Ubisoft has thrown its hat into the virtual reality ring. The publisher behind multimillion-selling game franchises Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry and Ghost Recon is working on ambitious VR projects, it has revealed.

At a pre-briefing before the E3 games conference in Los Angeles, David Votypka, the creative director of Ubisoft-owned developer Red Storm, announced that there are several prototypes being developed in various studios around the company. Votypka who studied virtual reality technology at university before working on formative VR projects in the 1990s told attendees: “VR is back, and it’s back for real. We’ve been exploring, figuring out what works and what doesn’t. We have now have three prototypes at E3 from studios within Ubisoft”.

The first is Eagle Fight, a multiplayer flight-sim shooter built by Ubisoft Montreal, in which two teams of two players participate as eagles, competing in a capture-the-flag match above the streets of Paris. On donning the Oculus Rift headset, players get an eagle-eye view of the urban sprawl, their beak visible at the bottom of the screen. Flight is controlled using the motion sensors in the VR headset: players look up and down to ascend or descend and tilt their heads left and right to steer. It’s surprisingly intuitive, with quite complex swooping dives and turns possible and a rather beautiful sensation of flight.

The controller is only used to accelerate or slow down and to fire a sonic attack that sends enemy birds crashing to the surface. There’s also a Pilot Wings-style fly-through-the-hoops challenge to acclimatise players to the controls.

The next – titled Vaas VR – is a virtual reality take on the cinematic scene in Far Cry 3 cinematic where the player meets deranged antagonist Vaas as he explains the definition of insanity. On donning the headset, players find themselves facing Vaas as he delivers his chilling monologue. If you look down, your on-screen character raises their bound wrists and struggles to free them; you can also look around at the jungle and up toward a helicopter swooping overhead.

Interestingly though, Vaas takes live cues from where the player is looking. If you glance away for too long, he stops talking; stare directly into his eyes and he becomes even more aggressive. Ubisoft has said that it’s experimenting with bringing more artificial intelligence and interaction into cinematics. It’s a weirdly intimidating experience, especially as Vaas leans right in to the camera – reminiscent of the sort of immersive theatre experiences put on by companies like Punchdrunk, where actors incorporate the audience into performances.

Finally, Ubisoft also showed Raving Rabbids Theme Park Ride, a virtual rollercoaster experience incorporating Ubisoft’s loveable critters, as well as a motion seat. It’s the most visceral and motion-intensive of the demos, with a lot of swooping, stomach-churning dips – although Ubisoft says it is working hard to combat the nausea once associated with this sort of virtual experience.

Votypka also revealed that his own studio has been working on social interaction in shared virtual environments for two years. “When you experience table-top games or card games with your friends around a table, the social interactions you have are way more interesting and diverse than anything you get in online multiplayer games – we wanted to figure out how to capture some of that. We’ve built a social VR protoype and played it with people within Ubisoft - the concept has proven itself again and again.

“The concept I’m talking about is social presence. When you take a human being, give them VR hardware, network where they’re looking, how their hands are moving, their voice, and when that all syncs up in real-time, it’s pretty amazing and uncanny. You start feeling like you’re there with other human beings. But I don’t expect you to believe me, it’s something you have to try for yourself.”

Votypka says the team has several social VR games in development and planned for full launch, and says that there will be announcements in the next few months. “I’m not talking about virtual chat rooms here,” he said. “I’m talking about games that are specifically design to have mechanics based around social cues, social dynamics and social interactions between players. These projects are just the beginning.”

Ubisoft’s VR content will apparently be a mix of well-known brands from the company’s history as well as new titles. Votypka was unequivocal about Ubisoft’s approach to virtual reality, which is nearing mainstream acceptance via well-publicised headsets like the Oculus Rift, Project Morpheus and HTC Vive, but has yet to see a commercial release.

“Our goal is to be an industry leader in amazing virtual reality experiences,” he said.