With The Force Awakens taking the world by storm and Rogue One approaching, we’re all in Star Wars mode right now. Fortunately, VR is too.
To that end, the tech is set to make an appearance at next month’s official Star Wars Celebration in London, UK. The Industrial Light and Magic Experience Lab (ILMxLAB) will be bringing Star Wars: Trials on Tatooine to the show at the Excel Exhibition Centre from July 15th – 17th, running on the HTC Vive. The brief VR experience debuted earlier this year at GDC. Set between Return of the Jedi and last year’s sequel, you take on the role of a Jedi apprentice under the tutorship of Luke Skywalker himself.
As the name suggests, the experience is set on the sandy dunes of Tatooine, and will bring iconic Star Wars ships and characters like R2-D2 and the Millennium Falcon to life in VR. You even get to wield a lightsaber. I can tell you from personal experience that that last part is one of the coolest moments you can have in VR right now, finally fulfilling the dreams we’ve all had since we were kids. It’s only a short piece, though, and the opening is a little slow, so savour it if you are heading to the event next month. No doubt you’ll be queuing long enough for it.
But that’s not all to look forward to on the VR front at Star Wars Celebration. ILMxLAB will also be providing an in-depth look at its work through a special panel. It should be a fascinating session; the Lab is working on a number of promising VR projects that will hopefully see a consumer launch at some point down the line, though it’s also experimenting with other technologies to immerse fans in the Star Wars universe even further.
As for other Star Wars projects, we know that Sony and EA are working on a Star Wars: Battlefront VR experience for PlayStation VR, though it’s not likely to be a full VR videogame. Just when we’ll get one of those is anyone’s guess, but we hope it’s soon.
