What makes an immersive Virtual Reality experience believable?
Virtual Reality lets players teleport into outer space, make friends with a hedgehog, or even play god to a tiny universe. Immersive Virtual Reality experiences whisk you away to imaginary, impossible worlds by fooling the senses and suspending disbelief. This type of out-of-body Virtual Reality experience is accomplished by melding many components together. While each one of these 5 immersive VR experiences is different, they all have three things in common. Combine all those factors and you have a truly memorable experience.
- A creative concept that sparks the imagination.
- Fully developed graphics and rendering that are executed with finesse.
- Powerful storytelling that leaves the participant wanting more.
5 Totally Immersive Virtual Reality Experiences
Blue Marble
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to slowly drift away into the void of space, with Mad World-style music as your soundtrack? Now you can, without leaving the safety of Earth’s atmosphere. The Blue Marble experience is eerily beautiful and convincing. Each character is slowly jettisoned into space through a space module door, sealing his or her fate. Once outside of the craft, you can look around to see asteroids pass by overhead as the Sun, Earth and Moon slowly fade into the darkness.
Henry by Oculus Story Studio
Henry will tug on your heartstrings. This story of a lovable, lonely hedgehog draws in viewers with its rich storytelling and character-building. The Pixar-style animation makes this a satisfying visual experience in every direction. Henry launched recently for select audiences, and will ship with Oculus Rift headsets in 2016.
Elite: Dangerous
Elite: Dangerous gives you free range to travel the 400 billon star systems of the Milky Way galaxy in your own customizable spacecraft. You can even take on a profession as a trader, pirate, smuggler, bounty hunter, explorer, or miner. The game fully supports VR via the Oculus Rift DK2, and since it’s devoid of tutorials and cutscenes, gameplay makes you feel like you’re piloting a real ship, complete with Ender’s Game-type holography.
Oculus VR Cinema
Watch a movie with your friends, even if you’re thousands of miles away. That’s the promise of Oculus VR Cinema. With endless entertainment options popping up, Oculus VR Cinema wins through its simplicity. It offers a Virtual movie theater, but better: no strangers texting next to you, no spilled popcorn, no worries about missing show time. There are even multiple options for the theater locations, in case you’d like to watch a movie on the Moon. Oculus VR Cinema gives you the entire theater experience, all within a portable device that you can take anywhere.
Godling
The open-ended sandbox game Godling for Sony’s Project Morpheus lets players take the role of a tiny god: you decide how to utilize your powers by either creating or destroying. Currently in development, the environment has an ethereal, dream-like feel for players to immerse themselves in. It’s a unique take on gaming since you, the player, can become a world’s most valuable asset…or its greatest threat.
Making VR experiences with substance
Each of these 5 VR experiences is remarkable in its own way, and every one delivers a powerfully immersive experience. More and more VR films and games are coming out each week, and the best leverage VR technology to create experiences that make us forget the physical world, immersing us in new types of storytelling and engagement that simply weren’t possible before.
