Bandai Namco has addressed the two biggest player complaints about Little Nightmares VR: Altered Echoes, adding a smooth turning option for all platforms and an option to disable the controversial hood vignette for PC VR players.
The response to Altered Echoes has mostly been positive, including my review of the game at release. That said, if you read player reviews, particularly the negative ones, the lack of smooth turning & inability to disable the vignette of protagonist Dark Six’s hood have been common points of contention. For some, it was a dealbreaker that put them off buying the game altogether.
Little Nightmares VR: Altered Echoes Review – A Faithfully Terrifying Adaptation
Little Nightmares VR: Altered Echoes is an excellent translation of the series to VR, lacking only in more robust VR comfort options.
Bandai Namco has addressed this in a May update. The smooth turning option has several speed presets ranging from 0.5x to 3x. The hood removal option is only available for the PC VR version of the game, with no indication if it will be added for Meta Quest and PlayStation VR2 at a later date. The post on Bandai Namco’s website states it is “available on PC only due to performance limitations on other platforms.”
I jumped back into the game on SteamVR earlier today, removed the hood, and played the game for an hour with no discernible impact on the game’s performance. However, everyone’s PC is different, so your mileage may vary depending on your PC’s specifications. I personally have an RTX 5070 Ti GPU and an AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D, so there’s not a lot it cannot handle.
Here are the other listed improvements:
• Improved climbable interactions and collision handling.
• Fixed several environment interaction behaviors.
• Improved AI behavior during investigations and chase situations.
• Improved visibility handling for nearby and held objects.
At release, the game FAQ on Bandai Namco’s website expressly stated that the game was snap turn only and the vignette could not be removed as a precaution against motion sickness. The vignette was additionally said to be present for added immersion.
Respectfully, giving VR players options to tailor the comfort settings to their personal liking will always be the best accessibility practice. Everyone handles VR locomotion differently and a one-size-fits-all design methodology will always court backlash. This is evidenced by the developer’s admission on the Horizon Store’s developer post that both features were ‘highly requested.’
Little Nightmares VR: Altered Echoes is available now on PS VR2, Steam, and Meta Quest.
