![]() ![]() It provides a grounding point for the player, and while it may not be entirely convincing as a stand-in for real life, the reveal that so far the player has been playing in a headset in-universe does wonders in establishing a link between the body of the person and that of the actual player, using the headset as a bridging point between both forms. From an immersive point of view, however, it is a great help in that it presents a sort of “reality” to contrast with the surreal nature of the game up to this point. From a gameplay point of view, there is no point to this room, and nothing to interact with save for a floppy disk that loads up more of the game. This is the first time that the player is shown a perspective outside of the core gameplay. ![]() As the player shoots themselves in the head, the headset flies off of the person, showing a previously-unseen office space, where four computer monitors are displaying the words “SUPER” and “ HOT” on a loop. Scene 1: DEDICATIONĪfter a few levels, the player is placed in a white void, with the words “ARE YOU READY TO PLAY?” and “SHOW YOUR DEDICATION” respectively appearing in front of the player as the player is presented and picks up a gun. *This is dependent on whether the person looking into the real-life headset is counted as a layer of immersion. With this in mind, the OS’s tagline serves not only as a subtle reminder that this is, indeed, a piece of science-fiction, but also as a prediction of what future technology could hold in terms of storytelling immersion. There are no inputs required or available save for the motion of looking at the screens, with the implication that this is the player. This is the first of three (possibly four*) layers of immersion, notable for being the one with zero player agency. This is not so much a scene as much as it is a brief glimpse into the game’s meta-narrative. This is followed by several screens in a grid being filled with static, prior to the player’s perspective being forced through the center screen and transitioning into the tutorial. The first “scene” shown in the game is that of an operating system booting up in order to play SUPERHOT: specifically piOS, with the tagline of “operating system of the future (TM)“. As such, each story scene will be dissected herein in order to define and understand SUPERHOT’s interpretation of the future of immersion. The story itself proved to be as in-depth as, if not more than, the original SUPERHOT, largely due to the immersive qualities to be had in a VR environment. To my surprise, after watching a few playthroughs of SUPERHOT VR to see what I missed in the story, I discovered that what I played through myself was New Game Plus, and the story itself had already been told. It represented the next leap forward in storytelling immersion – and SUPERHOT was keen to import its story into this format, with SUPERHOT VR being released later in 2016. Virtual reality technology was essentially designed with the pursuit of immersion in mind, advancing immersion beyond simply sight and audio – allowing for a literal hands-on experience, with the motion of the body being the form of input into the simulated world. SUPERHOT, released in early 2016, was a further extension of this – the story revolved around the player becoming more and more immersed into this world, ending with the player shooting their character in order to become part of SUPERHOT itself. While it was used for ulterior motives within the film, the concept of a world that realistic bred, and still breeds even today, a fascination within the mind – the intriguing concept of being fully part of a world besides reality. The pursuit of immersion in a story was most notably expressed in The Matrix (1999), where humans are placed into a story that seemed real enough to the point of believing that it was reality. Immersion into other worlds has been a longstanding tenet of storytelling: in order for a story to be palatable to others, the creator must immerse the audience to some degree in the world that they are presenting. By Ivan Messias Immersion in Storytelling
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