Whether players are ready or not, the video game industry is moving full-steam ahead with virtual reality, and it seems as though Lucasfilm is getting in on the eye-straining fun with a Star Wars VR experience/game.
Last night a trailer for something called Star Wars: Trials on Tatooine showed up on the Industrial Light & Magic YouTube page for a moment before being taken down. Of course, the Internet never forgets and the trailer was immediately grabbed and hosted independently.
The short trailer shows the Millennium Falcon landing on Tatooine, R2-D2 doing this thing, and an attack by enemy ships and stormtroopers. The trailer refers to Trials on Tatooine as a “cinematic virtual reality experiment.” It shows a woman wielding a motion controller, and using a lightsaber to deflect enemy fire. Since the trailer leak, some GDC attendees have got to try out Trials on Tatooine for themselves, and have confirmed that it is interactive.
Of course, the “experiment” designation may mean this is just a proof-of-concept that will never be released, but Lucasfilm is definitely working on a full Star Wars VR experience. They also released this video promoting ILMxLAB, a new studio set up to create virtual and augmented reality experiences. It contains a variety of clips that look to be lifted from Trials on Tatooine.
For the record, the woman in the Trials on Tatooine trailer is using Valve and HTC’s Vive VR headset, which will released on April 5 at the hefty price of $799. So yeah, maybe you won’t be playing through virtual reality Star Wars worlds until the price of VR comes down or you win the lottery, but it’s cool to see that a virtual galaxy far, far away is being worked on.