Daisy Ridley Previews Her Trailblazing New VR Game Arriving Next Month [Exclusive]
Star Wars star Daisy Ridley has a new project in the works that will shine a light on an under-appreciated part of automotive history. She'll voice the first woman ever to take a road trip in a car in the new virtual reality game Trailblazer.
She spoke about it with Collider's Steve Weintraub at a Q&A following our early screening of Cleaner, at which Leah Marilla Thomas was in attendance. Ridley outlined the story of the game, and its depiction of a historically significant event:
"It's the story of Bertha Benz, who was the first woman ever to do a road trip, basically. Her husband had invented an automobile, but he had crashed it. It had all gone wrong. And it was illegal for women to be out doing anything like that in those times. So she snuck off in the car and did this sixty-mile journey. In the process, she had to figure out gearing, she had to figure out the water system; there were various things she did along the way. In the age of innovation, she was really a real, proper trailblazer."
She hasn't played the game yet, but "it looked beautiful, the images that I've seen." The game was directed by Emmy-nominated filmmaker Eloise Singer, and developed by Singer Studios. The twenty-minute-long game will be released on March 7, 2025.
The early history of automobile road trips was fraught with peril, as the new machines tried to navigate dirt roads that were intended for horses and carriages without the benefit of modern infrastructure designed to keep them fueled and functional. In 1903, Horatio Nelson Jackson and Sewall K. Crocker completed the first American cross-country road trip; it took them 63 days to get from San Francisco to New York City, and almost every part of the car had to be replaced during the trip. Their journey would be the subject of a 2003 Ken Burns documentary. A military convoy similarly took over 60 days to cross the country in 1919; one of its participants, a young Dwight D. Eisenhower, would later be instrumental in building America's highway system as President.
What Other Projects Is Daisy Ridley Working On?
Later this month, Ridley's next film, the British actioner Cleaner, is set to hit theaters; she plays a window cleaner who takes on a tower full of ecoterrorists led by Clive Owen. This year will also see the release of We Bury the Dead, a zombie thriller directed by Zak Hilditch. Next, she will reunite with Cleaner director and veteran action maven Martin Campbell for Dedication; she'll play a disgraced Marine who has to deal with the vengeful son of a past foe. She is also set to reprise her role as Rey Skywalker in a new Star Wars film that will see her rebuild the Jedi Order following the events of The Rise of Skywalker; it will be directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy.
Trailblazer will be available for download on Meta Quest 2 and Meta Quest 3 on March 7, 2025. You can watch Cleaner in theaters on February 21. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.
Cleaner
Release Date February 21, 2025
Rating R
Genres Drama, Thriller, Action
Cast Simon Strutt, Robert James Smith, Rafael Piamolini, Rachel Kwok, Taylor Coombes, Colm Titus Day, Richa Prakash, Kalyn Harper, Ben Essex, Matthew Tuck, Karin Carlson, Frances Katz, Lorna Lowe, Rebecca Bellavia, Poppy Townsend White, Melissa Humler, Cassandra Spiteri, Regina Seifert, Daniel Joseph Woolf, Jorge Léon, Celine Arden, Taz Skylar, Richard Hope, David Cheung, Roy Hill, Lee Boardman, Akie Kotabe, Flavia Watson, Atanas Srebrev, Andreea Diac, Stella Stocker, Ray Fearon, Clive Owen, Rufus Jones, Daisy Ridley
Director Martin Campbell
Writers Simon Uttley, Paul Andrew Williams, Matthew Orton
