Philip K. Dick’s ‘The Great C’ is coming to VR

A VR adaptation of the story will premiere at the Venice Film Festival.

Mallory Locklear, @mallorylocklear for https://www.engadget.com/

A VR adaptation of Philip K. Dick's short story "The Great C" is headed to the Venice Film Festival, Variety reports. First published in 1953, the story centers on a human tribe living in a post-apocalyptic world set in the future. Each year, the tribe must send a human sacrifice to a computer called the Great C that rules the world. In the VR adaptation, created by Secret Location, a woman named Clare grapples with whether to accept the tradition and let her fiancé be sacrificed or take a stand against the cruelty.

"Philip K. Dick's wonderfully forward-thinking stories have always felt primed for telling in equally forward-thinking mediums," Secret Location co-founder Ryan Andal said in a statement. "Pairing 'The Great C's' provocative themes with our VR development prowess is helping us redefine how we consume sci-fi stories."

While this may be the first VR adaptation of one of Philip K. Dick's stories, the author himself was the subject of a VR film called I, Philip. In the short, viewers are put inside the mind of Phil, an android recreation of the author.

After its Venice Film Festival premiere, The Great C will be released at select location-based VR venues in September. The film will then be available on Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Playstation VR.