Abstract

The development of the metaverse and its immersive technologies has had an impact on contemporary filmmaking. Associated with the concept of metaverse are the terms “VR film”, “VR cinema”, “cinematic virtual reality”, and “metaverse film”. As new expressions of digital media, virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) have become hotbeds of groundbreaking experiments with immersive audiovisual languages that have led to the production of numerous narrative works experiences that combine the real and the virtual using immersive devices.
The term ‘metaverse film” could encompass all cinematic practices related to the metaverse, including videos shot in virtual worlds such as VRChat. In a sense, machinima, or films made in the last 15 years using game engines, could therefore be said to be the origin of metaverse films. Similarly, immersive VR audiovisual storytelling is part of the cinematic practices in this emerging metamedium that immerses the viewer in parallel virtual universes and makes them part of the story.
Metaverse has a disrupting potential that may add new insights to the way we think of film and storytelling. Following these ideas, we consider relevant not only for the academic field, but also for the industry to frame the “metaverse film”. Using a bibliographic and different catalogs and databases review as well as major XR sections of major film festivals as main methodology, we conducted a research that goes through the immersive audiovisual fiction produced during the last decade, with the aim to set its current state of the art that might help conceptualize the term and all that surrounds fiction and non-fiction experiences of the metamedium.