Blair Witch: Oculus Quest Edition is Bloober Team's VR adaptation of the studio's 2019 take on the franchise. The Blair Witch Project was a genre-shattering film when it first released over two decades ago, and Game Rant sat down with the new game's Narrative Designer, Barbara Kciuk, and the Vice President Of Production at Incuvo, Radomir Kucharski, to talk about translating that experience into virtual reality.
Blair Witch: Oculus Quest Edition picks up just two years after the events of the original movie and follows former police officer Ellis Lynch and his trusty dog Bullet as they search the Black Hills for a missing 9 year-old boy. Along the way, players find themselves coming across old video tapes, shifting landscapes, and mysterious beings in the forest.
Q) When the original Blair Witch came out it famously left many viewers really believing the movie was found footage. 21 years later, how does a game like Blair Witch: Oculus Quest Edition tackle that legacy now that the franchise is well known?
BK: Twenty one years is a long time, even for such a legendary franchise. However, such a long time also means all types of media have made huge progress since the original film was released. With the development of VR and games in general, Blair Witch: Oculus Quest Edition is able to give its players a totally new, ultra-immersive experience. This time you’re not just watching a bunch of characters wander into the forest, you’re one of them.
Q) What was the first experience the developers had with the film, and what drew them to the project?
BK: For many of our devs, the movie was one of the first horror films they fell in love with. Those memories were obviously one of the reasons why we wanted to work on this project, but not the only one. Blair Witch in its essence is very similar to how Bloober Team constructs horror. Our design philosophy is to allow fear to creep up slowly, by making both the player and the character question what is real and what is not. Which is exactly what Blair Witch did! When we first heard that there was a chance to work with this IP, we knew we had to take it. It was a match made in heaven.
Q) The movie deals so much with limited perspectives. In the final moments, even the microphone is dropped and the sound and video start to come from very different places. The final shot of the movie is someone staring into the corner of a room - the final moment of horror is a person with a totally limited perspective. How did the developers deal with translating that to a game where players can turn their heads, look away, and engage with a far more open perspective on the woods around them?
BK: Properly directing players' attention was a huge challenge for us. Bloober Team’s previous games took place in closed spaces and tight corridors, where it’s easier to draw attention to interesting elements, so a forest setting was quite a change. One of our solutions was Bullet, the main character’s dog. It’s natural to pay attention to your companion, especially when they are an adorable animal, so if he’s excited or scared of something, you instinctively start to search for that thing. It’s a very organic way to lead the player through such a complicated environment.
Q) There's a mechanic in the game where watching old tapes reorganizes reality in the present around the image of the past — how deliberately connected are those mechanics to the movies’ investigation into the concept of the archive in the digital age?
BK: When we began designing the game, we made a list of all elements crucial to Blair Witch lore. Tapes were obviously one of those. However, we decided that simply watching old tapes won't be an interesting mechanic on its own, so we added our own unique twist to it. And as Blair Witch’s protagonist’s past shapes his future, the fragments of someone else’s memories have a major influence on the world around the player.
Q) There's a controversial fan theory regarding the movie that claims that the tapes were found in the houses' foundations because the filmmakers were sent back in time. What do the developers think of this theory, and how does it play into the way the game deals with time with the old tapes?
BK: We're sure that our game will give the players even more reasons to think about this theory. :)
Q) The movie pioneered the shaky-camera horror genre, and while the game involves using a camera, the point of view is now directly that of the player. Did you find this changed the type of horror the game was trying to evoke, and if so, how?
BK: When making a game based on a movie, the first thing you need to accept is that you’re not making a movie. Films and games are two totally different media and they use different languages, so there’s no point in mindlessly copying from one to the other. The camera is a good example of that. Sure, we could make it a default player perspective, but what advantage would it give us? In a movie, it helps to reduce the distance between the viewer and the character, but in a game, this distance is already minimal, as the player controls the character. So instead of replicating methods, we focused on replicating emotions those methods evoked.
Q) What were some of the developers' favorite aspects of the original movie and how did they try and bring that to the game?
BK: It may sound very simple, but the most exciting for us was probably the forest. It’s a perfect setting for horror, and yet Bloober Team never before had a chance to fully explore it. With vision limited by both darkness and trees, you can never be really sure what’s around you or if that weird shape in front of you is just a piece of wood or something else entirely. It’s a great place for developers to explore, visually, narratively, and gameplay-wise. And it gave us an excuse to go to a real forest in the middle of the night, which is always a fun perk.
Q) What was the biggest challenge adapting the game for the Oculus Quest, and what are some of the changes and opportunities the team is most excited about?
RK: The most challenging part of the game’s development was bringing the dense, realistic forest from the original PC version of Blair Witch to life on Oculus Quest. We have to remember that Oculus Quest is a mobile platform, very underpowered compared to PC or consoles like PS4 or Xbox One. There is a reason why Blair Witch is the only Quest game where you are able to walk in woods. That was almost impossible to achieve and we had to completely redesign and redo the levels to make it happen. On the other hand, VR platforms offer improved immersion which increases the sensation of sheer terror felt when walking alone in woods at night with monsters hiding in the shadows. Another great opportunity for Blair Witch were the Oculus controllers which allowed for more direct interaction with Bullet. It's a lot of fun to pet him in VR and throw branches for him to fetch.
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Blair Witch: Oculus Quest Edition is out now for Oculus Quest and Quest 2.