There are no official screenshots, so the rest of these images are just from the E3 teaser and the ordinary Battlefront game

GameCentral plays EA’s first PlayStation VR experiment, and what is a dream come true for Star Wars fans.

As we stand waiting for our go on EA’s Star Wars: Battlefront VR demo we start chatting with developer Matt Webster about video games, Star Wars, and the blessed union of the two. But then he then recognises the guy behind us, and we assume they must know each other from some previous press events. But instead, he asks,’ Weren’t you here yesterday as well?’

With so much to see and do at Gamescom you’re not supposed to have the time or inclination to come back and play the same demos more than once. But clearly this preview is different…



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Star Wars: Battlefront – Rogue One: X-Wing VR Mission, to give it its full, unwieldy, title will be released free this winter to all PlayStation 4 owners who already own a copy of Star Wars: Battlefront.

It’s just a single mission, not a full game, but as we later discuss with Webster, it is hopefully a prelude to something more substantial.

The Rogue One connection was only announced this week, and although it’s clearly just been dropped in at the last minute it seems a perfectly reasonable addition given that the new film takes place just before the start of the original Star Wars, with all the classic trilogy ships and the goal of stealing the plans to the first Death Star.

X-Wing VR Mission – the Force is strong with this one

As we sit down and put on the PlayStation VR headset even the title screen is impressive, as a huge AT-AT walker strides in front of us and we gawp up at it by physically looking up instead of just moving a controller. After that we’re presented with a grounded X-wing fighter, sat in the midst of an empty white, almost Matrix-like, background. By moving between various static vantage points you can admire its movie-accurate details, in a bit of hardware porn that is clearly modelled on the garage options in games like Forza and Gran Turismo.

Webster seems to take an almost vampiric glee at our awe-struck reaction, as we climb into the cockpit and spot the targeting computer nestled behind our left ear and the R2 unit sitting patiently in its spot behind us. The cockpit is a perfect recreation of the movie prop, and even has interactive buttons – such as the one that opens and closes the wings into attack position.

We’re eager to get started, and as one of the assistants moves to check the headset is properly in place he quietly encourages us to, ‘Have fun’. ‘That’s not what you’re supposed to say’, we complain. We can’t see his face at this point, but he knows exactly what we mean and adds: ‘May the Force be with you’.

X-Wing VR Mission – Red 5 is definitely standing by

What we play is only the first 15 minutes or so of the mission, and starts with a simple flyby around a fleet of Rebel starships.

Unlike in the garage though we’ve suddenly gained a virtual body, decked out in an authentic Rebel pilot suit that moves as we do and even has a pair of virtual hands gripping the joystick (even though we’re really using a normal DualShock controller).

Despite the relatively low resolution of the PlayStation VR headset the effect is utterly convincing, as we gaze out the window, and even into the footwell, in full 3D.

If you’ve already played Battlefront you’ll know how good the graphics are, but you never really get to see the spaceships up close. As fans of old PC space combat simulators such as X-Wing and TIE Fighter we fancy ourselves as decent pilots and start a series of flybys.



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To our delight the controls feel absolutely perfect – with just the right level of responsiveness and precision that you imagine the fictional ships would have.

As we loop around a Corellian Corvette (the same type as Princess Leia’s ship) we can hear Webster cooing approvingly at the fact that we don’t plough straight into it. Although the VR game handles differently the controls are identical to Battlefront, but in that the first person cockpit view is virtually unplayable.

Here though it not only feels utterly real but by simply turning our head and looking out the side window it’s vastly more easy to keep track of ships and other objects.

X-Wing VR Mission – all we want is more

Making a hyperspace jump we begin the mission proper, and find another Corvette in the middle of an asteroid field as it’s attacked by TIE fighters. At this point we’re almost swooning, as we’re caught in what is literally a Star Wars-themed dream come true.

Even though there’s a lot of them the TIEs don’t present that much of a problem, as we duck in and around the asteroids to chase them down and keep them away from the Corvette.

We’re having so much fun we almost don’t spot the gigantic Star Destroyer that jumps in after us, until while following an escaping TIE Fighter we suddenly see its massive angular bulk through the top of the cockpit window.


But as we mouth a four-letter appreciation of the awesome scale, and sudden increase in danger, that’s sadly the end of the demo. And as the headset is lifted off we immediately understand why the other guy kept coming back for more.

Afterwards we take Webster, the general manager of Criterion Games – creators of the Burnout series of arcade racers – aside and pump him for further information. Although sadly he seems genuinely uncertain of exactly how this one mission will evolve and expand in the future…

Formats: PlayStation VR

Publisher: EA

Developer: Criterion Games

Release Date: Winter 2016

GC: I don’t like to come across as too sycophantic, but that was amazing. And that’s not accounting for the fact that it was Star Wars as well.

MW: [laughs] It’s okay though! It’s okay to love games.

GC: I can die happy now I’ve seen that.

MW: [laughs] It’s funny. I get the feeling that people want to be professionally objective, but it’s hard isn’t it? Because it’s such a special moment.

GC: I’m assuming you’re a fan as well, so what’s it like working on a dream project like this?

MW: For us at Criterion, we’re actually beginning to broaden what our interests are beyond racing. And this is a great opportunity for us. I like Star Wars, I’m not an uber fan. But there’s something about the X-wing and there’s something about that feeling of wanting to be in it. And the actual opportunity of being part of EA’s first VR game, and it be Star Wars, was a fantastic opportunity for us.


