Star Wars: Vader Immortal story and VR lightsaber combat teased in new trailer

Vader Immortal, the VR Star Wars series that Oculus and ILMxLAB are putting together with the help of Hellblade dev Ninja Theory, got a new trailer yesterday that teases its story and shows us our first proper glimpse of lightsaber combat.

You'll play a smuggler operating near Vader's home planet of Mustafar. At the start of episode one—there will be three in total—you're captured by Vader and taken to his base, which you'll be able to explore with the help of your trusty droid, ZOE3. It all takes place between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope.

The episode will take 45 minutes to an hour to complete, and at some point you'll get your hands on a lightsaber, letting you fight off stormtroopers. Eventually, you'll come face-to-face with Vader himself: he's chosen you for a specific task, although we don't know the full details yet.

It looks more like an interactive film than a fully-fledged VR game, but it could still be fun. As well as the story, you'll be able to jump into a Lightsaber Dojo where you can hone your skills.

Episode one is due on Oculus's Rift and Quest headsets, two of the best VR headsets, before the summer. You can watch the devs talk about the game in a bit more detail in the video below, which comes from the Star Wars Celebration event.

You can watch the livestream reveal of the new singleplayer Star Wars game, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, here later today.

Samuel is a freelance journalist and editor who first wrote for PC Gamer nearly a decade ago. Since then he's had stints as a VR specialist, mouse reviewer, and previewer of promising indie games, and is now regularly writing about Fortnite. What he loves most is longer form, interview-led reporting, whether that's Ken Levine on the one phone call that saved his studio, Tim Schafer on a milkman joke that inspired Psychonauts' best level, or historians on what Anno 1800 gets wrong about colonialism. He's based in London.