Harry potter vr oculus quest

Location-based Harry Potter VR experiences will be available at the Harry Potter store opening this summer in New York.

The new store will feature two entirely new experiences for Harry Potter fans. The store itself has large props recreated from the movies and totals 21, square feet across three floors. It&#;s located at Broadway and is set to open on June 3.

Both VR experiences are multiplayer minigames and only available from the store. The first is called Chaos at Hogwarts, which Forbes says will let &#;hopeful witches and wizards step into a magical journey to Hogwarts Castle, where magical creatures and secrets await.&#; The second is called Wizards Take Flight, which &#;prepares guests to fly on brooms and use their wands to battle against Death Eaters.&#;

There are no images or further details of either experience for now, but it will be interesting to see how they&#;re implemented. We don&#;t know what headsets will be used at this point in time.

For Wizards Take Flight in particular, there&#;s a great opportunity for the VR experience to be combined with physical broom props that players could sit on while playing, potentially with integrated physical movement and haptics. But, any way you look at it, VR motion controllers make the perfect substitutes for wands.

This is the first official Harry Potter VR experience we can recall, although there was a tie-in experience for Fantastic Beasts in the early days of the Google Daydream. The less said about that the better.

Will you be checking out the Harry Potter VR experiences when they launch this summer? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

CategoriesVR News

Harry Baker

Harry is a gaming and tech journalist based in Melbourne, Australia. While he started his journalism career in the competitive Overwatch and esports scenes, he couldn't resist getting into the ever-evolving industry of virtual reality. Harry started with UploadVR as the Community Moderator before joining the full-time staff as a News Writer.

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Ravenclaw Common Room VR is a fan-made demo project that lets you cast an assortment of spells, interact with magical objects, and relax in the high tower of Hogwarts castle. It is a fully-immersive, realtime VR experience with 6 degrees of freedom and voice-activated magic. Conjure up some trouble or kick your feet up in front of the crackling hearth.  Enjoy a bit of comfort for those of us that call Hogwarts home.

Controls:

• Teleport - click the analog stick (oculus touch) or touch pad (vive); hold to aim, release to teleport
• Grab - trigger
• Activate wand (use microphone to cast spells) - grip
• Quit - esc
• Restart - r
• Switch wand hand - space

Created by Colin Cody-Waters

Sound design by Brett Bullion

*This project and its creators are not associated with Warner Bros. Entertainment or J.K. Rowling's Wizarding World.

--

What people are saying:

"Just wanted to say a big thanks for sharing. My girlfriend was almost in tears!"

"This was bloody brilliant! I mean, this is what VR is for!"

"Rowena would be proud"

Minimum Spec:

• OS: Windows™ 10
• Processor: Intel™ Core™ i or AMD FX™ , equivalent or better
• Memory: 8 GB RAM
• Graphics: GeForce GTX or AMD Radeon R9 , equivalent or better

Install instructions

Unzip the folder and run the .exe. No installation will occur. 

For best experience, please ensure that your default headphones and microphone are set to the VR headset when launching the app. The game window must be your active window for voice recognition to work.

SteamVR must be installed to play in VR. Fly mode available for mouse and keyboard by clicking "2D Debug" once the app has launched, though only limited interactions are possible.

Enjoy!

Since it opened a month and a half ago, everyone who has been fortunate enough to enter the capacity-limited Harry Potter store in NYC has been treated to a visually stunning experience. But starting July 15, two new sections of the store will open to explore on-site, but in virtual reality -- Harry Potter: Chaos at Hogwarts and Harry Potter: Wizards Take Flight. I was invited to take an early look at these experiences and learned about what it takes to build these experiences for such a broad audience. 

Read more: Best VR headsets to buy in

Adding VR to the HP NYC Store

While the middle floor of the massive store is all about shopping, tucked away on the top and bottom floors are a pair of rooms dedicated to VR. If you take the stairs up, you find yourself at Chaos at Hogwarts. If you look downstairs, you'll see the hallway leading to Wizards Take Flight. Each experience is designed to support up to six people at a time, though during this early rollout the games will be limited to four people at once. 

