Last month Fox Innovation Lab at Twentieth Century Fox released the long awaited virtual reality (VR) videogame tie-in to hit film The Martian, starring Matt Damon, with The Martian: VR Experience. The launch supported Sony Interactive Entertainment’s (SIE) PlayStation VR and HTC Vive, but there were no details on Oculus Touch compatibility – the device the experience had originally been demoed with. The wait is over as the VR title has now arrived for Oculus’ new motion controllers.
If you’ve seen the film you’ll know what to expect, as The Martian: VR Experience takes you on an immersive adventure from astronaut Mark Watney’s perspective, performing tasks that will facilitate his chances for survival. You’ll be able to fly onto the surface of Mars, steer at zero gravity through space, drive a rover navigating over craters and experience key scenes from the hit film in a fully realise VR environment.
When VRFocusfirst previewed the title back in January, saying: “The Martian: VR Experience is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful VR titles VRFocus has yet witnessed. Putting most other Oculus Rift and HTC Vive titles to shame.” Other media outlets have also heaped praise on the experience, but the public haven’t been as kind. The HTC Vive version on Steam is rated as ‘negative’, while the UK and US PlayStation Stores give it one and two stars respectively. This is likely due in part to the price, when released The Martian: VR Experience was $19.99 USD, this has now dropped to $9.99/£7.99 GBP on both stores. The new listing on Oculus Store also has the lower price.
As and when Fox Innovation Lab releases further VR content, VRFocus will keep you updated.
Normally, we wouldn’t review something like The Martian VR Experience. Normally we’d give you some quick impressions about what would likely be a fun, if forgettable piece that puts you in the world of the movie. We’d tell you that if you’re a fan of the franchise then it’s something you’ll want to see, but everyone else can probably skip it.
Normally, though, studios don’t charge for this sort of thing.
Despite lasting around 20 minutes, The Martian VR costs $19.99 on HTC Vive and PlayStation VR. I suspect that’s a decision made by publisher 20th Century Fox and not developers The Third Floor and The Virtual Reality Company. For your money, you’ll get to experience a handful of scenes from last year’s Ridley Scott sci-fi epic in VR, taking on the role of protagonist Mark Watney, played by Matt Damon in the movie. It’s far from terrible, but at such a hefty price tag it’s impossible to recommend until it’s on a sale that drastically slashes its price.
The Martian VR Experience covers pretty much the entire movie, so you’ll want to actually see it before trying this to avoid spoilers. It begins as Watney crash-lands on Mars, and subsequent scenes are strung together somewhat awkwardly by snippets from the movie itself, appearing in virtual windows. When a scene that makes sense for VR crops up, you’ll be transported back into Watney’s body to experience it first-hand.
For the most part, these scenes are seated, stationary experiences, which feels like a decision made to accommodate the PlayStation VR version. You’ll use each headset’s respective position-tracked controls to interact with the environment around you much in the same way you do in other VR experiences like Job Simulator. At one point you’ll control a crane, at one point you’ll drive a buggy, and at another point you’ll steer through space with your hand.
As far as gameplay goes, this is actually a pretty refined and visually impressive experience. The detail on the suit Watney wears is striking, even if the decision to include arms often bends them at weird angles and drags you out of the immersion. The helmet covering your view is also one of the best we’ve seen in VR; it really feels like you’re housed inside the claustrophobic shell throughout.
Many of these scenes are redundant and brief, however. At one point you’ll hear an explosion, the screen fades to black, and you’re transported outside to see debris flung in front of you. The sequence lasts about five seconds and comes off as incredibly lackluster. Every task is simplistic, and if you’ve had an HTC Vive or any major headset for more than a few days, there’s probably nothing here you haven’t tried before. Mars itself has already been virtually visited a few times, in fact, such as with Mars Odyssey.
Still, there are some moments of VR awe to be had here. Driving a buggy across the surface of Mars is wonderfully satisfying, making you wish for more of it. Sitting in the cockpit of a spacecraft and pressing the necessary buttons feels like heading back to your childhood to play astronauts for real. Without spoiling anything, the final few moments of gameplay successfully managed to trick my brain into reaching out to grab something I thought was really there.
