You’ll soon be able to explore the Lands Between in first-person, with an upcoming Elden Ring VR mod that plonks you behind the eyeballs of your Tarnished. New gameplay footage shows us just how big of a game-changer the mod will be, as well as just how terrifyingly immersive FromSoftware’s brutal fantasy world becomes when you’re staring it directly in the face.
UploadVR has shared a hands-on 15-minute preview of the Elden Ring VR mod in action. Created by experienced modder Luke Ross, it lets you play through the entire game from a first-person perspective, so you can square up to all the Elden Ring bosses from a new point of view. It doesn’t support motion controls, however, so you’ll still be using a controller to swing your sword and roll around, just as you normally would.
The mod looks amazingly smooth. In the preview, the player’s able to take on a Tree Sentinel, explore Limgrave, stare down a dragon, backstab a few guards, and even navigate the floating on-screen menus. It all plays just like Elden Ring’s vanilla version.
But it’s not all smooth sailing. Between frequent object clipping, NPC stuttering, and nausea-inducing camera rolls, playing the game in VR actually looks pretty difficult. UploadVR said that trying to fight any “boss or enemy with a first-person camera, constantly diving to the floor to roll or getting lost in a chaotic mash of textures as you move into attack, is majorly disorienting”.
It also looks terrifying. Having a Tree Sentinel charge toward you is scary enough in the vanilla version of Elden Ring, but having them swing a massive axe directly at your face takes the game to a whole new level of horror. While FromSoftware’s action RPGs have always leaned into the grotesque and frightening, playing them in first-person might make them a little too immersive. You can’t go liberating the Lands Between if you’re scared senseless.
Fortunately, you can dial back your fear using the mod’s Tourist Mode. The add-on makes your character invisible to enemies, letting you explore the Lands Between in VR without having to worry about being jumped by its hideous monsters. The preview shows the player galloping about the world in safety, letting them absorb all of Elden Ring’s subtle beauty.
The mod includes a few other camera options, too, including two third-person modes that draw the camera closer to the player character. They’re intended to up the game’s immersion without making its VR mode too disorientating.
Luke Ross has released the Elden Ring VR mod in its current work-in-progress state on his Patreon page. He’s no stranger to VR, and has previously released similar mods for Cyberpunk 2077 and Read Dead Redemption 2. They’re also available on his Patreon.