News – Duck Hunt Returns in Unofficial VR Adaption

Can you believe that it’s been over 30 years since Duck Hunt was first released for the Famicom / NES? It may be as retro as they come, but it’s also a classic, with many having extremely fond memories, for better and for worse. Anyone remember how annoying that Dog is when you’ve failed for the umpteenth time?

Love it or hate it Duck Hunt is a classic, but how would this retro classic fair in the modern world? Or rather how would the game’s quick shooting gameplay hold up on the Oculus in virtual reality? Well as part of this year’s Global Game Jam, 21-year-old computer science student Joseph Delgado set about to find out.

24 hours isn’t exactly a long time to recreate a game like Duck Hunt, especially from the ground up in a 3D world, yet that’s exactly what the New Jersey Institute of Technology student did. In order to achieve this Delgado had to first convert the 2D sprites into 3D character models utilising a python script. This was then followed up with a completely 360 degree world in which all of these models were placed in.

What’s more, the NES Zapper was even retained. Well at least it was within the virtual reality Duck Hunt world. Physically though it was replaced by the Razer Hydras VR handset, which Delgado attached to a head mount, in order to ensure maximum accuracy when hunting for those ducks in 3D. All in all, it’s a sight to behold given that it was made by one student, and a working demonstration can be seen in the video below.

It may not be an official Nintendo virtual reality remake, and it may not be available to download, but it’s certainly very impressive. Especially given the development time. In fact, it’d be really interesting to see how many of our other favourite 8-bit classics convert to virtual reality. Exploring a retro Hyrule would certainly be one hell of an experience.