'Star Wars: Trials of Tatooine' VR Trailer, Demo Tease Short Experience That Will Leave Fans Wanting More
"Star Wars: Trials of Tatooine" is coming to HTC Vive soon, as evidenced by the recently released VR trailer. Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), Lucasfilm's visual effects and animation studio, created the virtual reality experience and teases more are on the way.
ILM shared the official trailer (below) on Friday and provided a sneak peek at the upcoming "Star Wars" experience. The short video teases basic combat using a lightsaber in the desert planet as well as glimpses of Han Solo's iconic Millennium Falcon and the droid R2-D2.
The short experience, lasting 10 minutes, will put users in the shoes of a Jedi apprentice of Luke Skywalker during a time after the events of "Return of the Jedi," reveals IGN which was able to experience first hand the "short narrative experience" for the HTC's VR headset. The publication clarifies "Star Wars: Trials of Tatooine" is not a game. In ILM's own words, it's a "cinematic virtual reality experiment."
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"We are a storytelling company," ILMxLAB's Associate Visual Effects Supervisor Roger Cordes told IGN. "We are well-versed in a hundred years of the language of cinema, all of which gets thrown out the window when you no longer have a locked on camera [in VR], and it's a first-person storytelling experience, so we have to kind of find our way in that wilderness about how to tell a compelling story in the Star Wars universe."
Although it's called "Star Wars: Trials of Tatooine," the short experience is more proof-of-concept. However, it has potential for more, according to IGN and Road to VR, which also experienced the short demo first hand.
ILM is a research and development group under Lucasfilm that is tasked to explore new types of experiences for fans of the franchise. The company's goal is to find a new way to tell a story effectively through a range of immersive platforms, including VR and augmented reality. Right now, the group is trying to recruit more talented individuals to join the company for "some large-scale productions" it's working on.
