Posted in: Disney, Games, Video Games | Tagged: disney, star wars, Star Wars VR, Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire, vr
Disney Is Adding Star Wars VR Experiences To Existing Parks
For those not content to wait for Star Wars amusement parks to be built in 2019, Disney is introducing Star Wars VR experiences at Disneyland and Walt Disney World later this year.
The experience, titled Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire, is being built by VR immersion company The Void. The Void made a name for themselves last year when they built a Ghostbusters experience that debuted at Madame Tussauds in New York. The Ghostbusters VR experience involved players interacting with physical objects that were pre-programmed into the virtual world.
Disney and The Void plan to launch Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire this year at Disneyland's Downtown Disney and Disney World's Disney Springs. The full Star Wars amusement park in Disney World is on schedule for a 2019 debut.
Disney has experimented quite a bit with VR this year. They hosted a Nissan-Star Wars collaborative experience called the Star Wars: Battle Test at car shows this spring, including the New York Auto Show where we took the experience for a spin. They've also announced a few new VR titles, Star Wars and otherwise, at the D23 Expo's games panel just a few weeks back.
As always, Star Wars is a massive property and a huge crowd draw, so we aren't surprised to see this announcement. And, truth be told, amusement parks are pretty much built for VR. As Virtual Reality has slowly expanded, it has become much more of an "experience" thing than a games platform, so I wouldn't be surprised to see more VR experiences pop up at Disney parks following the Secrets of the Empire's inevitable success at Disneyland and Disney World.