EA Should Turn 'Rogue One: X-Wing VR Mission' Into a Full Game

I have the bridge of a Star Destroyer in my sights and about half a dozen TIE fighters on my tail. I should turn around and deal with them, but I think that one more strafe can get the job done, so I accelerate, fire my lasers, and pull up just before I crash. As I fly away, I turn my head around to see the Star Destroyer explode, which is something I'm only able to do because I'm playing in virtual reality.

Call me a broken record, but what VR needs most right now in order to succeed is a killer app. It needs a better price, more comfortable headsets, a better resolution, and many other improvements, but none of that will matter if there isn't an incredibly cool attraction that will make you want to buy one in the first place.

Star Wars Battlefront Rogue One: X-Wing VR Mission, a free mission for developer DICE's first-person shooter designed for the PlayStation VR, has all the makings of a killer app. Cockpit games are a natural fit for VR because they bypass the locomotion problem that give players motion sickness, and what's a more recognizable cockpit that we all fantasized sitting in than that of the iconic X-wing?

I got a chance to play through the Rogue One: X-Wing VR Mission last month, and while it showed a lot of promise for what a full, big-budget Star Wars VR game might be, at the moment it is shallow and brief, just like most VR games.

This is a little frustrating because the mission's developer Criterion(of Burnout fame) put enough in there to make me see just how cool a full Star Wars VR game would be if they were given the budget, time, and resources to make one.

The mission started by letting me examine the X-wing from the outside, appreciating the meticulous work that went into replicating the ship from the movies. It's nice eye candy and all, but where it really makes a difference is the cockpit, which is full of functional buttons and switches. That targeting module that Red Squadron uses at the end of A New Hope to launch a proton torpedo into the death star? You can pull it up by looking at and pushing the right button. Opening up and closing X-wing s-foils (the wings, basically, that give the ship its X shape)? There's a button for that as well. You don't have to (and probably don't want to) use these buttons while playing the mission, but the fact that they're there made me feel like I was in a real machine as opposed to just another video game cockpit.

The mission itself, which lasts a little less than 30 minutes, feels a lot like simplified version of the Rogue Squadron games, if you ever played one of those. If Star Wars: Tie Fighter is the Flight Simulator of Star Wars games, Rogue Squadron is the easier but still fun version, and the Rogue One: X-Wing VR Mission is even more dumbed down.

You and a handful of other X-wings fly out in search of a distress signal in an asteroid field, the bad guys show up, and you pew pew pew until the credits roll. Overall, it feels more like a tech demo than a game. The auto-aim is very generous, meaning you don't have to be an ace pilot to blow up dozens of TIE fighters. You can't rotate your ship, meaning you can't even do a barrel roll. Basically, it's not much of a game at all, but a proof of concept for game that I hope publisher DICE and Criterion get to make.

Hopefully, this is publisher Electronic Arts testing the waters. There aren't enough PSVR units out there to warrant the budget for a full, big budget game like this, but you can bet the company will be watching how many people play it when it comes out December 6. If the reaction is positive, maybe we'll finally get the killer VR app.