There has been a significant amount of news in the world of virtual reality gaming in the past few days due to Oculus Connect 5. With the announcement of the Oculus Quest, the newest addition to the ever growing family of Oculus virtual reality systems, there has been speculation for what kinds of releases will be available for the system. To the surprise of many, a launch-title for the system will be a new Star Wars VR experience, which is incredible news considering how rarely there are Star Wars related releases in any media forms since 2015.
Vader Immortal is a 3-episode VR experience by ILMxLAB, the immersive entertainment division of Lucasfilm, and is also being written and produced by David S. Goyer, writer of The Dark Knight, Batman Begins, and much more. Adding to the Star Wars canon, the game takes place between Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, on the planet Mustafar. It has been alluded to by Goyer that much of the VR experience will add to the canon, surprisingly. In Vader Immortal, you’ll get to learn about Darth Vader by going through his castle on Mustafar: “You’re going to be able to really explore that place and, by extension, learn a lot more about Vader.”
The trailer for the first episode of the 3-episode series shows a little of what to expect in the experience, including high quality models, cinematic experiences, and a lightsaber duel. While not much can really be seen from this trailer that is less than a minute long, we can easily assume Vader Immortal will be similar to other official Star Wars VR experiences in nature. According to David S. Goyer “I think the goal, also, was that we might able to [witness] some other depths to his character that might be difficult to experience in other mediums.”
Vader Immortal will release alongside the Oculus Quest sometime in Spring 2019.