''We Met in Virtual Reality'' is a 2022

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...

that takes place entirely within the

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device to gener ...

VRChat ''VRChat'' is an online virtual world platform created by Graham Gaylor and Jesse Joudrey and operated by VRChat, Inc. The platform allows users to interact with others with user-created 3D avatars and worlds. ''VRChat'' is designed primarily ...

''. It explores the social relations developed by the users of ''VRChat'' during the pandemic, and how their lives were changed by their time on the platform. It was created by Joe Hunting, who was the director and writer of the script.

Plot

The film follows multiple figures throughout the runtime of the movie, in chronological order for over a year, often switching back and forth to explore their lives on the platform as their relationships evolve and change. There is a teacher who has an online

sign language Sign languages (also known as signed languages) are languages that use the visual-manual modality to convey meaning, instead of spoken words. Sign languages are expressed through manual articulation in combination with non-manual markers. Sign l ...

school, a couple that met online, as well as one of them running a school for dance classes, another couple who met online and also found love on the platform, as well as other users. The film finds out the reasons they use the platform and how it has helped them during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified ...

Release

It had its world premiere at the

2022 Sundance Film Festival The 2022 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 20 to 30, 2022. Due to COVID-19 pandemic protocol it was to have been a hybrid festival, but on January 5, 2022 it was announced that the in-person components would be scrapped in favor o ...

on January 21, 2022. The film was released for air on

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...

and streaming on its service on July 27, 2022 on

HBO Max HBO Max is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Launched in the United States on May 27, 2020, the service is built around the libraries of HBO, Warner Bros., Cartoon Netwo ...

Reception

''We Met in Virtual Reality'' gained a 94% critic rating from ''

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

'', with a 33 of the 34 reviews being favorable. Consensus reads, "''We Met in Virtual Reality'' takes a visually striking approach to its investigation of human interactions on the VR plane, with surprisingly poignant results." According to ''

The Hollywood Reporter ''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Hollywood film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade paper, and in 2010 switched to a weekly large ...

'', "watching ''We Met in Virtual Reality'', you very quickly notice that the two people cuddling have horns and a tail and that the airplane they seem to be sitting on doesn’t exist. The young woman with pink hair talking about her suicide attempt is laying underneath the stars, but until she laments that the clouds aren’t moving, you could almost forget that they’re virtual as well. And when the deaf ASL instructor talks about losing his brother during COVID and lights a virtual Japanese lantern in his honor, there’s nothing synthetic about the emotions you feel." ''

Engadget ''Engadget'' ( ) is a multilingual technology blog network with daily coverage of gadgets and consumer electronics. ''Engadget'' manages ten blogs four of which are written in English and six have international versions with independent editor ...

'' states, "it’s clear from ''We Met in Virtual Reality'' that he’s not just dropping into the community for a quick story. Instead, he sees the humanity behind the avatars and virtual connections." On the other hand, ''

Wired ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Fran ...

'' gave a more critical review, noting that the documentary leaves out the drastic ways VR is changing in the wake of competitors such as Meta's conception of the

metaverse In science fiction, the "metaverse" is a hypothetical iteration of the Internet as a single, universal, and immersive virtual world that is facilitated by the use of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) headsets. In colloquial usage, ...

, stating, "Hunting spends a lot of time showing there’s a culture worth preserving; if only he’d shown if anyone is trying to do it."

References

External links

* {{IMDb title, 16378482
''We Met in Virtual Reality''
at Field of Vision 2022 documentary films 2022 films Films about virtual reality Documentary films about video games 2020s English-language films 2022 independent films