heard of this it was impossible not to be stoked. Almost all of my favorite virtual reality experiences are horror-based. Whether we are talking about Resident Evil 7 Biohazard or The Beast Inside, we enjoy our virtual spooks.
Considering how frightening the initial Blair Witch was, the only question we could have with the virtual edition is how smooth and immersive the experience could get. Will there be slowdowns and glitches that take us out of the environment and get our pulses back down to a reasonable rate? For us at GeekDad, a big question was how well it would work on the Oculus Quest 2. A good amount of time was spent updating firmware and purchasing the best link cable possible to try and make the experience as flawless as possible. That being said, we are still talking about Virtual Reality.
Playing It!
Once it is fired up, you will immediately notice a drop in graphics quality from the PC and Xbox One. The draw distance is reduced, but I don’t find this to be a deal-breaker. Since the game is mostly played at night and is quite intimate, you don’t dwell on the shortcomings because you are too busy running for your life. The immersion is there in spades, and that is where Blair Witch truly shines, as the spatial sound is phenomenal and really can transport the player into a dark mysterious world.
I play a lot of VR horror games, and this may be the most frightening of them all. Your trusty companion Bullet is even more essential in VR, giving sound cues for location and trouble. Some may find it a bit distracting, but once you master the use of it, Bullet becomes an essential tool in Blair Witch. You may experience a few movement glitches, but, for the most part, I found tracking my head and two move controllers to be solid. You can play standing or seated, depending on your comfort level, but if you can hang in there, I find the more immersive the better.
Final Thoughts and Recommendations
I loved Blair Witch before, and I only love it more in VR. It ranks right behind Resident Evil 7 for the best horror VR experience I have ever had, which is saying a lot. If you have an Oculus Quest 1, 2, or S, I just cannot see how you can avoid owning this title. The immersion is off the chart with scares aplenty. If you are looking for a terrifying Halloween experience this year, this may be it!
A sample of The Blair Witch for Oculus Quest was made available by the developer. Thoughts expressed in this article are the author’s alone and not that of the developer or editorial board.
