Game of Thrones is coming back soon-ish! Yay! But before we return to the world of Westeros and Essos, author George R. R. Martin has another universe for us to check out, and you can do so in VR.
Syfy just launched a series of 360-degree tie-in videos to its new series, Nightflyers, which is based on a sci-fi horror novella written by Martin and released all the way back in 1980. Written and directed by showrunner and executive producer Jeff Buhler, the series consists of three videos that focus on different characters and elements of the world.
Sadly, Syfy is one of the rare YouTube channels that blocks its content based on location, so you may not be able to watch if you’re outside the US. Otherwise, you can grab your VR headset (now including Oculus Go), boot up YouTube and you’re away.
In fact, Martin himself spoke a little about VR to Syfy, saying he loved the tech but was waiting for it to evolve. “The technology is not mature and we haven’t really figured out how to tell stories for it,” he said, “but I think, 20 years from now, 30 years from now, maybe sooner, it may replace television and film and other things as a totally immersive sort of art form that you can, not only, you know, like read a book or watch a television show, but you can live an adventure.”
He spoke of a possible future in which an audience immerses itself in and interacts with a world and maybe even affects the outcome of a story. “But I think we may be like the theater before Shakespeare, you know?” Martin continued. “There were plays before Shakespeare, but it was the Elizabethan theatre that really made the theatre come alive. And of course, movies began with little, real things of trains arriving at the station and then eventually we got up to Star Wars.”
