VR Gaming: 8 Out of 10 Dark Lords of the Sith Would Recommend It

  Original is pretty well always best. Think of all the pretenders who have seen an awesome idea, rushed the eff in to rip it off, and failed horribly. There are all kinds of examples of this, but the gaming world’s best would probably be Mario Kart. Just about every mascot had themselves a kart racer after that, and they were almost to a one terrible in comparison. The freaking Crazy Frog had his own one, and I think that tells you all need to know.  

I’m not quite sure where this whole ‘accept no imitations’ thing comes from. Maybe the nostalgia effect plays a part. One thing I can say for certain: Darth Vader is the first and best Star Wars villain. I will fight you if you try to deny it. Antagonists that followed him had gimmicks of their own, fancy-ass double edged lightsabers and such, but the Dark Lord of the Sith had style that’s never been beaten.

As such, if you’re not sold on VR gaming just yet, who better than our ol’ buddy Vader to try and bring you to the dark side?

This past weekend, at Star Wars Celebration Europe, Lucasfilm spoke of a new project, a story-driven VR ‘experience’ centered around Vader. It’ll have some cachet behind it, Flickering Myth reports, being written by Batman Begins and Man of Steel’s David S. Goyer.

What character is so iconic that we need to know more?” said Goyer. “We can’t sleep at night and want to experience things that can’t be experienced in film, or can’t be experienced in a novel, and we came up with [Darth Vader]… You don’t play it. You be it. You’re in it. You’re part of the story… you are ‘the visitor’ – the visitor in this story that’s happening around you that you may have some effect on. You can pick up things, you can open things, you can push things. You can walk and touch characters…It includes characters you know, or some that may have been talked about that you haven’t seen before.” 

That tantalizing taste is all we have to go on thus far, and calling the project an ‘experience’ as opposed to a full game is a little worrying, but this is something to get –cautiously—on board with. After all, apparently, you can pick things up, open things and push things. Opening things? What a time to be alive.