Doom VFR puts you inside the UAC facility on Mars, then drops you into Hell, and it expects you to keep moving. The game came out in 2017 for PlayStation VR, SteamVR and Windows Mixed Reality, developed by id Software and published by Bethesda Softworks. It is a single-player shooter built from the ground up for virtual reality, and it takes place after the events of Doom. You play a scientist killed during the first demon invasion of Mars, brought back as a cybernetic survivor and activated by the UAC to fight the invasion, maintain order, and stop a catastrophic failure at the facility.
Trailer, via IGDBcom.
A Dead Scientist Wearing a New Body
That premise is the whole hook. You are not the Doom Slayer. You are a corpse with a job. The UAC switches you on, points you at the demon army and tells you to hold the line. It is a lean setup, and it does the one thing a VR shooter needs: it gives your hands a reason to be there. You are a machine built to shoot, and the game treats you like one.
The perspective is virtual reality, and that is not a mode bolted onto a flat game. Doom VFR was made for the headset. id Software pioneered the first-person shooter, and the studio’s pitch here is that it also pioneered modern VR. Whether or not that claim holds up, the intent shows. This is Doom rebuilt around your field of view.
Mars, Then the Depths of Hell
The game moves between two settings. First the UAC facility on Mars, then the depths of Hell. Both are familiar ground for the series, and both are rendered as places you stand inside rather than watch through a window. The Mars facility is the opening stretch, and Hell is where the game lets the demon army off the leash.
The structure matters more than the scenery. Doom VFR alternates between intense combat and puzzle-solving. That mix is the game’s spine. You fight, then you stop and work something out, then you fight again. In a headset, that rhythm is the difference between a shooting gallery and a game.
The combat is fast and brutal. That is the promise, and it is the promise the series has always kept. Doom VFR brings the fast-paced, brutal gameplay fans of the series love to virtual reality. The question is never whether the shooting feels like Doom. The question is whether it feels like Doom when you are the one standing in it.
What You Actually Do in the Headset
You lay waste to an army of demonic foes. You explore and interact with the outlandish world of Doom from an entirely new perspective. That is the loop, and it is narrow on purpose.
- Play as a cybernetic survivor activated by the UAC.
- Fight the demon invasion across the Mars facility and Hell.
- Maintain order and prevent catastrophic failure at the facility.
- Solve puzzles between stretches of combat.
- Explore and interact with the world from a new perspective.
None of those items is a surprise. Together they describe a game that knows exactly what it is. Doom VFR is not trying to be a new genre. It is trying to be Doom, and it is trying to be VR, and it is betting those two things belong together.
The Case for the Headset
Here is where Doom VFR earns its keep. A first-person shooter is already a game about your point of view. Virtual reality is a technology about your point of view. Putting them together is not a gimmick on paper. It is the most obvious pairing in the medium.
The Mars facility and Hell are the right places for it. Doom has always been about being somewhere awful and being armed. Hell is not a backdrop in this series. It is a location, and a headset makes a location out of it. The UAC facility works the same way. You are inside the corridors where the invasion started, and the game wants you to feel that.
The cybernetic survivor is the smart part of the design. You are not asked to be a hero. You are a piece of equipment the UAC turned on because it ran out of options. That framing fits VR better than a chosen-one story would. You are a body in a room with a gun, and that is exactly what the hardware is good at.
Where the Illusion Slips
The problems are the problems of the era. Doom VFR shipped in 2017, when VR was still figuring out how to handle speed. Doom is a fast game. Speed is the point. A headset is not always the friend of speed, and the tension between those two facts runs through the whole experience.
The puzzle-solving is the other soft spot. Doom does not need puzzles. Doom needs momentum. Every time the game stops for a puzzle, it interrupts the thing it is best at. The mix is deliberate, and it is defensible, but it is not free. You can feel the game putting on the brakes.
Then there is the platform question. Doom VFR is available for PlayStation VR and VIVE platforms, and it also supports Windows Mixed Reality and SteamVR. That is a wide spread for a game built around motion and aiming. The experience is not identical everywhere, and the game’s reputation has always carried that asterisk.
7.5 Out of 10
The published critical score for Doom VFR is 7.5/10, drawn from an IGDB critic aggregate of five outlets. That number is the right number. This is a good game with a real idea and a real ceiling.
The idea is that Doom and VR are the same idea. The ceiling is that 2017 hardware and 2017 design could not fully deliver on it. Doom VFR bathes you in virtual carnage, and that phrase is not overselling it. It is a Doom adventure in a headset, and for long stretches that is enough.
What holds it at 7.5 rather than higher is the stopping and starting. The puzzles break the flow. The combat wants you moving, and the game keeps asking you to stand still and think. In a flat Doom, that would be a minor complaint. In a headset, where your body is part of the input, it is a bigger one.
What keeps it at 7.5 rather than lower is that the core works. Playing as a cybernetic survivor activated by the UAC is a better fit for VR than playing as an unstoppable hero. The Mars facility and Hell are the right stages. The demons are the right enemies. The gun is the right gun.
Doom VFR is the most interesting thing id Software did with the series in 2017, and it is also the most compromised. It is a proof of concept that shipped as a product. Five outlets scored it, and the aggregate landed at 7.5/10. That is a fair read.
The part worth watching is not this game. It is what it proved. A fast, brutal shooter can work in a headset, and the studio that invented the genre is the one that tried it first. Doom VFR is not the version of that idea anyone would design today. It is the version that got made, and it is worth playing for exactly that reason.
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