Warner Bros. has partnered with the popular VR creators at WeVR and Dreamscape, the team behind the Dreamworks Dragons Flight Academy and Curse of the Lost Pearl among other popular attractions, to build these games. You start each by walking into a staging room, where you gear up with trackers on your limbs and a computer backpack to power the headset. For these games, Dreamscape is using HP Reverb G2 headsets with HP Z VR PC backpacks. Add all of that tech together, and each person is wearing about $4, in hardware before you count the combat wand and seated broom for flying.

The Harry Potter NYC staff are allowing anyone over the age of 10 and above 48 inches (~m) tall to participate in the minute VR games, each of which takes about ten additional minutes of set up to prepare for. When you book an appointment for one of these games, you're allowed to bypass the typically long line to enter the store and shop at your leisure after. If you're under 13, you must be accompanied by an adult with their own ticket. According to the website, both games are wheelchair accessible but only one wheelchair can be accommodated per trip through the game. 

Mechanically there's a ton going on here, but the staff are more than ready to handle any questions or help if anything goes wrong during set up or in the game. If you've ever experienced a Dreamscape or Void VR installation, this process will all feel very familiar. 

Hands on with Harry Potter: Chaos at Hogwarts

As soon as your ticket to enter is accepted, you are led up a flight of stairs (or invited to use the Floo Network-style elevator if you need it) and find yourself in a model King's Cross Station. The iconic clock, lighting and ticker board with upcoming trains are immediately familiar, with a few magical references scattered about. This selfie area eventually leads down a hallway to a staging platform where you set up for the game. 

Chaos at Hogwarts requires a tracker on each foot, a tracker on each hand, the VR backpack and headset, and once you're in the room you are handed a wand. Like everything else inside the actual Dreamscape VR room, I was not allowed to take photos of the wand. Before you put the headset on, it's clear this dark room full of small blue lights is set up to deliver a ton of different sensory simulations to enhance what you see. 

As the name and the King's Cross entrance suggests, the game starts with you running through Platform 9 3/4 with your cart, where you find Dobby the house elf on the other side in need of assistance. He leads you directly to Hogwarts to help him capture a handful of creatures he accidentally let out of a suitcase that looks a whole lot like Newt Scamander's suitcase from the Fantastic Beasts films. From Cornish Pixies and a troublesome Niffler, to a big grumpy dragon, your purpose in this game is to wander through Hogwarts and sling spells to help Dobby put these critters back. 

As you wander Hogwarts, there's a couple of fantastic real-world things you can feel to make it all seem more real. Wind blows when you're in secret hallways, the ground shakes as the staircases move you from place to place, and if you find yourself near water there's a very real chance you will feel the spray hit you a little. It's a lot of small, subtle things that all come together to really pull you in to the game. 

Unlike the interactive wand experiences at the Wizarding World theme park or even the Harry Potter universal TV remote wand, you cast spells by reaching the wand over your shoulder and then slamming your arm forward while shouting the spell you want to cast. Because the Dreamscape hand trackers sit on your hand and are not something you hold, it never fully feels like you're actually holding the wand in your hand if you look down. Additionally, my experience was masked because COVID exists even in the Wizarding World, so my muffled speech had a mild but noticeable impact on my ability to cast the proper spell each time. 

While the three other wizards in my group were quite capable in their own right, the ending we reached together was not one of resounding victory. In fact, there are multiple endings to this game depending on how your team performs. My only helping hint here is to work together as much as possible and communicate in order to be successful the first time.

