The Real Way to Play Rez Infinite: In a VR Vibrating Suit

Prior to arriving at PlayStation Experience this past weekend, I had no idea that within a few minutes of the Sony fan expo opening I'd be being strapped into a full-body suit that would thump along to the music of one of my favorite games, which I'd be playing in VR.

And yet, there we were: In a back room on the edge of the PlayStation Experience show floor in San Francisco's Moscone Center waited genius game designer Tetsuya Mizuguchi, whose crew wasted no time shoving me into the "synesthesia suit," filled with force-feedback units that would truly make me feel the music of Rez, Mizuguchi's musical-shooter masterpiece, now being enhanced for PlayStation VR.

Rez, originally released in 2001 on Dreamcast and PlayStation 2, is a brilliant combination of shooter gameplay, music, and light, sort of like turning Space Invaders into a rave where everybody is on just enough drugs that they're pretty sure they can smell the music. It's had a significant cult following since then, with an HD version on the Xbox 360. Rez Infinite will bring the game to PlayStation 4, with an optional VR mode, in 2016.

"Originally, when I made Rez 15 years ago, I imagined it in VR," Mizuguchi says. Even Rez HD didn't fully satisfy him, he says, because it was 720p: "It was HD, but not true HD." The opportunity to up-res the graphics again and put it into virtual reality proved irresistible: "This is what brought me back to games," he says.