Vader Immortal

Vader Immortal
Information
VR/AR	Virtual Reality
Developer	ILMxLAB (Lucasfilm)
Publisher	Oculus Studios (Oculus / Rift releases); ILMxLAB (PlayStation VR)
Platform	Oculus Rift, Oculus Quest, PlayStation VR
Device	Oculus Rift, Oculus Rift S, Oculus Quest, Oculus Quest 2, PlayStation VR
Operating System	Windows, Android, PlayStation 4
Type	Game
Genre	Action, Adventure, Interactive narrative
Input Device	Tracked motion controllers
Play Area	Standing, Room-scale, seated
Game Mode	Single-player
Release Date	Episode I: May 21, 2019 (Oculus); Episode II: September 25, 2019; Episode III: November 21, 2019; PlayStation VR trilogy: August 25, 2020
Price	US $9.99 per episode (Oculus); US $29.99 trilogy (PlayStation VR)
App Store	Oculus Store, PlayStation Store
Website	https://www.starwars.com/interactive/virtual-reality

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See also: VR Apps and VR Games

Vader Immortal: A Star Wars VR Series is a three-part virtual reality action and interactive narrative produced by ILMxLAB, the immersive entertainment division of Lucasfilm. The series was written and executive produced by screenwriter David S. Goyer and directed by visual effects supervisor Ben Snow. Set in the Star Wars canon between the films Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, it casts the player as a Force-sensitive smuggler captured and pressed into service by Darth Vader at his fortress on the lava planet Mustafar.

The first episode launched on May 21, 2019 as one of the showcase titles for the newly released Oculus Quest standalone headset, with the second and third episodes following later that year. Each episode pairs a short, linear story chapter with a separate combat mode called the Lightsaber Dojo. The series won the inaugural Producers Guild of America Innovation Award and was an Emmy nominee for interactive media.

Gameplay

Each of the three episodes is divided into two distinct parts: a story mode and the Lightsaber Dojo. In the story mode the player moves along a largely linear path, solving light environmental puzzles, manipulating objects, and using a tracked motion controller as a lightsaber or to channel Force powers as the plot requires. Movement between set pieces is handled through guided locomotion rather than free roaming, which keeps the experience accessible to first-time VR users.

The mechanical focus shifts across the three chapters. Episode I centers on lightsaber handling, Episode II introduces telekinetic Force powers such as gripping and throwing objects, and Episode III combines both, adding blaster fire and grenades alongside larger-scale set pieces such as robot battles and escapes down cavernous tunnels.

The Lightsaber Dojo is a standalone, open-ended training mode in which the player fights waves of enemies, including training droids and Imperial forces, with steadily increasing difficulty. Reviewers treated it as the main source of replay value, because it offered far more hands-on lightsaber and Force combat than the brief story segments. The dojo expanded in each episode to add the powers and enemy types introduced in that chapter.

Plot and cast

The player takes the role of a smuggler whose ship is captured near Mustafar, leading to a forced audience with Darth Vader inside his castle. Over the three episodes the smuggler is drawn into Vader's search for an ancient artifact tied to the planet, accompanied by a repurposed Imperial droid companion. The story connects to the earlier ILMxLAB location-based VR attraction Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire.

Darth Vader is voiced by Scott Lawrence, who had previously voiced the character in other Star Wars media. The droid companion ZO-E3 is voiced by Maya Rudolph, and the supporting cast includes David Sobolov, Steve Blum, and Keith Ferguson; archival audio of Natalie Portman as Padmé Amidala also appears.

Development

ILMxLAB was founded by Lucasfilm in 2015 to produce immersive and real-time entertainment, and Vader Immortal grew out of that group's earlier VR work. The project was announced as Vader Immortal: A Star Wars VR Series - Episode I at the Oculus Connect 5 developer conference in San Jose, California, on September 26, 2018, alongside the reveal that it would launch on the Oculus Quest. David S. Goyer, a co-writer of The Dark Knight trilogy, wrote and executive produced the series, and described the goal as letting fans "inhabit" the Star Wars universe and interact directly with Vader.

Release

The three episodes launched separately on the Oculus platform across 2019, each playable on the Oculus Quest and on PC-based Oculus Rift and Oculus Rift S headsets, and individually priced at US $9.99. The episodes were later made compatible with the Oculus Quest 2. On August 6, 2020, during a Sony Interactive Entertainment State of Play broadcast, ILMxLAB announced a PlayStation VR version bundling all three episodes as a single US $29.99 purchase, which released on August 25, 2020.

Platform	Release date	Notes
Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift / Oculus Rift S	May 21, 2019	Episode I, US $9.99
Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift / Oculus Rift S	September 25, 2019	Episode II
Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift / Oculus Rift S	November 21, 2019	Episode III
PlayStation VR	August 25, 2020	All three episodes as one US $29.99 trilogy

Reception

Reviews praised the sense of presence and the Star Wars setting while criticizing the short length of each story chapter. Road to VR scored Episode I 8 out of 10, calling the campaign "all too brief" at roughly 45 minutes but praising the lightsaber combat in the Lightsaber Dojo as "surprisingly fun" and "quite a bit more expansive" than expected. The same outlet gave Episode II 7.5 out of 10, describing the story as "just a hair too thin" with only about 30 minutes of narrative, while again highlighting the expanded dojo as "a welcome addition." Road to VR was cooler on the concluding Episode III, scoring it 6.5 out of 10 and praising its visuals while criticizing a "paint-by-numbers locomotion scheme" and a general lack of player interaction during set pieces. On Metacritic the individual episodes hold scores in the mid-60s, with Episode III at 64 out of 100.

UploadVR reviewed the completed trilogy and rated it 4 out of 5 stars, describing it as "one of the most deliberate attempts yet to put you in the shoes of a living, breathing character" and as an early example of ILMxLAB's idea of "story-living," though it judged Episode II the series' "dullest point, with a little too much walking and talking." The PlayStation 4 version holds a Metacritic score of 69 out of 100, indicating mixed or average reviews.

Awards

Episode I received the first Producers Guild of America Innovation Award, presented at the 31st annual PGA Awards on January 18, 2020. The series was also a nominee for an Emmy in interactive media in 2019.

Commercial performance

On PlayStation VR, Vader Immortal ranked among the most-downloaded VR titles on the PlayStation Store, placing 8th in the United States and Canada and 9th in Europe among PS VR games for 2020, and 7th in the United States and Canada for 2021. Meta has continued to list all three episodes among the best-selling titles on the Meta Quest platform.