Stage 9, Now Messy Desk, Announces ‘The Orville’ VR

In a remarkable development, the same creative team that brought you the 3D virtual reality fan experience of the Enterprise from Star Trek: The Next Generation – only to be sent a cease and desist order by CBS / Paramount just as things were getting really good – has announced a brand new project. It’s the Planetary Union ship called the Orville, by the Fox television show of the same name.

Orville VR Genesis

The UK based group was previously called Stage 9, after the name of the stage at Paramount where the standing sets for Star Trek: The Next Generation were housed. Now calling themselves Messy Desk Interactive. Having proven themselves on the original Star Trek fan project, they’re taking everything they learned from that project to apply to the new one. Their five minute video serves as an introduction to what’s coming.

The intrepid band of Orville fans are recreating the Orville in exquisite detail. Using the Unreal Engine to do the heavy lifting, they plan on releasing the software to the world on as many platforms as possible, including for the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.

When will it be ready? The exciting answer is, “really really soon!” A great deal of work has already been done. They’re busy adding all sorts of interactivity to the simulation. You’ll be able to fly the Orville (in the original Stage 9 release of the Star Trek simulation, you could pilot a shuttle, but not the main ship itself), visit every location aboard ship you’ve seen on the show and a few you haven’t, and generally get into trouble and more than occasionally blow things up.

The Orville Fan Experience will be multi-player.

One of the huge drawbacks of VR is that it’s very difficult to share that immersive experience with others, but Messy Desk is addressing this by making The Orville Fan Experience multiplayer, so you can share the excitement of exploring the Orville with your friends. This is groundbreaking stuff.

The new virtual reality experience based on The Orville already has fans fizzing with excitement, and unlike the legal team at Paramount about the ill-fated Star Trek project, The Orville Fan Experience has the endorsement of the creators of the show. Seth Macfarlane himself tweeted appreciatively about it.

Release information will probably come first through Messy Desk Interactive’s Facebook and their Twitter feed, so watch both of those for announcements. You could also subscribe to their Discord server – or just stay tuned right here. The minute it becomes available for download, we’ll let you know.

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