She may not be real, but Hatsune Miku is a bonafide star. The holographic pop singer started life as a promotional vehicle for Japanese music software, but has since parlayed that into a career that most real musicians would be envious of. She’s appeared on late night talk shows and toured the world, and thanks to a partnership with Sega, she has her own line of rhythm games. With the release of PlayStation VR back in October, she took the next logical step: virtual reality.
Hatsune Miku: VR Future Live lets players attend a virtual Miku concert from the comfort of their living rooms, complete with pumping glow sticks, on-stage theatrics, and intimate encores. It’s a very different experience compared to her previous video game excursions, which are more traditional music games with a focus on keeping in tune with the songs. VR Future Live, on the other hand, is all about re-creating the feeling of being at a concert. And for director Tetsuya Ohtsubo, there was a very specific moment when he realized the concept had powerful potential.
“When Miku walked by me in VR, it felt like I’d touched her twin-tail hair or her hands,” he says. “There was a sense that she was really there in front of me, even though she wasn’t. It was a surprising, almost shocking realization.”
The emotional connection of a concert is an important part of VR Future Live, but the game was actually inspired by a much less exciting event. “This thought first occurred to me while I was attending a PlayStation VR technical lecture,” says producer Seiji Hayashi. “Because these characters don’t have a physical form, I began to think that interacting with them in a virtual realm would make their existence feel more real.”