Final Recommendation: Pass
Ultimately, The Martian VR can’t hide the fact it was meant to be experienced at conventions and booths, not as a premium product in your home. As a free experience, this would be a good chance to jump into the world of one of the best movies from one of the world’s most renowned directors. For $19.99 though, it’s a pretty insulting experiment into how much consumers are willing to pay to be advertised to. The Martian VR is a failure not for its developers, but likely the publishers behind them.
There’s been a few cinematic and virtual reality (VR) tie-ins, with The Walk and Ghostbusters being two recent examples. One of the most well known and eagerly anticipated is The Martian: VR experience, which debuted at CES 2016 back in January. Today Fox Innovation Lab at Twentieth Century Fox has announced that PlayStation VR and HTC Vive users will get to enjoy the experience tomorrow.
The Martian VR Experience is described as an “interactive, immersive adventure with viewers participating from astronaut Mark Watney’s perspective, performing tasks that will facilitate his chances for survival. Viewers can fly onto the surface of Mars, steer at zero gravity through space, drive a rover navigating over craters and experience key scenes from the hit film in a 360-degree virtual reality environment.”
When VRFocus previewed the experience we said at the time: “The Martian: VR Experience is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful VR titles VRFocus has yet witnessed. Putting most other Oculus Rift and HTC Vive titles to shame, [it] presents a landscape that is truly unbelievable.”
In the trailer Ridley Scott, Executive Producer of The Martian VR Experience says: “I’ve always tried to approach film-making from the standpoint of creating an immersive experience. Now with the tools that are available to us in virtual reality, we can raise the bar even higher. The audience can experience storytelling in ways we previously could only imagine.
“With VR you’re inside it you’re the person walking on the planet, it’s uncanny. Mars has never been closer to being within our grasp and I’m so thrilled that we can invite people into The Martian VR Experience,” he adds.
The title will be available to purchase for $19.99 USD from the respective headset stores on 15th November. While no date has been confirmed for Oculus Rift, as the original CES debut did include Oculus Touch compatibility its likely that the experience will arrive around the same time as the controllers next month.
VRFocus will continue its coverage of The Martian VR Experience, reporting back with any further updates.
The Fox Innovation Lab are all set to finally release their virtual reality tie-in with last year’s sci-fi blockbuster The Martian starring Matt Damon to a VR headset near you as the title launches tomorrow on both PlayStation VR and SteamVR platforms.
I was lucky enough to go hands-on with The Martian VR Experience at CES at the beginning of the year and came away impressed, entitling the article on the experience “A Triumph in Motion.” At the time, the platforms I trialed it on (HTC Vive and Oculus Rift with Touch) were still months from release and as a result, despite the high level of finish and polish evident in what I saw, Fox Innovation Lab (the VR-focused division at 20th century fox tasked with building the title) have waited until now to launch.
The Martian VR Experience represented at the time the best experience of its kind I’d yet seen, that is, an application that designed as an accompaniment an original film – a good old fashioned movie tie-in. Unlike many other examples of primarily marketing-lead immersive attempts that we’ve seen since VR’s renaissance began, The Martian VR Experience represents an offering that works as standalone entertainment and at the same time, it manages to push expectations of visual fidelity and polish for applications of these types up a notch or two.
Executive produced by Ridley Scott and directed by Robert Stromberg, The Martian VR Experience is described as “an interactive, immersive adventure with viewers participating from astronaut Mark Watney’s perspective, performing tasks that will facilitate his chances for survival.” Players get to fly through the Mars atmosphere in zero gravity, grapple with Watney’s all-terrain rover, there’s also snippets of the film thrown into the mix to remind you of the original inspiration behind the experience.
