Summary
- VR in the heart of Star Wars Land
- Pilot the Star Wars ships in virtual reality
- After Star Tours VR, a Disneyland VR park?
The 30 October 2012, Disney bought Star Wars franchise for colossal $ 4,05 billion. Following this acquisition, a new trilogy of films, started last year with The Force Awakens, will be produced. Several spin-offs are also planned, starting with Rogue One which will be released this Wednesday, December 14 at the cinema.
VR in the heart of Star Wars Land
However, Disney does not intend to stop there. Since April 2016, the firm has been carrying out large-scale work in its Disneyland theme parks in Florida and California. The objective of this work is the opening of a new area entirely dedicated to the Star Wars universe.
As part of a press conference at GDC 2016, video game development studio Epic Games announced it is working with Disney to create a Star Wars VR attraction. The co-founder of the firm, Tim Sweeney, confirmed this collaboration again last October as part of the Steam Dev Days.
Pilot the Star Wars ships in virtual reality
According to Bei Yang, creative technologies leader at Walt Disney Imagineering, the experience will allow users to board the cockpit of their favorite spaceship to experience the thrill of piloting through a virtual reality headset. The various vessels of the culture saga will be there, and the user can for example choose between the Millennium Falcon or the X-Wing.
To create this awesome experience, the Disney Imagineering team partnered with ILMxLab and Epic Games and used the Unreal Engine. As a reminder, ILMxLab is also at the origin of the Star Wars: Trials on Tatooine VR experience, and is developing a virtual reality short film with Darth Vader as the star.
After Star Tours VR, a Disneyland VR park?
Logically, we can predict an updated version in virtual reality of the famous Star Tours. Created in 1987 (1992 at Disneyland Paris) this simulator drawn from the Star Wars universe has amazed young and old for more than two decades. To celebrate 25 years of Disneyland Paris, Star Tours 2 will also open its doors in 2017.
Beyond this experience dedicated to Star Wars, Disney does not hide its interest in virtual reality. As part of the Oculus Connect 3 conference, the American entertainment giant recently announced the development of new Oculus Rift experiences that will be available in 2017. In the near future, we can expect the opening of a new Disneyland VR theme park.
