Hands-on reviews of the new Vision Pro Marvel app What if…? are in, and are best described as mixed.
One reviewer said that it was “maybe the best hour I’ve spent on the device since I got it,” while another described it as a “flimsy” and “meh” experience. Both, however, were upbeat about the future potential …
Vision Pro Marvel ‘What if …?’ app
The Marvel What if…? app was first announced earlier this month, as a Vision Pro exclusive.
Fans will be invited to step inside the Multiverse like never before and have the chance to dive into an immersive, narrative-driven and innovative story in mixed reality [that] will deliver a technologically advanced and engaging experience to fans.
We subsequently learned that the app would be free for a limited time, and got the chance to view a trailer for the experience.
One thing that wasn’t clear was whether the app was more like a film or a game, and that much has now been cleared up: It is interactive in the sense that you can look around, and it will wait for you to initiate the next chapter, but only one thing you can do actually changes the outcome.
‘Maybe the best hour I’ve spent on the device’
Jason Snell, writing at Six Colors, was thoroughly impressed.
I really enjoyed the environments, which are cleverly designed to resemble the style of the animated “What If?” TV series, but upgraded a bit so that they make sense in a 3-D, 360-degree context. I was especially impressed by a few surprising easter eggs littered around, and the design of a see-through pod containing something very interesting […]
The hour I spent with “What If?” was maybe the best hour I’ve spent on the device since I got it. If Apple is looking for a single app that demonstrates all the features of the Vision Pro at its best, “What If?” may be the answer.
‘I spent an hour in it and am still not sure why’
Wired’s Marah Eakin disagreed.
Having recently spent an hour or so in Vision Pro’s What If…? universe, I’m not actually sure if it’s a win for anyone outside of the big companies backing it. While it’s initially intriguing and visually complex, the more time you spend within it, the flimsier the experience becomes […]
My hour in What If…? left me kind of meh on the actual technology and gameplay, for lack of a better word […] Just sitting on a couch flopping my hand around like a fish felt anti-climactic, considering I was supposedly tasked with saving all of humanity.
But shows future potential
Both agreed that, whatever we may think of the experience today, the real take-out is the potential for immersive gaming in the future.
Snell described it as “a sampler platter of ways this sort of entertainment could evolve in the future.”
Eakin said that even if this app felt like “a cruel tease of what could’ve been,” it did leave her “intrigued by the possibilities.”
Image: Marvel
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