Star Wars: Trials On Tatooine Brings Free Lightsaber Experience To Vive
You are unwise to lower your defenses
Star Wars VR lightsaber battle experiment, Trials On Tatooine, is available free of charge for Vive as of today.
We actually had a hands-on with the experience way back in the mists of early 2016 while at GDC where Adam stood in a room in the Valve demo area and marvelled at the virtual Lucasfilm-iverse. It's not a game so much as it is a virtual experience - they call it a "cinematic virtual reality experiment". You can read the full hands-on account here but he says things like this:
It is perhaps a happy accident that one of the most powerfully evocative items in pop culture is a perfect fit for the Vive’s motion controls. The lightsaber feels just right, not requiring the weight of a sword and encouraging carefully angled positioning to deflect shots back toward stormtroopers. There’s no saber duel in the demo and that would present its own problems, but as a demonstration of how good it might feel to be a VR Jedi, Trials on Tatooine is a brief but convincing experience.
Adam tactfully omitted the part where I was sitting in the corner of the room on my backpack saying things like "Can you stab R2D2 with that lightsaber?" He nearly gave in and did it at the end but then he settled for writing his name in the sand.
Well, I can tell you right now that my own lunchtime will be spent poking that smug droid with my laser sword and seeing what happens. Here's the trailer:
There's also what sounds like a meatier story-based VR project in the works which centres around Darth Vader. You can catch a teeny teeny teaser (although not much in the way of further info) at the end of this clip which was posted on Reddit during the weekend's Star Wars Celebration:
Trials On Tatooine should be on Steam from 18 July, so later today.