As any reputable Star Wars fan will know, tomorrow is Star Wars Day – or May 4th to be exact – and usually there’s all sorts of promotions, reveals, announcements and anything else to do with the franchise. And virtual reality (VR) is no different. Today HTC Vive has announced that Star Wars: Trials on Tatooine will be coming to Viveport to celebrate the event.
Star Wars: Trials on Tatooine was an experiment by ILMxLAB to create a short immersive experience set in the sci-fi universe. The experience is actually new in anyway – it launched last July on Steam for free – but with HTC Vive aggressively promoting Viveport with more content and its subscription service, now users can dive into the sands of Tatooine.
As a special bonus the developers behind the app will feature in a behind the scenes Facebook video. The stream will begin at 1pm PT (4am ET/9PM GMT) on 4th May via the HTC Vive Facebook Page.
Taking place on the renowned planet, Star Wars: Trials on Tatooine gives players the opportunity to repair the iconic Millennium Falcon, and defend the plucky droid hero R2-D2 from incoming stormtroopers with their lightsaber.
ILMxLAB answered several questions on a HTC Vive blog post about the experience, saying: “Trials on Tatooine began as a test, a question, really: can we render the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars: The Force Awakens at 90 frames per second? That’s all we wanted to do. But of course, we couldn’t help ourselves from adding a bit of movie magic to the experiment, complete with animation, a Tatooine environment, and surround sound from the experts at Skywalker Sound. This was our first taste and green light to keep exploring and pushing the interactivity of this new medium as the future of storytelling.”
“Trials on Tatooine was ILMxLAB’s first foray into real-time rendering and with it came a lot of lessons learned. We are so excited to be expanding and building upon our Trials on Tatooine foundation on projects such as the Darth Vader VR story experience and Meet BB-8″
VRFocus will continue its coverage of ILMxLAB’s VR projects, reporting back with any further updates.