Star Trek’s Holodeck has been recreated in SteamVR

Whenever I start talking about VR experiences to anyone, especially when it comes to the Vive, there are a couple of references that inevitably get made. The first is The Matrix, as no one can be told what VR is. You have to see it for yourself. The other is the Holodeck from Star Trek. Well now you’ll be able to experience the Holodeck for yourself.

When you load into SteamVR, the loading area is a boring grey landscape with grid lines at the boundaries of your current space. If you’ve never seen Star Trek’s Holodeck, it has a very similar look to it, and the function is the same. It’s there until you load into something else, with the grid lines reappearing once you reach the boundaries.

Since a grey space is pretty boring, Steam provides some alternate landscapes for you to look at when you’re in the loading area. My favorite is a landscape at night, which lets me look up and see all of the stars. Well, you can make your own, and Steam user Bradllez took this opportunity to recreate the Holodeck.

In the video above, you can see someone loading into the Holodeck and looking around. There’s not much to it, which is kind of the point. It’s interesting, but not too distracting from whatever else you’re doing while you’re preparing to load into a game or other VR experience. If you’d like to download it, you can do so in the Steam Workshop here.