If you have to boil down E3 to what the most memorable experience was I would personally have to say the Halo 5 HoloLens experience. If you missed our E3 Rewind Podcast check it out here, otherwise here are the fun details.
This Halo 5 HoloLens experience was so good because it’s utilizing the HoloLens technology that quite honestly feels consumer ready, its a real un-tethered holographic computer. Not just a “headset” but a real holographic computer. Let that sink in before you proceed in reading. The whole experience was extremely smooth, clear and made me think of all the practical and fun applications the HoloLens can provide.
Here is how it began. While standing in queue right before the entrance, a staff member places a device up to your eyes to measure your depth perception and to find your eyesight calibration. Once they have that, they wrote that number down on your U.N.S.C. lanyard card.
After you walk inside the chamber, it looks like you’re walking into a true U.N.S.C. locker room. Everything inside is decked out with metal plating, lighting, it feels like you’re in the Halo universe and the guides did not break character. They welcomed you as a marine and said they needed to calibrate your HoloLens for the debriefing.
Once everyone handed them their card and had their HoloLens calibrated one by one they were dismissing us to go to the briefing room. When it came to my turn they asked me to look forward and asked if I could see the four dots floating in front of me which I couldn’t at first once we calibrated the technician said walk forward and down the hall, the headset will show you where to go.
Sure enough, like magic an arrow appeared in front of me and a voice said please walk this way to the briefing room. It guided me down a hall, around a corner and to the right room and even indicated where I should stand for the briefing with a red glowing dot.
Now mind you, I can see all around me. This is happening in the real world, physical space. This isn’t a headset blocking your eyes, it’s an augmented reality headset. The virtual elements were amazing and high-res and were locked in place. I could walk around the arrow and see all the details, it wasn’t in the glasses in was in space locked there. Once I closed my jaw I followed the blinking way points. Pretty much what we see in video games but in real freaking life, it was amazing. I saw a pac-man like blinking dot trail leading me to the briefing room and showing me where to stand by the glowing red dot.
Once the briefing started, hologram of a girl showed up from the center of the table to tell us our mission. She then showed us the level that also showed up from the table like it was being lifted into the air and the level was very detailed. She encouraged us to walk around the level and look closer and with the HoloLens the level stayed in place for us to examine in real 3D space which is freaking awesome.
She then brought up a 3D image of our enemy for us to examine as well as the enemy aircraft we would be fighting against.
Once we had all that info and the briefing was over, the shiny red orb floated down to the USB slot in front of each individual and blinked the bright red text displayed remove USB drive. We were handed our own copy of the HoloLens experience and what an amazing way to end the experience and still yet show the out of the box way it can work. We then handed over our HoloLens glasses and proceeded to the next room, The War room.
Once inside everyone in that meeting was told they were Red Team and would be in a fighting simulation to defeat Blue Team obviously utilizing Halo 5. It was pretty cool staff didn’t break character it added to the whole experience. After a grueling battle and cutting it very close our team the Red Team beat the crap out of the Blue Team and emerged victoriously.
We were awarded and given our Halo 5 pin. Doing a lot of the Microsoft experiences awarded a collectors pin. See below for the pins I received as well as the USB drive from the HoloLens experience I mentioned above.
Overall, it was the best experience I had at E3. I highly recommend checking out or reserving Halo 5: Guardians, it was extremely fun. If you missed Halo 5: Guardians: The Cost Trailer from E3 you can watch it below.