“I’ve always tried to approach film-making from the standpoint of creating an immersive experience. Now with the tools that are available to us in virtual reality, we can raise the bar even higher. The audience can experience storytelling in ways we previously could only imagine,” said Ridley Scott, Executive Producer of The Martian VR Experience and co-founder of RSA Films. “Mars has never been closer to being within our grasp and I’m so thrilled that we can invite people into The Martian VR Experience.” Scott himself narrates the new launch video for the experience too, which you can watch embedded above.
Director of The Martian VR Experience and co-founder and Chief Creative Officer of The Virtual Reality Company said “With The Martian VR Experience, we were able to take Ridley’s cinematic vision and create an immersive VR experience that gives people the ability to be Mark Watney, to face his struggles, experience his successes, as if they were part of the film.”
The Martian VR Experience will be available from November 15th on PlayStation VR and on SteamVR for the HTC Vive. No mention of support for the Oculus Rift, but given the reliance on motion controls it’s likely this will appear later once Oculus Touch has found its way into users homes next month. The experience will be priced at $19.99 on release, which may present a high price for those looking for hours and hours of gameplay in return for their money. We’ll have impressions on the final release version of the experience and on whether we believe it’s worth the cash soon.
Ridley Scott’s 2015 sci-fi blockbuster, The Martian, is considered a return to form for the legendary director. This week, you’ll be able to enter the world of the movie with a new VR experience.
You may have heard of The Martian VR Experience before. Developed at 20th Century Fox’s Fox Innovation Lab along with RSA Films and The Virtual Reality Company, the cinematic piece has been shown at a handful of events throughout the year but, tomorrow, you’ll get to experience it at home on both the HTC Vive and PlayStation VR.
This isn’t a simple 360 degree experience like other Fox VR projects such as Wild; it’s a full VR production that uses position-tracked controls. You take on the role of astronaut Mark Watney, played by Matt Damon in the movie, and experience key scenes like driving a rover across the surface of the red planet, and flying through space. While it’s not necessarily a VR movie, it might be closer to something like Batman: Arkham VR, as a shorter experiential piece in which you won’t have to worry about failure. It’s built in Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 4.
This likely isn’t the first time HTC Vive owners will have visited Mars, and nor will it have been the last. Experiences like Mars Odyssey are already available and others like Mars 2030 are still on the way. We’ll also be seeing more of Ridley Scott’s worlds in VR; the upcoming Blade Runner sequel will have VR tie-in content, as announced back at Oculus Connect 3 last month.
It may be a promotional experience, but Fox certainly thinks it’s worth a price; The Martian VR Experience will cost $19.99. We’ll be interested to see the difference between the Vive and PS VR versions. We’ve also asked after the possibility of an Oculus Rift version, though it would likely arrive once Oculus Touch releases in early December.
When Ted Schilowitz was looking for what to do after traveling the world as the first RED Camera employee, he happened upon an opportunity to serve as a futurist for 20th Century Fox, looking at how to use emerging technologies for storytelling. Over the past three years, he’s had a lot of early access to hardware from all of the major virtual and augmented reality companies ranging from Oculus, Valve, Sony, Google, Magic Leap, ODG, and Microsoft.
LISTEN TO THE VOICES OF VR PODCAST
He’s been exploring what’s possible with VR and AR, and he says that “the abilities of a new medium start to define the demands of a new medium.” He’s worked on a number of different VR experiments to discover how to best blend together narrative and interactivity within the context of these new “spatial mediums.”
One of the first and most ambitious experiments was a half-hour long Martian VR experience that was one of the hottest tickets at Sundance. It integrated the D-BOX 4D effects chair and Oculus Touch controllers, and put you in the first-person perspective of many key scenes from The Martian movie.
I had a chance to catch up with Ted at VRLA where he told me the story of introducing VR and AR technologies to Hollywood studio executives and storytellers. He shares some of his favorite interactive narrative experiences ranging from Pearl to Valve’s Aperture Robot Repair to The Gallery, as well as polished interactive experiences like NVIDIA’s VR Funhouse and Valve’s The Lab.
We also talk about the balance between global and local agency in interactive narratives, what can be learned from storytelling in theme park rides, the emerging language of storytelling in VR, and what it takes to become a viable practitioner of these future technologies.
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