The New Star Wars Cardboard VR Experience Lets You Travel to a Galaxy Far, Far Away
As we inch closer to the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, new content is popping up daily, which we love. Today, Google released a new VR experience as part of a massive update to the Star Wars app that will allow fans to get inside a galaxy far, far away like never before. We’ve already tried it and it is really, really awesome.
This virtual reality experience, part of the ambitious partnership between Star Wars and Google (which has already produced fun things like the background of your Gmail changing to a snowy First Order rally and the Google Maps icon for your car turning into a TIE fighter), is a first-of-its-kind, serialized Google Cardboard Virtual Reality experience. It combines a thrilling narrative, with exclusive content that ties directly into the opening of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
On a technological level, this VR experience was a creation of ILMxLAB, a laboratory for next-level, immersive entertainment from Lucasfilm, Industrial Light & Magic, and Skywalker Sound, and the experience is a new facet of the already-stellar Star Wars app. (The app is available on both Android and iOS devices.) You can pick up your Google Cardboard viewers (which we like to think of as goggles worthy of your next podrace), exclusively at Verizon stores, also starting today.
Now, this is how it works: when you log onto the Star Wars app, you’ll see a new icon that says, “Jakku Spy.” You click this button and follow the prompts, downloading your new in-app experience (it’s free of charge). You then fit your smart phone into the front of the viewer, and peer through it, like a 22nd century viewfinder. As soon as the experience begins, it feels like you’re really in the film, following a new opening crawl that roughly lays out the story; except instead of flatly unfolding in front of you, the words zoom above you in three dimensions. (As with any VR experience, you can look around at anything you want, although the first few seconds are full of a starry void.) After that, you’re on Jakku, the desert planet that features heavily in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. You see the Millennium Falcon and TIE fighters overhead, and after witnessing a brief aerial battle, you peer down and notice BB-8, the friendly, soccer ball-shaped droid who chirps charmingly. (Headphones are very much encouraged; the soundtrack allows for an even-more-immersive experience.)
We’ve never experienced anything quite like it, and look forward to the future installments of the VR story (they’ll be unlocked every few days). What makes this so magical is it changes something that you may take for granted—the thing you use to text your friends and loved ones, and pay bills online—and turns it into something otherworldly and cool. We can’t recommend enough checking this out. It takes you into a galaxy far, far away in a way that we never thought possible. Now that we’ve tried it out, we can’t wait to go back.