Hands on with Harry Potter: Wizards Take Flight

Once your ticket has been accepted, you are ushered from the Harry Potter store and into the Quidditch locker room to get set up. You take your hand trackers out of the locker and put your personal belongings in their place before being ushered into the VR space. As soon as you pass through the door, you're greeted with six brooms for you to sit on with VR headset beside them. Each broom has a comfortable saddle for you to sit in, and the broomstick can be pulled up or pushed down to help with the leaning-based navigation. Once you put the headset on, it's easy to see there's a wand tucked away under the broom for you to use later. 

The VR game starts with you being invited to fly around the Hogwarts grounds to get your bearings and learn how to fly your broom, and this little intro is honestly worth the whole trip. You can explore the entire grounds, from the Quidditch pitch to the Astronomy tower, and even risk getting thumped by the Womping Willow. It doesn't take long for leaning left and right while pulling up or pushing down on the broom handle to feel quite natural, which is great because a minute or two into the experience Dobby the house else hijacks your ride. 

You are immediately transported to Knockturn Alley, where Dobby meets up with Hagrid to check on this secret project. Hagrid has picked up something special and needs to deliver it to Hogwarts, but there are scores of Death Eaters coming up fast to stop him. You fly by his side, wand at the ready, and quickly defend him with a combination of Stupefy and Protego spells. Wave after wave of baddies fly your way, and you need to keep flinging spells through actual, real wind and rain and enemy fire until you finally make it to your destination. Before the game comes to an end Hagrid makes it clear he needs to run and help Dobby with a different issue, which you'll fully understand if you have already played Chaos at Hogwarts.

As much fun as the beginning of this game is with all of the freedom of movement, much of the actual story puts your broom flying on rails. This lack of freedom is not only restrictive, it is likely to cause mild motion sickness in sensitive players because you are not the one in control. And like the other Harry Potter VR game, playing masked can cause problems with accurate spellcasting. 

Adding whimsy to retail

Every part of the Harry Potter NYC store is a ton of fun, but these two VR games really make the trip worthwhile. The store charges $34 per person to book one of these games, and you can only book one at a time. Groups of four can book together, and booking an appointment means you can bypass the line, but you're unlikely to experience both VR games in a single day for the time being. Which is odd, since the two games directly reference one another in fun ways and really encourages hardcore fans to jump from one to the other. 

If I had to choose, I would almost certainly go with Chaos at Hogwarts. While riding a broom is super cool, the overall experience in Wizards Take Flight needs some consistency work. On the other hand, if you have someone smaller and younger joining you in this VR experience, the backpack in Chaos at Hogwarts may prove to be more challenging than sitting on the broom. 

Either way you go, the level of detail is incredible and the fun you will have is unlikely to be forgotten anytime soon. 

HOGWARTS Legacy has been delayed until next year, disappointing wizard-gamers across the world.

Makers of the eagerly anticipated Harry Potter spin-off game say they simply need more time to finish it.

2

The game was first announced in September, with a view to launch in

But Warner Bros. Games has officially delayed the game to give it finishing touches.

"We would like to thank fans from around the world on the tremendous reaction to the announcement of Hogwarts Legacy from our Portkey Games label," the studio said.

"Creating the best possible experience for all of the Wizarding World and gaming fans is paramount to us, so we are giving the game the time it needs.

2

"Hogwarts Legacy will be released in "

The upcoming game is an action RPG set in J.K. Rowling's iconic Potter universe.

Players take control of a wizard-student at Hogwarts, albeit in the late s – rather than the modern day.

You'll get to choose your Hogwarts House, go to classes, and (of course!) cast spells.

What's unique and exciting about Hogwarts Legacy is that it promises an "open world" environment.

That means you'll be able to freely explore famous fictional locations like Hogwarts, the Forbidden Forest and Hogsmeade Village.

Hogwarts Legacy – what is it?

Here's what Warner Bros. has to say

Hogwarts Legacy is an immersive, open-world action RPG set in the world first introduced in the Harry Potter books. Now you can take control of the action and be at the center of your own adventure in the wizarding world.

