On its surface, Marvelâs new âimmersive storyâ What Ifâ¦?, available to Apple Vision Pro users starting Thursday, seems like a win-win. Marvel gets to mess around with how to combine storytelling and spatial computing, and Apple gets a big-name experience to appease everyone who ponied up $3,500 for their new piece of tech.
But having recently spent an hour or so in Vision Proâs What Ifâ¦? universe, Iâm not actually sure if itâs a win for anyone outside of the big companies backing it. While itâs initially intriguing and visually complex, the more time you spend within it, the flimsier the experience becomes.
There are great things about the Apple Vision Proâthe see-through display, for instance, or the way it seems to seamlessly track your eye movements. Marvel clearly makes the most of those pluses in What Ifâ¦?, which pivots off Disney+âs popular animated series about the multiverse to ask what would happen if you, the awkward person in the big headset, were ill-advisedly chosen to harness the power of all six infinity stones. The story finds you hurtling through different dimensions, fighting alongside Marvel heroes and against Marvel villains, all while youâre comfortably seated on your couch.
Make no mistake, What Ifâ¦? is a story. All parties involved are taking care to call it that. This seems significant given that it certainly isnât a gameâor if it is, itâs one with a hell of a lot of exposition and not much playability.
The vast majority of what youâre tasked with as a user involves hand motions: Make a fist with your fingers facing you and youâve got a Doctor Strange-like shield. Turn your hand and extend it outward, and youâre suddenly able to control objectsâliterally just infinity stones, for what itâs worthâwith telekinesis. You can open portals, alter the fabric of reality, seal âdangerous beingsâ away, and send energy blasts from your fists. These tricks, though, are all just based on a series of similar, not very engaging movements, all of which I forgot numerous times over the course of my time in the story. (Luckily, I had Apple publicists there to mind and remind me, though even then it was sometimes hard to know what I was supposed to be doing.)
This lackluster immersion could prove to be a problem. Developed with ILM Immersive, the Lucasfilm interactive studio formerly known as ILMxLab, the What Ifâ¦? experience is intended to expand Marvel Studiosâ work beyond cinemas and Disney+ shows. To, as Walt Disney Studios chief technology officer Jamie Voris puts it, âunderstand how to tell bigger stories in these new mediums.â
Itâs hard to fathom, though, considering the Vision Proâs somewhat anemic reception, how big of a deal What Ifâ¦? could be. The headset needs more experiences, and Marvelâs been looking to move beyond its live-action offerings, but the Vision Proâs hefty price tag puts the experience out of reach for a lot of fans. Even if itâs free, which it is, What Ifâ¦? may lack the pizazz necessary to draw people in.
