Remember that really, really horrifying bit of 1979’s Alien where you see the titular beast crush a skull with something coming out of its mouth? You might soon get to experience that in VR. Lucky you.
Alien is coming to VR, it’s been announced today, but not in the way you might think. Twentieth Century Fox’s Fox Innovation Lab is working on a new VR experience to tie into the upcoming Alien: Covenant with the help of RSA Films and MPC VR. While the film itself is directed by series creator Ridley Scott, the icon is executive producing this piece while short film maker David Karlak is taking up directing duties.
Little about the experience itself has been revealed, though a press release does state that users will navigate alien environments and make life and death decisions. It’s not clear if the experience is a 360-degree piece or a full VR experience, but we’ve reached out to Fox to ask. A release date for the piece hasn’t been set, though Covenant opens in May.
This is the latest in a line of VR experiences from Fox Innovation Lab, and they’re not all just 360 degree videos, either. While it’s had companion experiences to films like Wild, its most recent tie-in to Scott’s last movie, The Martian, was a full VR piece with motion controls and game-like elements developed by The Third Floor. Sadly, at $20 and 20 minutes long it was also hard to recommend the experience to anyone. Hopefully go around will fare a little better.
Fox Innovation Lab also recently announced a partnership with 360 degree production studio, Felix and Paul.
VR fans have long been campaigning to bring another Alien experience, 2014’s Alien: Isolation, into VR after it was shown inside the Oculus Rift’s second development kit as a demo. The game sadly didn’t release with any full VR support (though some fans modded their copies to support it), but people haven’t given up hope that developer Creative Assembly might one day return to right that wrong. Maybe this experience will suffice until that day.
