During the Sundance Film Festival this week in Utah it was announced that Ubisoft has struck a deal with horror film production company SpectreVision to develop "original and interactive" VR experiences.
Ubisoft Montreal's FunHouse division (which is already experimenting with VR) will take point for the French multinational game company in its collaboration with SpecreVision, and it's interesting to see Ubisoft reaching across the aisle to a film production company in light of its public aims to push its brands into the VR market.
Ubisoft chief Yves Guillemot has previously expressed ambitions to bring Ubisoft properties like Assassin's Creed to VR headsets, describing VR as a platform that's potentially as broadly appealing (and broadly successful) as the Nintendo Wii.
“We’re thrilled to be working with the team at SpectreVision on an interactive VR experience,” Ubisoft Montreal exec Patrick Plourde stated in a press release announcing the partnership. “Their expertise in the horror film genre is exciting for us as a developer of interactive entertainment and we’re looking forward to a collaboration that will ultimately offer fans an unforgettable virtual reality experience.”
Founded in 2010 by actor Elijah Wood with directors Josh C. Waller and Daniel Noah, SpectreVision specializes in horror films and last year helped produce Cooties and The Boy. Though Ubisoft maintains a broad catalog of game properties, its 2012 WiiU horror game ZombiU (released on other platforms last year as Zombi) would seem to be most in line with the sort of projects SpectreVision is known for.