The 2018 Game Developers Conference is right around the corner and the VR and AR-focused talks for the year are piling up. One session that’s already caught our eye, though, is a retrospective on one of the best Star Wars VR experiences yet.
Kieran Crimmins and Mark Bridges from Burnout developer Criterion will be hosting a talk that details their work on the Star Wars Rogue One X-Wing VR Mission that launched as a free add-on to the original Star Wars: Battlefront on PSVR back in 2016. The short experience put players in the cockpit of an X-Wing and took them on an adventure that tied into the events of that spin-off Star Wars film. If you haven’t tried it yet, it’s one of the best 10-minute demos you can try on your PSVR.
Crimmins and Bridges will detail what went into perfecting the experience during their talk, which is titled ‘Give Your Fans Tears of Joy: A ‘Star Wars VR’ Retrospective‘. Over the hour-long session they’ll also show you why you should “put common fantasies at the heart of your game development” and how to “embrace fun and experimentation to deliver something new in a complex AAA production”. Most promisingly, though, the pair will be using props and physical demonstrations to recount their time building the project.
It might also be tempting to sit in on the session just to hear if Criterion is doing anything new with VR right now. Star Wars: Battlefront II sadly came and went without any VR support but, given the developer’s pedigree with the Burnout and Need for Speed series we still have our fingers crossed something new is on the way.
The talk will be held on Tuesday, March 20th at 10am in the North Hall.
