David Lynch Turns Twin Peaks into a Virtual Reality Game: Watch the Official Trailer

When David Lynch and Mark Frost’s Twin Peaks pre­miered on ABC in 1990, view­ers across Amer­i­ca were treat­ed to a tele­vi­su­al expe­ri­ence like none they’d ever had before. Four years ear­li­er, some­thing sim­i­lar had hap­pened to the unsus­pect­ing movie­go­ers who went to see Lynch’s break­out fea­ture Blue Vel­vet, an expe­ri­ence described as eye-open­ing by even David Fos­ter Wal­lace. A ded­i­cat­ed med­i­ta­tor with an inter­est in plung­ing into unex­plored realms of con­scious­ness, Lynch tends to bring his audi­ence right along with him in his work, whether that work be cin­e­ma, tele­vi­sion, visu­al art, music, or com­ic strips. Only nat­ur­al, then, that Lynch would take an inter­est in the artis­tic and expe­ri­en­tial pos­si­bil­i­ties of vir­tu­al real­i­ty.

Last year we fea­tured the first glimpse of a Twin Peaks vir­tu­al real­i­ty expe­ri­ence in devel­op­ment, revealed at Lynch’s Fes­ti­val of Dis­rup­tion in Los Ange­les. “The best news is that the com­pa­ny devel­op­ing the game, Col­lid­er Games, is giv­ing cre­ative con­trol to Lynch,” wrote Ted Mills, and now, with the release of Twin Peaks VR’s offi­cial trail­er, we can get a clear­er idea of what Lynch has planned for play­ers. As Lau­ra Snoad writes at It’s Nice That, Lynch has used the oppor­tu­ni­ty to revis­it “well-known envi­ron­ments fea­tured in the series, such as the icon­ic Red Room (the stripy-floored, vel­vet cur­tain-clad par­al­lel uni­verse where Agent Coop­er meets mur­dered teen Lau­ra Palmer), the Twin Peaks’ Sheriff’s Depart­ment and the pine-filled for­est around the fic­tion­al Wash­ing­ton town.”

This will come as good news indeed to those of us Twin Peaks enthu­si­asts who’ve made the pil­grim­age to Sno­qualmie, North Bend, and Fall City, the real-life Wash­ing­ton towns where Lynch and his col­lab­o­ra­tors shot the series. But Twin Peak VR will offer a greater vari­ety of chal­lenges than snap­ping pho­tos of the series’ loca­tions and chat­ting with bemused locals: Snoad writes that each envi­ron­ment is con­struct­ed like an escape room. “Solv­ing puz­zles to help Agent Coop­er and Gor­don Cole (the FBI agent played by Lynch him­self), play­ers will also meet some of the show’s weird and ter­ri­fy­ing char­ac­ters, from the back­wards-speak­ing inhab­i­tants of the Black Lodge to the ter­ri­fy­ing Bob him­self.”

Avail­able via Steam on Ocu­lus Rift, Vive, and Valve Index this month, with Ocu­lus Quest and PlaySta­tion VR ver­sions sched­uled, Twin Peaks VR should give a fair few vir­tu­al-real­i­ty hold­outs a com­pelling rea­son to put on the gog­gles — much as Twin Peaks the show caused the cinéastes of the 1990s to break down and watch evening TV. Enjoy­ing Lynch’s work, what­ev­er its medi­um, has always felt like plung­ing into a dream: not like watch­ing his dream, but expe­ri­enc­ing a dream he’s made for us. If vir­tu­al-real­i­ty tech­nol­o­gy has final­ly come any­where close to the vivid­ness of Lynch’s imag­i­na­tion, Twin Peaks VR will mark the next step in his artis­tic evo­lu­tion. But for now, to para­phrase no less a Lynch fan than Wal­lace, the one thing we can say with total con­fi­dence is that it will be… Lynchi­an.

via It’s Nice That

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch an Epic, 4‑Hour Video Essay on the Mak­ing & Mythol­o­gy of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks

Twin Peaks Actu­al­ly Explained: A Four-Hour Video Essay Demys­ti­fies It All

David Lynch Is Cre­at­ing a Vir­tu­al Real­i­ty Expe­ri­ence for Twin Peaks

Twin Peaks Tarot Cards Now Avail­able as 78-Card Deck

Watch the Twin Peaks Visu­al Sound­track Released Only in Japan: A New Way to Expe­ri­ence David Lynch’s Clas­sic Show

David Lynch Directs a Mini-Sea­son of Twin Peaks in the Form of Japan­ese Cof­fee Com­mer­cials

Play the Twin Peaks Video Game: Retro Fun for David Lynch Fans

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.