During yesterday’s MEET ILMxLAB: The Future of Immersive Entertainment panel at Star Wars Celebration Europe, Lucasfilm announced that it is developing a new VR story/experience centred on the Dark Lord of the Sith himself, Darth Vader, which is being scripted by David S. Goyer (Batman Begins, Man of Steel).
What character is so iconic that we need to know more?” said Goyer. “We can’t sleep at night and want to experience things that can’t be experienced in film, or can’t be experienced in a novel, and we came up with [Darth Vader]. We don’t even have a name for the genre of storytelling we’ve been working on. You don’t play it. You be it. You’re in it. You’re part of the story. The world I came up with, that I’m pushing, is you are ‘the visitor’ – the visitor in this story that’s happening around you that you may have some effect on. You can pick up things, you can open things, you can push things. You can walk and touch characters. Imagine being in a movie.”
“It includes characters you know, or some that may have been talked about that you haven’t seen before,” Goyer continued. “We’ve got this incredible new storytelling platform that allows you to feel in a way you never felt before, and possibly feel for someone in a way you’ve never felt for them before. And it allows you to feel like you’re in a real place.”
The Darth Vader VR project is said to be a year or two away from being released, but fans with an HTC Vive will be able to venture to the galaxy far, far away this Monday when the VR experience Star Wars: Trials on Tatooine is released for free on Steam VR.
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Originally published July 17, 2016. Updated June 30, 2023.
