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If you’re a Star Wars fan, you probably fall into one of two camps: you’re either a Vader fan, or you would love to fight him one day. While the latter choice is suicide for all but Luke Skywalker, the Vader Immortal saga on Oculus platforms gives fans of the Sith Lord the opportunity to become Vader’s apprentice, and it looks like the upcoming Star Wars: Vader Immortal Episode II will truly kick it all off.
Vader Immortal Episode II was showcased at the 2019 San Diego Comic Con during an event where developers unveiled several new posters that showcased the characters introduced in the story. The official Star Wars blog hosted an interview with Ben Snow, director of Vader Immortal directly after the SDCC panel ended.
Folks that haven’t had the opportunity to play Vader Immortal Episode I will probably not want to venture much further into this article, as there will be a few spoilers that we cover in order to discuss the upcoming bits about Episode II’s story. Before you leave, though, the basic gist of Episode II is this: Vader Immortal is a more personal tale of the pain that constantly ravages Anakin’s life, and Episode II will focus on players taking the role of a character that has fallen into favor with the Sith Lord and will begin to learn more of The Force throughout the adventure.
Spoiler alert time.
As we saw in Episode I, Vader Immortal’s goal is to create a narrative that explains Vader’s fate and his pain in a more personal way. It builds upon the narrative set in the movie Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, where Vader’s quest to keep Padme from dying ends up extending to his own life several decades later, as he realizes his mortality is at hand and his body is slowly failing him in daily life.
Episode II begins right where Episode I ended, with Vader destroying the Lightsaber you had for the last half of the Episode, and will apparently begin with you learning to use the force instead of relying on a laser sword. During the interview, Snow went on to talk about the direction for Episode II and how Force Powers would be unveiled.
“The way we thought about this was, we wanted to give you the Vader equivalent of Yoda teaching Luke about the Force in Empire Strikes Back. So we wanted it to be slightly darker and more twisted. He talks about the power of the dark side as well as the things you can do with the Force.”
Snow goes on to talk about the Force powers that will be given to the player in Episode II, and how the developers are working on making them feel as satisfying as the Lightsaber combat was in Episode I. Since there’s no Lightsaber in the beginning of Episode I, it would behoove developers to make this section as compelling as possible to carry players through the initial part of the story.
As far as the atmosphere goes, it looks like the bulk of Episode II will continue to take place on Mustafar, as this is a region where Star Wars fans haven’t traditionally had a lot of time to explore and enjoy. While it’s a nasty, hot, lava-ridden planet, it is still Vader’s Castle, and that’s likely enough to get any fan foaming at the mouth when Episode II eventually releases on Oculus’ virtual shelves.