The best VR games of 2023 don’t just coast along with immersion and motion controls as their big selling points, though some of them do innovative things in those areas. The medium is finally moving on from using VR as a video game gimmick, and 2023’s top picks use it to create unique experiences – in Resident Evil Village, for example – or even to augment storytelling in some respects, as Vampire Justice does. The competition was fierce this year, but we’ve narrowed it down to our 10 favorite VR games of 2023 and rattled them off below.
Geoff Keighley announced The Game Awards 2023 nominees, the Oscars for video games, and to the surprise of few, Baldur’s Gate 3 and Zelda Tears of the Kingdom show up quite a lot. Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Alan Wake 2, and Spider-Man 2 might have launched much later in the year, but they landed their fair share of nominations, along with Hi-Fi Rush.
Honkai Star Rail and Final Fantasy XIV pop up a few times, and Final Fantasy 16 even makes an appearance.
The 2023 Game Awards airs on Thursday, Dec. 7, 2023, and you can cast your vote on the TGA website for the community picks up until the show date.
Capcom reported a strong year of sales, led by Monster Hunter and Resident Evil 4, even though the horror game only had one week of sales
Capcom reported a record-breaking year of sales, led by Monster Hunter Rise and Resident Evil 4 remake (thanks, GamesIndustry.biz). The publisher reported net sales equal to approximately $940, which is a 14 percent increase from the previous year, and even recorded sizeable increases in sales of older games.
Monster Hunter RiseSunbreak led the charge with 5.45 million copies sold, helped no doubt by the RPG expansion’s release on several platforms following a period of Switch and PC exclusivity. The base Monster Hunter Rise, which originally released in 2021, sold an additional 3.7 million copies.
Resident Evil 4 remake sold 3.75 million copies, which is particularly impressive considering the horror game launched in the last week of Capcom’s fiscal year. Considering how it shattered Steam concurrent player records and sales for the series, though, perhaps such strong sales aren’t too surprising.
Six games reached or surpassed the million-selling mark, and Resident Evil 2 remake and Resident Evil 3 remake even saw increases in their sales. In total, Capcom said it sold 41.7 million games in its last fiscal year.
The publisher expects fewer unit sales in the current fiscal year, but an increase in dollar sales boosted in part by forecasted growth in its mobile content. Meanwhile, Capcom is gearing up for Street Fighter 6, which launches on June 2, 2023, for current-gen platforms and PC.
Resident Evil 4 remake speedruns are already off to a strong start, despite the horror game being less than a month old
Resident Evil 4 remake speedruns are already off to a strong start, despite the horror game being less than a month old. One speedrunner, YouTuber spicee, recently set the record for completing the game’s hardest difficulty mode in under two hours, clocking in at 1:58:47 – and they’re just getting started (thanks, GamesRadar).
Some runs have shaved nearly 10 seconds off that time, but they weren’t specifically completed on Professional difficulty.
Spicee uploaded a video of their final run on YouTube, and unlike some runs, this category lets you use glitches. Spicee takes advantage of several bugs and shortcuts – though no mods and no Moushley – many of which involve changing framerates at the right time, but the most important strategy is just treating it like a survival game instead of an action game.
Spicee avoids almost every enemy, taking on only those you can’t avoid or ones who drop certain items. That’s particularly handy considering enemies on Professional difficulty take significantly more effort to defeat.
Of course, an encyclopedic understanding of Resident Evil 4’s maps, enemy behavior, and tips for quickly defeating bosses goes a long way in making the run smoother as well.
Impressive as spicee’s run is, they say there’s much more room for improvement and optimization, so expect even faster, more creative runs in the future.
Resident Evil 4 remake released at the end of March and smashed Capcom’s sales records and the series’ record of concurrent players on Steam.
Resident Evil 4 remake sales are off to a strong start, as the enhanced survival horror game soars past a significant milestone
Resident Evil 4 remake sales are off to a strong start, as the enhanced survival horror game soars past a significant milestone only two days after launch. Capcom announced Leon’s grim trek through Spain sold more than 3 million copies during its release weekend. It also smashed the series’ record for concurrent players during the same period, with nearly 200,000 players suplexing cultists at one point.
