We may earn a commission when you buy through links in our articles. Learn more.

Experience Iron Man’s Stark Tower in this stunning VR simulation

ironman.jpg

Have you ever wanted to pretend to be a genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist? Now you can. Well, soon. And you’re limited to strolling around your tower for now – no jetting into the sky just yet.

TREK Industries have just released a trailer for Experience: Stark Tower and it looks like a lovely little virtual reality jaunt. I asked CEO and founder David Prassel some questions about TREK’s unofficial Marvel universe project. But first, have a look for yourself:

The project is planned to appear on Oculus Rift and HTC Vive and isn’t affiliated with Marvel or Disney. It is being developed under the banner of the Fair Use Act for research and development towards the budding VR sector.

“We are very serious about our Marvel-related endeavors,” said Prassel. “I’ve invested quite a bit into our Marvel-related content and our ambitions are actually much larger than just this VR release. This is a test bed of sorts, allowing us to experiment with the universe and characters to demonstrate our capability and understandings.”

Outside of these experiments, there are solid plans to improve and build on Experience: Stark Tower, too. The first version will allow you to walk around the lounge, check out the bar and even pop out onto the balcony to peek out at the vertigo-inducing New York skyline.

Version 2 will improve the skyboxes and add roads, as well as traffic in both the air and on the ground. Version 3 will bring Iron Man himself. “He will land at Stark Tower and interact with the player,” explained Prassel. “We are currently animating him and it will be fully detailed, including a facial rig. The way we design our Marvel content is roughly 50% MCU, 25% Comic and 25% our own unique spin/take.” Version 4 plans to bring other popular characters into the scene.

“We currently have three different virtual reality production teams tackling a variety of projects,” Prassel continued. “For phase 1 of our VR development we’re focusing on the ‘appetisers’ of VR. These will be bitesize experiments that will allow users to go to many different periods, eras and universes.

“These will be a great way to show friends the capabilities and potential of these products and sort of be like that ‘Best Buy sampler disc’ of sorts. We’re wrapping up the first three projects, the first of which will be Experience: Stark Tower which takes place in the year.”

While they’re not exactly games, these kinds of experiences do seem well suited to VR. At least they are tailor made for the system rather than being crowbarred in. And you really will feel like Iron Man when yo have a massive device strapped to your head.