Hulu's VR app now plays nicely with the Oculus Rift

By Brad Jones Updated June 15, 2016

Oculus Rift — Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

Hulu has announced that its virtual reality app is now compatible with Oculus Rift headsets. When the app launched in March, it only offered support for Gear VR, the smartphone-friendly headset that Samsung has been offering as a pack-in bundle alongside certain models in its Galaxy line.

The experience will apparently be even better on the Rift, thanks to the fact that PC hardware is far more capable than a smartphone when it comes to running VR content. Hulu promises a “polished, sharper and highly responsive viewing experience” in its blog post announcing Rift support.

Now that headsets like the Rift are available to consumers, there’s an increased demand for VR content. This gap can be filled by both brand-new content developed with the technology in mind, and existing content repurposed for the new hardware — and Hulu seems to be experimenting with the latter option.

The Hulu VR app will offer a special environment where users can immerse themselves in the world of 12 Monkeys as they watch the show. The Temporal Facility will be a familiar setting to fans of the series, and now it can stand in for your living room as you catch up on the latest episodes.

Of course, the success of this kind of gimmick hinges entirely on its execution. Hulu called upon the show’s executive producer Terry Matalas and its production designer John Mott to ensure that the environment would be faithfully represented as part of the app.

The Temporal Facility joins a beach and a theater among the virtual viewing environments currently available as part of the Hulu app, with more show-specific locales apparently in the works. The service also offers up more than 30 piece of original VR content to subscribers and non-subscribers alike — perfect for anyone looking to take the app for a test drive with their Oculus Rift.

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Brad is an English-born writer currently splitting his time between Edinburgh and Pennsylvania. You can find him on Twitter…

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