For context, data Capcom shared in 2020 shows the original Resident Evil 4 on Nintendo Gamecube only sold 1.4 million copies in its lifetime, while the Wii version and PS2 version sold 2 million and 2.3 million, respectively.
“Resident Evil 4 is a remake of the original 2005 title,” Capcom said in its announcement. “In addition to reworking the story and modernizing the game feel, the 2023 release will provide both fans of the series and newcomers alike with a fresh gameplay experience, featuring highly immersive visuals. Along with securing high scores on online review sites, the title garnered praise and attention following the release of the Chainsaw Demo, in which players could enjoy the opening of the game, resulting in worldwide sales of the title surpassing 3 million units in the first two days after the game’s release.”
Resident Evil 4 remake’s sales push the series’ grand sales total to 135 million since the first game launched in 1996.
Leon’s journey isn’t over just yet. Mercenaries mode will launch as free DLC on April 7, 2023, and there’s strong evidence pointing to Ada Wong’s Separate Ways campaign coming to the game at a later date too.
After months of silence, Capcom finally said when the Resident Evil 4 Mercenaries release date is, and it’ll be free, too
After months of silence, Capcom finally said when Resident Evil 4 Mercenaries is coming to the remake, and it’ll be free when it launches on April 7, 2023, too. Capcom announced the Resident Evil 4 remake DLC in a brief snippet at the end of the horror game’s launch trailer, but didn’t show any footage of the revamped Mercenaries.
Mercenaries was bundled in with the original Resident Evil 4 as an arcade-style mode where you picked a character from the base game and tried defeating as many enemies as possible in a set time. You could play as Leon, Ada, Jack, and even Hunk of Resident Evil 2 fame on maps inspired by the game’s village, castle, and island areas.
Resident Evil Village added its own spin on Mercenaries mode, with more abilities and a wider variety of playable characters, including Chris Redfield with a Resident Evil 5-inspired punch attack and the internet’s favorite vampire, Lady Dimitrescu.
The trailer blurb is Capcom’s only mention of Resident Evil 4 remake’s Mercenaries mode aside from a brief mention in the February State of Play, where the publisher said it would include multiplayer elements. It’s unclear what other changes the team might have in store or if additional playable characters might be included.
If you’re keen on seeing Leon in other unusual circumstances, you can purchase a Leon Kennedy skin in Fortnite now.
The Mausoleon Lantern puzzle in Resident Evil 4 Remake will help you progress while playing as Ashley.
Ashley isn’t exactly the survival expert that Leon is in Resident Evil 4 Remake, but she knows her way around a puzzle. She’ll quickly be faced with the Grandfather Clock puzzle, but almost immediately after that is the Mausoleum Lantern puzzle, which you need to compete to get the Salazar Family Isginia.
Herb combinations are how you keep yourself alive in Resident Evil 4 Remake. They can restore your health and boost your max HP.
While it’s not as complex as other games in the series, Resident Evil 4 has its fair share of herbs. There aren’t any status effects like poison to worry about, but you may find yourself, but if you want healing capabilities on hand, you’ll need to know what combinations to throw together.
The Red9 handgun is a strong early-game weapon in Resident Evil 4 Remake, here’s where to find it.
The Red9 is one of the most reliable and beloved weapons from Resident Evil 4, but there’s only one way to get your hands on it in Resident Evil 4 Remake, and it’s easily missed. Before you finish Chapter 4, make sure you go through this guide before you miss your opportunity to wield this great weapon.
To get a Resident Evil 4 Remake trophy, you’ll need to get the game’s most valuable treasure and sell it for 100k pesetas.
Resident Evil 4 Remake is stuffed to the brim with far more treasure to find than the original. There have also been some changes to the kinds of jewels and gems that you can insert into them. With six different gem types, they can each be inserted into a variety of different treasure items, unlike the original, which was much more restrictive.
If you can find the right combination of treasure and gems then you can quite easily pick up 100k pesetas for your efforts, which will earn you a trophy. We’ll show you everything you need to make your treasures as valuable as possible.
