Vader Immortal: A Star Wars VR Series was announced alongside the Oculus Quest today. Vader Immortal is being developed by the Lucasfilm division ILMxLAB in partnership with a team at Microsoft’s Ninja Theory. The three part Star Wars VR series will begin releasing next year when the Oculus Quest comes to store shelves.
Vader Immortal will be the third major VR project for ILMxLAB. The new title will see players venturing to Darth Vader’s castle on Mustafar—and is canon within the Star Wars universe. The reveal trailer is scant on story details, although the perspective puts Vader into the villain role. It’s likely that players will be rebels, or otherwise not big fans of the empire that Vader himself serves. A short clip of the player wielding a lightsaber was also in the trailer.
David S. Goyer is writing and executive producing the project. Goyer was a story writer on the Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy and on Call of Duty: Black Ops 1 and 2. Goyer penned the story for Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire for ILMxLAB’s collaboration with The VOID. Secrets of the Empire is a full-body VR experience that puts players in the shoes of undercover Rebels infiltrating an imperial base.
Vader Immortal and Secrets of the Empire are connected to each other. ILMxLAB’ Mohen Leo said, “the very initial conversations around this project started three years ago, around the launch of ILMxLAB.”
“This was around the time that some of the first really compelling content for the Oculus DK2,” he said, “the developer kit that preceded the Oculus Rift, came out. We recognized that VR has a unique ability to transport people to a fictional place and let them explore it.”
Goyer also expressed his enthusiasm for the project.
“I knew I couldn’t write it like a teleplay, I couldn’t write it like a movie,” said Goyer. “I’ve been writing for screen a long time, so to a certain extent I can anticipate how people are going to react to a scene. But in VR, that completely throws everything out of the water.”
