

“Not gonna lie, I thought it was awesome being able to look around his apartment while he sat there dialoguing. I’ve seen enough of the 360 VR experience to not be automatically wowed by it, but having it tied in with a show I knew and loved was pretty cool.”
The above comment was taken from a Reddit thread summarizing a scene after USA Network’s hacker series Mr. Robot took emotional storytelling to the next level last week with a 12 minute virtual reality simulcast episode launched on the Within VR app. The scene was available for a day, and then it was gone.
This week (today, according to The Verge), fans that missed the VR episode will have the chance to see it using the same app on iOS, Android, Gear VR, HTC Vive, or Oculus Rift.
The segment is a collaboration with series creator Sam Esmail and the Within app’s production company Here Be Dragons (HBD). The scene itself was more of a flashback into protagonist Elliot Alderson’s (Rami Malek) past, a foray into happier days prior to the monotone hacker becoming embroiled in changing the world.
Not everyone has a VR rig, but don’t worry about missing any incredibly important information. According to HBD, the scene only served to show us a more emotional side of Elliot and was of no consequence to the intricacies of the pot-boiling plot. It does, however, offer insights into Elliot’s less encumbered past.
HBD has also said how Esmail is very much “enamored” with the medium of VR. Within CEO Chris Milk, formerly a music video director and now one of VR’s biggest names has said that, “VR is going to play an incredibly important role in the history of mediums. In fact, it’s going to be the last one.”
His appreciation of VR was matched by Esmail, who according to Milk is an old friend of his. Having known each other before their present successes Milk said in an interview with The Verge that it only made sense to collaborate. “It was an amazing experience, because I love trying to share things I’ve learned in this medium thus far with really inventive and innovative filmmakers in their own right,” said Milk.
Don’t be surprised if much more of Mr. Robot will become available as a virtual reality experience.
THANK YOU