Lucasfilm Announces Star Wars ‘Vader Immortal’ VR Series

Lucasfilm announced that a new virtual reality Star Wars series called Vader Immortal will be out for the Oculus Quest in 2019.

Revealed at the Oculus Quest 2018 event, a developer conference in California, the series was debuted as a launch title for the Oculus Quest VR device that’s coming in 2019. The first trailer shown off for the new Star Wars series features Darth Vader with the “Episode I” at the end signifying the first of several parts in the Darth Vader story. Following several tweets containing second-hand recordings of the trailer that was shown at the conference, the full trailer was uploaded and and can be seen above.

The trailer’s description says that more details can be seen through the creator’s site, but that information doesn’t appear to be available just yet.

A product from ILMxLAB, Lucasfilm’s property that specializes in VR, augmented reality, and other technology, the company has already produced several Star Wars titles in the past that put players on planets of Tatooine and dove deeper into the stories of the Empire. This new series will star one of the franchise’s most iconic characters though with Darth Vader helming the three-part series.

The VR experience has been in the works for a while now with writer and producer David S. Goyer teasing the reveal years ago. At an ILMxLAB panel in 2016, Road To VR reported that Goyer teased a project by speaking about iconic characters before showing a brief clip of Vader set against an atmospheric sky.

“It exists within the Star Wars universe, it involves characters that you know or some that may have been talked about but you haven’t seen before and it will be adding to the existing canon,” he said. “So we’ve got the entire Star Wars universe at our disposal. What planet do we want to be on, what location, what character is so iconic that we need to know more about this character?”

While those interested in VR technology may already be familiar with Facebook’s Oculus platform, the Oculus Quest may be a name that’s not yet been heard. It’s a new device that was also announced during the event prior to the series reveal, a $399 headset that’s also expected to be out in 2019 with a catalog of content already being worked on.

Oculus Quest and Vader Immortal are due out sometime in 2019.