Embark on a journey through familiar and new locations as you explore and discover fantastic beasts, customize your character and craft potions, master spell casting, upgrade talents, and become the wizard you want to be.

Experience Hogwarts in the s. Your character is a student who holds the key to an ancient secret that threatens to tear the wizarding world apart. You have received a late acceptance to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and soon discover that you are no ordinary student: you possess an unusual ability to perceive and master Ancient Magic.

Only you can decide if you will protect this secret for the good of all, or yield to the temptation of more sinister magic.

Discover the feeling of living at Hogwarts as you make allies, battle Dark wizards, and ultimately decide the fate of the wizarding world. Your legacy is what you make of it.

The game was first announced in September at a PlayStation 5 event.

But it's expected to be multi-platform, currently slated for launch on:

• PlayStation 4
• PlayStation 5
• Xbox One
• Xbox Series S
• Xbox Series X
• Windows PC

The game is being built in the popular Unreal Engine, and looks set to be visually impressive.

There's no firm release date just yet, however.

In other news, The Sun's favourite alternative to a games console is the Oculus Quest 2 VR headset.

Grab a VR headset and you'll be able to play the legendary Beat Saber – like Guitar Hero, but with lightsabers.

And Dell's Alienware R10 Ryzen Edition is a gaming PC powerhouse that crushes both the new consoles.

We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online Tech & Science team? Email us at [email protected]

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Chase the ever-elusive snitch, cast various spells, and discover magical creatures in this fan-made broomstick flying simulator. Available now on Oculus Quest 2 headsets, Seeker VR is a Harry Potter VR game developed by fans for fans. You can navigate the sprawling grounds of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry, chase the

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About the Job:

Wevr, creator of TheBlu (Sundance), Gnomes & Goblins (Jon Favreau) and the recently released Harry Potter VR experiences is searching for a Technical Director to help lead development of a brand new Oculus Quest sports game, to be developed in Unity.

About The Role:

• Help define technical strategy for the project
• Supervise, review and confirm that game developers’ strategies will achieve the creative game play required, in particular by vetting implementation strategies for water physics, interactive visual effects and stylization
• Maintain regular cadence of observation over development team to ensure developers are meeting project goals
• Review/track/stress test deliverables from an overseas development team, and provide insight and guidance to said overseas team as required
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About You:

• At least 5+ years experience as a Technical Director in game, VR, animation or real-time/interactive entertainment development, or a similar role
• A plus if you have experience with creating water physics
• Experience developing AAA titles on multiple console platforms
• Bachelor&#;s degree in computer science, software engineering or equivalent
• Expert with Unity and full understanding of its architecture
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Our Studio:

• Loves working with a diverse range of people
• Loves to develop its employees personally and professionally and promote from within

More About Wevr:

Wevr is a leading interactive software company producing best-in-class virtual worlds. Wevr&#;s multiple award winning ocean experience TheBlu, remains one of the most popular introductory VR titles to date. Wevr created groundbreaking Harry Potter immersive experiences in partnership with Warner Brothers. A creative collaboration with Jon Favreau (Iron Man, The Jungle Book, Lion King), Gnomes & Goblins is an Emmy finalist for Outstanding Innovation in Interactive Media. Wevr has produced innovative interactive experiences with creatives including Reggie Watts, Run the Jewels, and Deepak Chopra, and has earned partnerships with Samsung, Time, NYT, Vulcan, Google and others. At the forefront of the metaverse ecosystem, Wevr is developing a cloud software platform, Wevr Virtual Studio, enabling 3D artists to easily make and share 3D projects. Wevr’s world class leadership team is comprised of repeat successful software entrepreneurs and Academy Award-winning digital entertainment pioneers who have delivered massively successful products including Avatar, The Lion King, Call of Duty and The Sims. Wevr is a diverse and fully distributed workforce company.

***Applicants for employment in the U.S. must possess work authorization, which does not require sponsorship by the employer for a visa.