As we reported recently, Paramount Pictures are currently rolling out demo booths to 15 AMC theaters across the US to demonstrate a snippet of the forthcoming virtual reality horror experience based on the Paranormal Activity horror franchise. Frank He attended an event near him for Road to VR and captured this reaction from an in-booth night-vision camera, recording one of the attendees freaking out during the HTC Vive powered experience. Her reactions are hilarious, but are also a great endorsement of the power virtual reality holds to terrify us completely.
Frank He will have a full hands-on write up of his time with the demonstration soon, in the mean time, here’s a sneak preview of his observations whilst there.
Standing, room-scale VR with horror is also interesting at this demonstrated scale, since it’s the first time it has been done. Throughout the demos, some people were kicking, punching, and jumping in all directions. These are the types of reactions that can be elicited from horror in VR, and since it’s an automatic reaction from your body, it could present certain dangers, even if you have a system like Chaperone, where blue grids come up when you get close to the walls. In one instance, someone actually bumped and nearly took down the thin wall of the demo room. He had his back to the wall, and jumped back because of the scare. In another case, someone started kicking, and almost kicked the same wall down but didn’t end up putting nearly that much force on it.
Early word is that the full experience, which will apparently be available on Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and PlayStation VR, is slated to launch early in 2016 but details as to how the game will be structured are as yet thin on the ground. One thing’s for sure however, if this reaction is anything to go by, you’ll need nerves of concrete to complete it.
In the mean time, sit back and enjoy the shrieks of fear! Thanks to Frank for recording and sharing the video with us.