Sony has announced and released the first trailer for the upcoming video game Groundhog Day: Like Father Like Son. The VR game is a sequel to the 1993 Groundhog Day movie, taking place many years after the events of the film.
According to Sony, you play “as the charming but arrogant Phil Connors Jr., who grew up in the shadow of his father–a man who spent a lifetime repeating a single day until he had made it perfect.” Just like his dad, Phil Jr. finds himself stuck living the same day over and over, one where he’s still trapped in “the small town he thought he’d escaped, where he can’t even get a decent cappuccino–and he’s going to have to repeat the day over and over, until he learns the true value of friends and family.”
Like Father Like Son is a story told entirely in VR, and has you exploring a branching narrative within the same looping period of time. You’ll interact with different characters–some of which you’ll recognize from the 1993 movie, like Ned Ryerson–and have to figure out how to get Phil Jr. his perfect day so that he too can break his vicious cycle.
Groundhog Day: Like Father Like Son is scheduled to release for PSVR, Oculus Rift, and HTC Vive, and is coming sometime in 2019. Seeing a game like this coming out is just what VR needs to become a more worthy investment for people who are on the fence about buying a headset, as 2018 saw the release of some good titles–like Astro Bot: Rescue Mission and Tetris Effect–but not many.
VR had a fairly heavy presence at CES 2019 in January, with HTC announcing two new headsets–the Vive Pro Eye and Vive Cosmos–as well as a new unlimited Viveport subscription model. Oculus unveiled a new VR headset as well, called Quest, and Holoride showed off a brand-new VR simulation you experience from the back of a moving car.
