Wilderness Calling

Wilderness Calling is a prototype for a 360-degree VR storytelling experience built in Unity. Set in a remote and atmospheric Canadian forest, it invites players to explore a series of static 360 video environments while uncovering a narrative told entirely through sound. Inspired by games like Firewatch, Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, and What Remains of Edith Finch, this project focuses on environmental storytelling through immersive, interactive audio.

The player begins beside a car on a long, empty road, music playing faintly from the stereo. From here, they can teleport between different locations - a lake, a fire lookout, an abandoned gas station, a forest trail - each captured as a 360-degree video. Navigation is handled using gaze input in VR or mouse clicks on desktop, with a minimal UI to preserve immersion.

Sound is the core of this experience. I used Unity’s Audio Mixer, snapshots, and 3D spatialisation to shape each location’s unique atmosphere. Ambient layers like wind, water, and wildlife are blended with diegetic sounds - distant radios, footsteps, and cars etc - to tell the story non-linearly. As players explore, certain sounds are triggered based on gaze direction, location, or proximity, guiding them deeper into the narrative.

The audio system is fully dynamic: when players move between scenes, Audio Mixer Snapshots transition seamlessly between different soundscapes. Each environment has its own emotional tone, conveyed entirely through how the sound is mixed and positioned. Directional audio encourages players to turn toward specific cues, rewarding slow, thoughtful exploration.

There’s no object interaction or HUD. The experience is designed for users who enjoy mood, atmosphere, and narrative without the complexity of traditional game mechanics. It can be played in VR or on a standard screen, with movement limited to teleportation between points to reduce motion sickness.

Thematically, Wilderness Calling explores nostalgia, memory, and isolation. Inspired by personal experiences in Alberta, Canada, it’s less about reconstructing the past and more about how we remember it - sometimes clearly, sometimes distorted by emotion.

While the project is still a work-in-progress - with some elements left out on purpose, and some left out due to time constraints and my bad planning - it lays a strong technical and creative foundation. The scene structure is in place, the audio system is working, and the tone of the piece is clear. With further development, there’s strong potential for deeper narrative integration, more refined transitions, and additional scenes.

This demo represents my exploration of how audio can drive storytelling in VR - and how sound alone can guide players emotionally and narratively through a world.

Thanks for checking it out.