GC: You were implying earlier, that funnily enough there are similarities between the Burnout aesthetic and Star Wars itself. They’re both a sort of idealised version of classic wish fulfilment – Burnout isn’t a simulation it’s how you want a car to feel like, without reality getting in the way.

MW: That’s exactly right, and that’s actually a Criterion aesthetic. Because even when we did Need For Speed, when we were dealing with real cars, it was still… how you felt you ought to be able to drive a car.

GC: Exactly, exactly.

MW: You can have depth of control without being necessarily realistic. And you’ve got depth of control here, but what we have to do is give people that fantasy. Whether that be drifting a car round a corner at 90mph or piloting an X-wing. We’ve all got that fantasy within us. So we started with how it controlled. Forget the VR bit, how did the spacecraft control? And that’s gotta be fun and exciting and easy to pick-up.

And then layer the things that VR gives you the opportunity to do. And that’s why we do things like at the start; that experience of the walker, for example. Getting in close and encouraging people to put their heads in places where games haven’t really offered before, because we’ve been so conditioned to being sat still with the controller.

GC: So if this is now a Rogue One game, does that mean it’s going to have the new ships like the U-wing?

MW: [laughs] We’re not going to talk about that here. The experience is going to be very similar to how you saw it today. It’s a little bit longer, it’s got other elements that are surprises. But it’s an extension to Star Wars: Battlefront. And it will be free to owners of Star Wars: Battlefront and owners of VR.

GC: But if this is just a single mission, what is there beyond that? Is this going to become, or inspire, a full game at some point? I guess you’re probably not allowed to say are you?

MW: Well, I think since we’ve been working on it we’ve learnt a lot about VR…

GC: Have you had anyone not like it? I’ve played a lot of Star Wars space simulators in my time, but what happens when a more casual gamer plays it?

MW: They lose their s***!

Both: [laughs]

GC: But can they control it properly? Because movement in 3D space – proper flying of any sort – is very rare in games nowadays.

MW: This is the trick, because we spend so much time – whether it be a car or an X-wing – we care about the controls a lot. So whereas the control scheme, the buttons, are the same as Battlefront, everything else that’s going on under there is all custom-designed for it to work in VR.

But also for it to be easy for people to pick up and experience. So actually, you don’t have any roll control. We layer that roll in for you, and it’s that that makes it very easy to pick up and intuitive to point the spacecraft to where you want it to go.

GC: So in this, will you only play as an X-wing?

MW: Yeah, in this one it’s an X-wing VR.

GC: Because now I’m imagining a full sequel to the old PC games. But they were so complicated in terms of just the number of buttons used on the keyboard…

MW: People learn controls in VR very quickly. So, you pressed the button on the controls and you looked out and saw what it did. And then you went straight back to its position, because you knew exactly where it was after just one press. And that’s really interesting, because there’s been studies to show that when you’re in VR you learn faster.

GC: But it’s also, the old games, it’s not just that they had a lot of buttons but that that allowed the gameplay to have more depth. With the shunting of energy between shields and weapons and so on. Would you have that sort of thing if you did a full game?

MW: I don’t know, I don’t know. The way that we would work is that we would experiment and play and iterate and see how that felt.

GC: How could anyone at EA not immediately greenlight a full game to follow this up? Just get Peter Moore in there watching people for five minutes, he’ll give you whatever budget you want.

MW: [laughs]

GC: I just want more!

MW: I don’t know what the future might hold. But what I’m thrilled to see here is the reactions we’re getting from people. And it’s pretty consistent: ‘Wow, that’s an incredible experience. My imagination’s now going wild…’

GC: I wonder if you could create a VR version of Fighter Squadron, as sort of another step towards a full game. I guess you couldn’t do the on-foot combat, because that’s too fast-paced…

MW: We’re being hypothetical now, but I think what we’ve learnt is you can do quite high intensity experience, sitting down experiences. We’ve spent a lot of time and a lot of iteration… and there’s a whole bunch of research, actually. The military and NASA have been in VR for some time – decades – and there’s a huge amount of research in there. A bunch of people say to us, ‘Oh, VR makes you sick’. But actually it doesn’t. It doesn’t have to. You can still have a high intensity action experience and not have side effects.

GC: I felt a little bit of a pull when I was in there, but it was pretty mild compared to some other games.

MW: You were throwing that thing around a lot! [laughs] What we’ve found is that when you have roll and pitch, about 90% will eventually find that sickening. But you can build a tolerance, to motion sickness, and we’ve had people that get motion sickness just from playing a FPS on a normal TV and they’ve had no problem with our game.

But I think maybe some of the VR experiences that you’ve had, that make people feel motion sickness, are because they’ve just put VR in a game. As opposed to building a game with that in mind.

GC: Yeah, I think it’s the strafing in Resident Evil 7 that’s got me the worse so far. Because although that’s a normal way to move in a game, it’s completely unnatural in reality.

MW: Exactly, because the controls were disassociated from you.

GC: Well, okay. I think we’re both agreed? You’re making a sequel to X-Wing Alliance, and if Peter Moore doesn’t agree you’re going to kidnap him and hold him to ransom.

MW: [laughs]

GC: I think that’s perfectly reasonable.

MW: You’re not the first person to say that.

GC: I’m not the first person to say you should kidnap an EA exec and force him to fund your game?

MW: [laughs] Well, not that bit.

GC: But that’s great, that demo’s fantastic and I can’t wait to play more.

MW: I’m glad to hear it, thanks.

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