Monday 7 September 2015

Is this the future of video games? New virtual reality system called The Void puts player INSIDE the action and could launch as soon as next summer

  • Virtual reality company based in Pleasant Grove, Utah, has constructed multiple levels that transport players to distant worlds 
  • Users wear headsets and vests as they walk around warehouse facility where each room is used multiple times to create environments 
  • Company has allowed journalist to test two levels as it prepares to open to the public next summer for what will be thirty-minute, $30 sessions
  • The Void has plans to open 250 centers around the world within five years


    A virtual reality theme park has begun testing an attraction that fully immerses users into Aztec temples and faraway alien laboratories from the comfort of suburban Utah.
    The Void, a company working to create the experience at their facility in Pleasant Grove, recently allowed a journalist from Tech Insider to go through two levels of what it calls 'the future of entertainment'.
    In the game, players don a headset and suit and are armed with a virtual gun as they adventure around complex imaginary worlds while walking around a 'real world' warehouse with a setup of walls and sensors. 
    A virtual reality system called The Void plans to open next summer and is allowed players to test out levels of its immersive video game. Above, two gamers with the headsets and virtual guns used
    A virtual reality system called The Void plans to open next summer and is allowed players to test out levels of its immersive video game. Above, two gamers with the headsets and virtual guns used
    Players walk around the company's warehouse facility in Utah, but in the game (pictured) they appear wearing futuristic battle suits
    Players walk around the company's warehouse facility in Utah, but in the game (pictured) they appear wearing futuristic battle suits
    The company says that the levels tried out by Tech Insider's Dave Smith are still at 'alpha' and 'pre-alpha' stages.
    He walked around both a Aztec temple and a 'research facility' that includes an alien being jumping out of glass container. 
    At the same time as the headset is taking players through a video game, sensors in the 'game pod' are tracking the exact location of their heads and hands to replicate them in the virtual world. 
    Smith said that the key to The Void is that players 'utilize several rooms physical again and again, guiding you through them in a different order, and laying different virtual elements on top so you'd never know it unless you removed your headset.'
    James Jensen, the CTO of The Void, told KPFK that the levels, some of which are multiplayer, will take about 30 minutes for each player. 

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