Mixed-reality Wayward Sky trailer shows off PlayStation VR’s capabilities

Sony is establishing an impressive lineup for the launch of its upcoming PlayStation VR headset, but today it also gave us a new look at one of its earliest confirmed games.

Uber Entertainment, the developer behind Planetary Annihilation, released a new trailer for its upcoming exclusive PlayStation VR game Wayward Sky as part of the buildup to the Electronic Entertainment Expo trade show next week. This new video uses an innovative mixed-reality filming technique that combines a real-world person who is playing the game with the virtual reality visuals in one composite image. In this case, we get to see a kid playing Uber’s “look-and-click” adventure while Wayward Sky’s vibrant world surrounds him. Wayward Sky will show up at E3 in Sony’s booth, and we’ll try to get our hands on it next week.

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Demonstrating the experience of VR to a person who has never tried it is difficult. This is one of the major hurdles the industry will have to overcome before it reaches the $40 billion in revenues that analysts at SuperData are predicting. But mixed-reality trailers are looking like a possible solution

Wayward Sky takes you on an adventure as a copilot named Bess, who must help save her father while exploring a mysterious flying fortress. Because this is an adventure game, you guide Bess around the world by looking to points and using the controller to command her to move. But Uber is also taking advantage of the immersive, first-person capabilities of VR with sections that switch between a third-person camera and Bess’s point of view. In these segments, you’ll use the Move motion controllers to flip switches and solve puzzles.

“We made this mixed reality trailer to showcase the scale changes during the course of the game that’s typically really hard to convey in a video,” Wayward Sky director Chandana Ekanayake told GamesBeat. “At times, the world is scaled down to feel like a miniature set for exploration which is only possible in VR. For puzzles, we seamlessly transition to a first person view that lets you experience the world through the eyes of Bess, our main character. This scale change doesn’t translate to video until you see a real person in relation to the game world. I’m hope to see more people show off their VR games this way.”

Watch the trailer for yourself to see how important bringing a person into the gameplay really is: