What Disney’s Disastrous Galactic Starcruiser Can Teach VR Creators

From theme parks to VR games, consumer experiences often tout “immersion” as a major, if not the major selling point. These experiences promise intricate fantasy worlds that make visitors feel like they’re “really there.” But immersion can be hard to achieve and easy to break. 

The slipperiness of immersion is chronicled meticulously in Jenny Nicholson’s recent video essay about the failure of Disney’s Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser hotel. VR creators should take note! After all, with the Galactic Starcruiser, Disney expended enormous resources to create its own "virtual reality": a fantastical setting for role play (albeit physically rather than digitally, and enclosed in a building rather than a headset).

So what can the shortcomings of Disney’s effort teach us, and how can we apply those lessons to VR?

What is Immersion?

Generally speaking, immersion is a quality of an experience that allows you to become fully absorbed, making it richer and more emotionally resonant. It can also be put in terms of escapism: the real world fades away, and you feel like you’re transported somewhere extraordinary.

It's worth underlining that immersion is a characteristic of an experience, and not the experience itself. An immersive theme-hotel still needs comfy rooms. An immersive video game still needs tight mechanics.

What Creates Immersion?

Here’s a hint: it’s not the visuals.

Notably, Nicholson’s critique of Disney’s Galactic Starcruiser found little fault with the hotel’s design elements. In fact, these seemed to be its strongest feature! However, while great aesthetics can set the stage for an immersive experience (and sloppy or discordant ones can harm it), visuals alone cannot create immersion. That is primarily accomplished by the player’s engagement with the space.

To be immersed, we have to act. 

Here, the Galactic Starcruiser fell short in many ways. According to Nicholson, the activities offered on the ship/hotel were only nominally interactive. In theory, players/guests could choose their story paths, but

1) choices were extremely constrained (to keep lockstep with the narrative);

2) activities were limited (often requiring little more than a button press, likely to account for an all-ages skill level); and

3) stakes were non-existent (again, in service of one narrative, but also perhaps to ensure a unified experience for all guests).

Which is all to say, when a “mission” entails finding and scanning a QR code for a "good job" notification on your phone, that is not immersive.

Agency and Interaction

We find this in the context of VR as well. No matter how appealing the concept of a VR world, its games and activities still have to be fun in and of themselves. “Find and touch” experiences tend not to be immersive. Nor do mechanics that involve taking a specific object and putting it in a specific place for a small effect that resets instantly. Again, this is irrespective of the quality of the visual design. Doing something boring in a cool setting is still boring. Suspension of disbelief is real. Suspension of the need for fun is not.

Interactions help achieve immersion in the reality of a created space when they offer the player genuine agency. Choices must be real and consequential. That is, there should be different ways of acting that have different tangible effects on the player (progression) and/or the world (narrative impact). Such effects let players feel a sense of accomplishment, and that their immersion in the fantasy was worthwhile.

This can be challenging in social or multiplayer experiences, as they have to maintain immersion for different playstyles simultaneously. Some people might be deeply invested in playing along, while others might want to forge their own paths, while yet others might just want to observe. Ultimately, accounting for different audiences proved too great a challenge for the all-ages Starcruiser. It’s hard to imagine a narrative role-play that appeases both a lifelong Star Wars fan dreaming of fighting alongside the rebels, and a 4-year old who really only wants to hug Chewbacca. Rarely can an experience please everyone, but creators need to consider the different ways people play and make sure the space is immersive even if they don’t stick to the script.

This suggests one reason that, in social VR especially, sandbox environments can be more immersive than rigid narrative-based experiences. In sandboxes, players are allowed to discover a variety of interactions and to make their own stories. This sense of freedom reinforces the immersion, rather than challenging it.

Immersion and Failure

In her video essay, Nicholson laments how the many glitches in the Galactic Starcruiser’s role-based missions ruined her experience. Indeed, when the smuggler character doesn’t text you the code to unlock the cargo hold, and you can’t progress in the story, the whole thing falls apart. Yet, it would be wrong to think these were just bugs that could be ironed out. They were a product of the game design. 

So many of the Starcruiser’s interactions boiled down to “put the specific thing in the other specific thing.” When that broke, or when a player couldn’t find the specific thing, the experience came to a grinding halt. Needless to say, friction and clunkiness break immersion because your brain is busier being frustrated than indulging in the fantasy. 

But there’s more.

I was especially struck by how emotional Nicholson became recounting this experience. It wasn’t merely frustration she felt, but shame. Does this not work because it's broken? Or am I doing it wrong? Am I dumb? Oh no, everyone is having fun except me!

This is a person who was more motivated than most to play along and to stay immersed. And the Galactic Starcruiser foiled her at every turn. Why? Because despite the window dressing of multiple story options, there was actually only one way to play.

To be clear, this isn’t about skill. Skill-based player failure can absolutely maintain immersion! But it must be apparent to the player that 1) failure was a reasonable outcome within the reality of the world, 2) the world is worse off because of the failure (stakes!), and 3) the failure is their fault, but they can get a better result if they try again (e.g. you fell in the lava because you mistimed the jump).

Creators of immersive spaces shouldn’t blame players for not playing along in the one exact correct way to maintain immersion. A truly immersive space can handle failure (just like, as noted above, it can handle different playstyles). It should recognize that failure is inevitable, and incorporate it into the experience.

Conclusion

The Galactic Starcruiser example demonstrates that, in an immersive experience, what you do matters more than what you see. A concept may get a person through the door, but it’s the actions they take that become the experience they remember. 

VR creators should consider how gameplay reinforces the immersiveness of the spaces they create, and whether it affords different types of players the level of agency and variety they expect from a rich, emotional experience. This means going beyond visual spectacle and offering meaningful interactions, genuine choices, and the flexibility to accommodate different playstyles.