Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice VR Edition is launching next week but your PC probably can't run it

[AlTech]

Ninja Theory has announced that Hellblade: Senua's Sacifice VR Edition will be coming to Steam on July 31st.

 

This is a standalone VR version of their existing game and was designed specifically for VR.  It's coming to the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive (SteamVR).

 

They did admit that there wasn't much of a Business reason to make the VR Edition and that they did it out of curiosity and to please fans.

 

Anybody who owns the existing game will get the VR Edition for free on supported platforms.

 

The Windows Store, GOG, and Console versions do not look like they will be getting the VR Edition.

 

The graphics card they recommended for the VR Edition is a GTX 1080. Personally, recommending a GTX 1080 for a VR Edition of a game is wrong on so many levels considering how few people will actually be able to run this at a reasonable framerate. If they needed a GTX 1080 for this game at VR then to me it sounds more like lack of optimizations and that this VR Edition shouldn't have been released at all. The GTX 1060 should still be the target for developers to aim for VR. If a VR Game can't run smoothly on the most common mainstream dGPU on Steam then it probably won't sell terribly well.

 

Source:

 

[WereCat]

Well, I will probably have a reason to buy Hellblade then.

I will definitely check reviews first though, but I should be able to run it just fine.

 

However, where the hell is the Resident Evil Biohazard VR for PC?

[unsubscribed]

Mind you unlike Fallout 4 and others VR edition of this game is free. All you need to have is original game. So... can't complain much there, especially since "standard" version is already amazing.

[Morgan MLGman]

48 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

The graphics card they recommended for the VR Edition is a GTX 1080. Personally, recommending a GTX 1080 for a VR Edition of a game is wrong on so many levels considering how few people will actually be able to run this at a reasonable framerate. If they needed a GTX 1080 for this game at VR then to me it sounds more like lack of optimizations and that this VR Edition shouldn't have been released at all. The GTX 1060 should still be the target for developers to aim for VR. If a VR Game can't run smoothly on the most common mainstream dGPU on Steam then it probably won't sell terribly well.

To be fair, you need a GTX 1080 to run this game at a constant 60FPS+ at 1440p at High/Ultra settings, so considering that VR has a fairly similar resolution, it looks pretty reasonable that the 1080 is what's recommended. Also, remember that "recommended" doesn't mean "minimum", it only means that they recommend a GTX 1080 for an optimal gaming experience.

I'm sure they could reduce the quality and visual fidelity but should they do that only to make a 1060 "enough" for it? I don't think so :3

[cj09beira]

a 1080 as a recommended gpu is not unreasonable after all for the experience to be good they need 90fps as a minimum, and its not as if the headsets had a low amount of pixels 

[WereCat]

2 minutes ago, Morgan MLGman said:

To be fair, you need a GTX 1080 to run this game at a constant 60FPS at 1440p at High/Ultra settings, so considering that VR has a fairly similar resolution, it looks fairly reasonable that the 1080 is what's recommended. Also, remember that "recommended" doesn't mean "minimum", it only means that they recommend a GTX 1080 for an optimal gaming experience.

I'm sure they could reduce the quality and visual fidelity but should they do that only to make a 1060 "enough" for it? I don't think so :3

Not to mention that most people in VR also want to use at least x2 SSAA

[Drak3]

7 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

ersonally, recommending a GTX 1080 for a VR Edition of a game is wrong on so many levels considering how few people will actually be able to run this at a reasonable framerate. If they needed a GTX 1080 for this game at VR then to me it sounds more like lack of optimizations and that this VR Edition shouldn't have been released at all. The GTX 1060 should still be the target for developers to aim for VR. If a VR Game can't run smoothly on the most common mainstream dGPU on Steam then it probably won't sell terribly well.

I disagree. Limiting developers to the capabilities of a weaker GPU for the sake of maximum sales, in a market as niche as VR, isn't helping push more high graphic quality games on that front. Everything having a cartoonish stylization gets boring quickly, and there's just not that many good VR games as it stands.

[cj09beira]

i would go as far as say we need more devs to be bold enough to do what the original crysis did, and release a game that takes years to be properly run push the boundaries, aim for the heavens, though amd being out of the high end is a problem for now, hopefully they get back by H2 2019/2020

[Sakkura]

2 minutes ago, cj09beira said:

i would go as far as say we need more devs to be bold enough to do what the original crysis did, and release a game that takes years to be properly run push the boundaries, aim for the heavens, though amd being out of the high end is a problem for now, hopefully they get back by H2 2019/2020

Financially it's completely unsustainable. Crysis had a much bigger addressable market and still wasn't really a big financial success. Trying that tactic with VR means you'll lose money.

 

It's still cool that one or two devs does it, as long as they aren't expecting profit from it.

[porina]

This isn't the first time where recommendations are above base, it has been happening since the start. There will always be a gap between minimum to get it to run at all, and a higher requirement to run it as intended.

[leadeater]

2 minutes ago, porina said:

This isn't the first time where recommendations are above base, it has been happening since the start. There will always be a gap between minimum to get it to run at all, and a higher requirement to run it as intended.

