Explore Game of Thrones’ Castle Black in a New Fan-Made VR Experience

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The Night’s Watch has a sacred duty: to protect Westeros from whatever it is that lives beyond the Wall. But you don’t need to take the sacred oath (or swear to celibacy) to traipse around Castle Black or experience the hair-raising heights of the Wall in a newly released fan-made VR recreation—just a VR headset and a rock solid penchant for high places.

The HBO Game of Thrones-inspired Castle Black: An Oculus Rift VR Experience takes you to the series’ famous headquarters at the foot of the Wall, where you can explore the castle’s courtyard and push through the Gates to see what lies beyond the Wall.

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Making for a brilliant way to relive some of the desolate atmosphere of the Game of Thrones outpost as depicted in the TV series, you can even ascend the Wall in the creaky winch elevator and scale all the way to the top. Just don’t look down.

Download ‘Castle Black’ for Oculus Rift

Created by indie dev Ryan Cassidy as a passion project, the fan-made experience also features a few Easter eggs you’ll have to poke around to find and some unfriendly characters on the other side. The finer details (possible spoiler alert ahead) like the ‘TRAITOR’ sign and the ringing bell that signals the gruesome end of a member of the Night’s Watch are the sorts of small touches that make the experience worth hanging around long past the initial wow moment.

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Well-textured scenery, excellent sound effects, the deliberate pace of things like the slow raising Gate—all the hallmarks of serious dedication to the VR medium and fandom of the series. And we can’t wait to see what’s next from Cassidy.

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Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 3,500 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • Ryan Cassidy

    Thank you for the review guys, I hope to improve with everything I learned while using Unity and building this!

    • John Mansky

      Available on GearVR?

      • Ryan Cassidy

        I’m looking into porting it to GearVR. :)

        • John Mansky

          Awesome! How long did it take you to learn Unity? Any previous 3D or programming experience before diving in?

          • Ryan Cassidy

            I’m still learning but fairly confident in what I can do. Just a little bit of learning 3D and some Unreal Engine, but nothing substantial. This is my first project completed in any way, VR gave some great inspiration to give it a shot!

    • Fred Van West

      When I launch the program on my PC, it won’t show up in my Oculus Rift CV1 and only displays on the computer monitor. I clicked on the settings and there was a drop down for display 1 which looks like it’s the monitor but there seems to be no way to switch the display to the Oculus? What am I missing?

  • Nelson Tutorials

    Nice work! Keep going. :)