Alien: Covenant Will Include VR Experience
By Dalton Cooper 04 January 2017
Fox Innovation Lab announces a virtual reality experience for the upcoming sci-fi horror film Alien: Covenant, with series creator Ridley Scott executive producing.
Award-winning film director Ridley Scott is no stranger to the world of video games. He’s been involved with Call of Duty in the past, and even had a hand in creating a VR experience for his 2015 science-fiction hit The Martian. Ridley Scott’s foray into the gaming industry will continue with a VR experience for Alien: Covenant, which is in development for unspecified virtual reality platforms.
As reported by Variety, Ridley Scott will serve as executive producer for the Alien: Covenant VR experience, which is being developed by Fox Innovation Lab, with David Karlak in the director’s chair. No release date is available at this time, but since Alien: Covenant will hit theaters on May 19th, 2017, one has to imagine that the VR experience will be made available around the same time.
So far, there aren’t many additional details available on Alien: Covenant‘s VR experience. We do know that it will be a paid title, but we’re not sure which virtual reality platforms Fox Innovation Lab is aiming for. However, now that Oculus Rift has the Oculus Touch controllers available, all three major VR headsets can basically perform the same functions, so there’s a chance we’ll see Alien: Covenant release for Oculus Rift, PlayStation VR, and HTC Vive at some point in the future.
Whatever platforms Alien: Covenant‘s VR experience lands on, it should provide an unnerving experience for gamers, if Fox Innovation Lab achieves its goals, that is. The studio has described the Alien: Covenant VR experience as “dread-inducing,” as players navigate alien environments while making major “life and death” decisions.
If Fox Innovation Lab succeeds in making Alien: Covenant‘s VR experience truly horrifying and more fun to play than its critically panned take on The Martian, we may see more Alien games come to virtual reality. Before new Alien titles are created from the ground-up for virtual reality technology, though, it’s possible that 2014’s Alien: Isolation could come to VR first, as previously teased by Sega.
A successful Alien: Covenant VR experience could see Ridley Scott bring more of his franchises to virtual reality. He doesn’t seem to share fellow filmmaker Steven Spielberg’s pessimism on the technology, and for fans of science-fiction that want to become more immersed in the worlds of their favorite films, that’s a good thing.
Alien: Covenant‘s VR experience is in development for unspecified VR platforms.
