Virtual Reality Narratives Live Online: Immersive Theatre in VRChat Worlds

This chapter explores recent developments in immersive VR theatre, posing questions about narrative experiences that involve real-time interaction with virtual actors in a VR environment. It discusses several recent performances staged in the social platform VRChat, taking The Severance Theory: Welcome to Respite produced by the US-based Ferryman Collective and CoAct Productions (2021) as its central case study. This project features complex game mechanics and visual effects to encourage user interaction with live actors and other story agents. The chapter examines the way that Welcome to Respite’s narrative is constructed, considering onboarding and offboarding sequences (the methods by which performers prepare participants to enter and exit the virtual VR world) as well as the story itself. It argues that the VR immersive theatre work offers the user a ‘personal’ experience of a pre-authored narrative delivered through live performance, where one-on-one engagement with actors fosters high levels of engagement and feelings of immersion. Key to this experience is the interplay between participants and live actors’ virtual bodies.