Star Wars VR coming to HTC Vive? Watch the trailer and see lightsaber battles in VR

The VR dream could become a reality as a Star Wars VR experience teaser trailer surfaced online showing the HTC Vive headset being used to explore Tatooine and take part in epic lightsaber battles.

Labelled as an experiment by LucasArts and the Industrial Light and Magic Lab (ILMxLab), Star Wars: Trials on Tatooine VR cropped up online before being hastily taken down, but not before it was scooped up by the internet for the perusal of Star Wars fanatics everywhere.

The trailer stars everyone's favourite astromech droid R2-D2, Stormtroopers with their signature terrible aim, the ship that made the kessel run in less the twelve parsecs (the Millennium Falcon for the uninitiated) and the moment where VR technology reaches what should always have been its ultimate goal: wielding a virtual lightsaber.

The Vive VR, co-developed with Valve as the premium debut of its SteamVR platform, is shown being used in the trailer and is an ideal fit for as it shows how Vive's motion controllers could be used to deflect incoming blaster fire with the iconic humming blade.

The possibilities surely do not stop there however — imagine freely walking around the cockpit of the Milliennium Falcon using the Vive's movement tracking capabilities, or even stretching out your arm to force push an evil Dark Side foe while locked in a duel to the death.

Nintendo utilised its motion-sensing Wii to let gamers unleash the force but with an immersive VR headset dropping players in the middle of the action we might actually see a Star Wars' game that makes us feel like a real Jedi Master.

Star Wars virtual reality release date?

Unfortunately any concrete details are currently scarcer than Star Wars VIII script leaks. It may not even be a game judging from the "cinematic virtual reality experiment" disclaimer heartbreakingly placed at the end of the trailer.

But before you start shouting 'It's a trap', it is worth noting that the concept of taking a virtual step onto Luke Skywalker's home planet might not be something Disney is going to pass up at some point in the future, this franchise makes quite a lot of money after all.

The dawn of Virtual Reality has begun in recent months, with HTC Vive and Oculus Rift going head-to-head in the pre-order war for PC-based VR headsets. Meanwhile, The PlayStation VR (formerly Project Morpheus), Sony's PS4 compatible headset, is the subject of a Game Developers Conference presentation scheduled for later today (15 March) in San Francisco, beginning at 9pm UK time (2pm PT).

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