Emmy Award-Winning VR Short Film ‘Henry’ Released on Oculus Go

By Janko Roettgers

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Facebook just re-released a virtual reality (VR) classic for its new Oculus Go headset: “Henry,” the animated tale of a hedgehog who just wants to be loved, was released for free for the Go Monday.

“Henry,” which is being narrated by Elijah Wood, first premiered in July of 2015. The film became available on the company’s Rift VR headset when it started to ship in early 2016. It was awarded an Emmy for best outstanding original interactive program that same year, becoming the first VR piece to win such an honor.

“Henry” has been produced in Unity, and was originally optimized for PC-based VR playback. For its Oculus Go release, it got remastered to play on lower-powered hardware, thanks to new technology developed by Oculus CTO John Carmack.

“Henry” was the second VR short produced by Oculus Story Studio, an immersive storytelling unit that was ultimately closed as Facebook focused on cooperations with third-party companies instead. Some of the original team members of Story Studio have since moved on to form Fable , an immersive studio that premiered its first project at Sundance earlier this year.