Virtual Reality Amusement Parks are Coming, and They Look Incredible

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Forget waiting in line for 45 minutes to ride a roller coaster that lasts less than a minute. A new type of theme park is coming that will let you strap on a virtual reality helmet and charge headlong into a horde of monsters with a massive broadsword in tow.

That’s the promise of The Void, a new virtual reality entertainment center setting up shop in Salt Lake City, UT, The Salt Lake Tribune reports.

Inside The Void center, players will be able to choose their preferred adventure type, be handed a virtual reality helmet and vest and then enter a kind of arena designed around the adventure.

According to a preview video posted to The Void’s website, each arena will be designed for a specific type of adventure and feature “4D” environmental elements.

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For example, if you are walking through a cave filled with spider webs, the arena will feature small strings that dangle from the ceiling and feel like spider webs when you brush up against them.

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Similarly, you’ll be able to carry a large plastic staff, which in the game will represent a sword, wizard staff, or bow. The environment itself also shifts depending on the experience you’re playing. So if you’re in a space ship and you open a pod containing an alien life form a jet of compressed air will spray out at you when you pull open the pod.

If it’s raining in your particular game, mist will fall from the ceiling.

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According to The Tribune, The Void will feature its own proprietary virtual reality hardware that will be let you walk around the arenas, and let you interact with things like blank wall panels that, in the game, look like large computer terminals that you then have to use.

The Void’s Rapture helmet and vest both provide similarly realistic sensations, as the vest offers haptic feedback that shakes when you fire a gun or take a hit.

The idea for The Void is certainly an ambitious one, and the video the company advertises its technology with looks incredibly promising, but it would be remiss if we didn’t point out that what The Void is trying to accomplish looks incredibly difficult.

If the company can actually deliver on its promise of a fully immersive simulator like the ones shown in its preview video, it would instantly become the ultimate gaming experience. But let’s just say we’re not holding our breath.

The Void says it will eventually open facilities around the world. Here’s hoping everything the preview video shows is more fact than fiction.

via: The Salt Lake Tribune

Email Daniel at dhowley@yahoo-inc.com; follow him on Twitter at @DanielHowley or on Google+.