We're still on that new technology frontier where only the most high end stuff will do, part in parcel with this sort of thing. I don't know why there is this new trend to jump to bad optimization for highly demanding workloads, sometimes things just really are hard and the minimum viable product just is demanding like that, VR is that. Ray tracing is another example.

[Humbug]

1 hour ago, AluminiumTech said:

The graphics card they recommended for the VR Edition is a GTX 1080. Personally, recommending a GTX 1080 for a VR Edition of a game is wrong on so many levels considering how few people will actually be able to run this at a reasonable framerate. If they needed a GTX 1080 for this game at VR then to me it sounds more like lack of optimizations and that this VR Edition shouldn't have been released at all

I own a factory overclocked R9 290 and there is no game I have not been able to play with good framerates and quality so far...

 

Thing is... if they want to target GTX 1080 / Vega 64 level graphics then it's there choice. I won't buy it for VR, but personally I think it's their right to do so. Just make sure that game looks damn gorgeous in order to justify it.

 

If it's due to bad optimization that's a different story.

[PlayStation 2]

“Like Crysis with VR”

[TVwazhere]

1 hour ago, cj09beira said:

release a game that takes years to be properly run push the boundaries, aim for the heavens

Do you want No Man's Sky? Because this is how you get No Man's Sky

[leadeater]

3 minutes ago, TVwazhere said:

Do you want No Man's Sky? Because this is how you get No Man's Sky

It's also how you don't get Star Citizen.

 

[Drak3]

2 minutes ago, TVwazhere said:

Do you want No Man's Sky? Because this is how you get No Man's Sky

That just took years to run. No boundaries were pushed.

[TVwazhere]

Just now, Drak3 said:

That just took years to run. No boundaries were pushed.

They aimed for the heavens and burned their wings. 

 

My point being aiming for the heavens isnt the best way to make a successful game.

[Bouzoo]

I would just like to point out that the game was made by a studio of around 20 people, so let that sink in. This game is a success story. 

[Sniperfox47]

Ninja theory is an amazing team. I haven't played SS yet, but I've heard amazing things and I've played with a lot of their older titles. Can't wait to see what they're up to next, they've said in an interview a few months back that they're working on a number of projects some including VR.

 

It's great to see a developer use their own internal experiments like this to add value to a title. The fact that they could take lessons from VR and apply it to the base experience is great to see, and I'd love to see more developers experiment and take risks with their games.

 

I just hope they continue to release great games on open platforms like they have before. The recent aquisition by Microsoft Studios is great for them in terms of support and funding I'm sure, but it also concerns me with Microsoft's history regarding PC gaming (Games for Windows Life and the Fable fustercluck for example). Especially after just announcing they were in a good place financially and were looking forward to serving the middle-ground between AAA and indie, the aquisition feels a little odd.

[Princess Luna]

I tried to play it... somehow I couldn't force myself to go much farther on it... feels like the only appeal of the game is it's "awesome graphics" which aren't all that great being honest considering the very small closed environments you're usually at.

 

Repetitive gameplay, boring puzzles, simplistic fighting mechanics, not captivating story telling, meh protagonist that feels quite lacking... nothing stands up to me in this game personally.

[EarthWormJM2]

1 hour ago, Bouzoo said:

I would just like to point out that the game was made by a studio of around 20 people, so let that sink in. This game is a success story. 

...And I would say it is very well done. Definitely one of the coolest atmospheres it puts you in with all the "voices". Bet that would be pretty trippy in VR with spacial sound and some good headphones.

[Morgan MLGman]

2 hours ago, Princess Cadence said:

I tried to play it... somehow I couldn't force myself to go much farther on it... feels like the only appeal of the game is it's "awesome graphics" which aren't all that great being honest considering the very small closed environments you're usually at.

 

Repetitive gameplay, boring puzzles, simplistic fighting mechanics, not captivating story telling, meh protagonist that feels quite lacking... nothing stands up to me in this game personally.

The voices in the main character's head are super-creepy and sometimes can give you a mini heart attack when you have loud headphones with good 7.1 (love my G633's) It's an indie game though so that's how it should be treated.

[asus killer]

i also found the game really over hyped, the fighting is meh, the puzzles are really weak. Honestly i don't see what everybody saw in this game. At times seemed more like a walking simulator, going through the motions, but with the added bonus of a sub par story

I don't see what VR can ad to the game

[Froody129]

Tbh a 1080 is the "recommended" spec for everything in VR. Even my 980ti is quite lacking in VR...

 

This title is misleading. Plenty of games have high "recommended" specs but will run just fine on lower specs 

[vanished]

I was going to say that I don't share your feelings about recommending a 1080 and that VR is demanding, but it's really not that bad.  If you actually look at the specs for both headsets, it's about the same as doing ultrawide 1080p @ 90 fps which should be within the capabilities of a 1060 if you keep your graphics settings in check and have a properly optimized game.  That said, I can totally understand them recommending a 1080 if they want to push graphics ahead with this title, and/or if it's poorly optimized.