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[TheShadowLord]

Vader Immortal, the new Star Wars VR game series from ILMxLAB and Oculus, is officially on its way, allowing players to finally get up close and personal with everyone’s favorite Sith Lord, Darth Vader.

ILMxLAB, the virtual reality laboratory from Lucasfilm and Industrial Light and Magic, made the announcement at Facebook’s Oculus Connect 5 conference on Wednesday, as first reported by Venture Beat. Along with the confirmation of the game’s full official title, Vader Immortal: A Star Wars VR Series – Episode I, ILMxLAB also released a teaser trailer for the first game in the series.

 

[DeepEnigma]

That is a very good (younger sounding like the OT) James Earl Jones Vader. Is he doing the voice or someone else? He sounded aged in Rogue One naturally, thus why I ask.

Silly name as well.

 

[mckmas8808]

So Oculus exclusive?

 

[Musky_Cheese]

How much is Oculus pay for that

 

[Romulus]

 

[Catphish]

Wonder if this will make it to the Rift/Rift S...

 

[Stitch]

Yes, it's also coming to the Rift
https://www.roadtovr.com/star-wars-vader-immortal-coming-to-oculus-rift-and-quest/

I hope it's compatible with ReVive

 

[thelodius]

Why isn't this on PSVR? What on earth were they thinking?

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

This was so obvious that I wonder how they took this long. By the way, the MOVE controllers ARE lightsabers so for once the PSVR would be more immersive for that very reason.

However, how come that someone other than EA can develop a Star Wars game? Is it not an exclusive contract with Disney?

 

[Alexios]

Yuck. Maybe the trailer completely misrepresents the game but I was hoping for something awesome like say, Stormland VR by Insomniac is shaping up to be.

This gives me the impression of a scene by scene Life is Strange type episodic adventure with meh puzzles and not that great lightsabering/combat.

I guess it might surprise me and be more like a seamless and cool adventure like Lone Echo after all. Still not ideal for SW but better than this.

Why isn't this on PSVR? What on earth were they thinking?

Why would Oculus fund PSVR games? Why aren't Sony's first party VR games on PC, lol. And you guys are totally missing out on trying PC VR with real VR controllers like wands/touch, the immersion and 1:1 gameplay capabilities are on another level even if you compare extras like PSVR Aim.

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

Yuck. Maybe the trailer completely misrepresents the game but I was hoping for something awesome like say, Stormland VR by Insomniac is shaping up to be.

This gives me the impression of a scene by scene Life is Strange type episodic adventure with meh puzzles and not that great lightsabering/combat.

I guess it might surprise me and be more like a seamless and cool adventure like Lone Echo after all. Still not ideal for SW but better than this.


Why would Oculus fund PSVR games? Why aren't Sony's first party VR games on PC, lol. And you guys are totally missing out on trying PC VR with real VR controllers like wands/touch, the immersion and 1:1 gameplay capabilities are on another level even if you compare extras like PSVR Aim.

For shooters, the AIM is way better than wand / touch controllers. Likewise the Oculus controllers are much better than the move or the DS, as expected. Sony has not released proper VR controllers aside AIM, which is fantastic.


Still, my question persists: is not the Star Wars franchise linked EXCLUSIVELY to EA? Why Oculus can get an exclusive Star Wars game not made by EA?

 

[Alexios]

For shooters, the AIM is way better than wand / touch controllers.

Not when it has the same tracking deficiencies as the wands (since it uses the same ball of light) which means games that utilize it never get too in-depth with the simulation and rely on gamey abstractions, like the halfway point between PCVR and the Wiimote IR pointer. The on screen action never reflects your real movements (and it requires resetting every so often as it strays). The rifle-like form factor doesn't necessarily make it better, it's a tradeoff. The PCVR controllers might not get the "I'm holding something two handed" feel as easily (hence those extra stocks for the controllers to attach to some people buy/make) but they maintain the full intricate 1:1 tracking down to the smallest 3D movements (like realistically shooting around corners or over/under objects or bringing the sights and scopes up to your eyes) and they allow for independent control of your hands (so you can use your pistol, steadied with both hands or not, pull out your knife, take a grenade from your chest and pull the pin, activate your shoulder radio, turn on the night vision goggles on your head and generally utilize all kinds of gadgets or physically do tons of actions including the various reloading procedures). Even the purest VR FPS doesn't have to be just about shooting rifles and shotguns (where you can also do the pump action with PCVR). You can also have an FPS like Echo Combat where your interactions with the environment are as important as your shooting so you can see how these controllers can add much more to the experience. That's not every FPS but at the very least you can usually physically reach down and grab a dead enemy's (or ally's) weapon or grenade, pass ammo or whatever from your belt to your teammates, throw a gun to them (or your knife to kill), all physically, not just with a button press or by running over an item like you're playing Doom in the 90s vs a tactical FPS VR experience near 2020. You also get a much larger tracking range even with the default 2-sensor Oculus Rift front-facing setup (never mind the impeccable 360 degree VR you get out of the box with any Vive) which greatly helps both immersion and playability as you can then choose to rely less on artificial analog stick turning, or react instinctively when in a bind/panicked in more situations without loss of tracking. But even for a game that doesn't want to simulate all that stuff and simply do a Doom VR do over, the simple act of shooting with a physical object in actual 3D space is much better realized with the 1:1 tracking of the better PCVR controllers. You'll see if Sony does that on PS5 with those patents.

The only thing lacking on PCVR is we mostly have indie FPS so not much is as polished as Firewall, but Contractors is quickly getting there for PVP. Onward is more up my alley with its more realistic systems but its visuals and especially animations (when you have all this range of movement you probably need amazing inverse kinematics for it to look nice more often, or maybe they could solve it with making the third person animations limited like any non-VR game's regardless of your actions, as long as they vaguely resembled your direction and what you're doing, but I don't know if that could cause more issues) aren't nearly as good, while the AI for the co-op is so bad I don't know why I'm having so much fun whenever I play it, haha, it's crazy. I do hope it develops into something more like Ghost Recon - the original - for VR in terms of missions and AI but we'll see if its team has the skill. For single player Insomniac's Stormland or Digital Lode's Espire1 (not by Oculus by the way!) might just deliver on the premise. It kinda sucks most higher budget games are funded by Oculus but at least other PCVR devices can usually play them with third party apps like ReVive.

I dunno about the exclusivity but I read this company has already done a location-based short VR experience so maybe it's them holding the VR specific rights rather than Oculus who simply funded them to realize something for them with using it (and that's why they didn't give the task to a more well regarded studio like Insomniac). I can understand Oculus Quest might count as a different type of device to consoles and PCs so EA's license doesn't apply, but this is confirmed for Rift and so PC. Either they found a loophole or they're gonna get sued to hell and back for the PC port.