Here’s an interesting detail we missed when Star Wars: Vader Immortal was announced for Oculus Quest last week; Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice developer Ninja Theory is working on the series.
A mention of the UK-based studio is dropped right at the end of the press release, simply stating that developer ILMxLAB is “proud to be working with Ninja Theory, an award-winning developer in the UK, and Epic Games, creators of Unreal Engine.” Ninja Theory itself declined to reveal to UploadVR exactly how it was contributing to the experience.
If we were to guess, it could be that the team’s impressive real-time performance capture, which has been demonstrated a SIGGRAPH over the past few years, is being used on the project. The system is able to record an actor’s performance and instantly translate it onto a virtual character. That said, Ninja Theory has worked on its own VR games including Dexed and this year’s excellent VR port of Hellblade itself, so it could be lending more traditional help to the project too. The studio was acquired by Microsoft earlier this year.
Vader Immortal is intended to be a multi-part series starring the Dark Lord of the Sith himself. It’s set between the events of Star Wars movies Revenge of the Sith and Rogue One and, judging by the teaser trailer above, it might finally give us our first taste of true lightsaber combat in VR. Look for the series to launch first on Oculus Quest next year.
