VR arcade specialist Zero Latency is opening and operating a nearly 400 square metre (4,300 square foot) VR gaming arena in Brisbane, Australia capable of running two 8-player VR games simultaneously side by side.
Opening in October 2017, the venue will be the second VR game arena owned and operated by Zero Latency, and will join 11 other Zero Latency-powered arenas in operation through partnerships with licensees across four continents.
“Zero Latency experienced unprecedented success with the world’s first ever epic-scale, multi-player, free-roam VR game arena, which we opened in Melbourne back in 2015 to 6-week long waiting lists,” said Zero Latency CEO, Tim Ruse. “Since then we have partnered up with venue operators and delivered our patent-pending technology to power successful VR arenas across the globe. Brisbane stood out high and clear as a great city for the next Zero Latency arena with its young and tech-minded population.”
The Brisbane arena will not only be the second one owned and operated by Zero Latency, it will also be only the second one in the world with a “dual arena” configuration, similar to one that will open in Boston in America in early August 2017. This will allow two multi-player games to be played side-by-side simultaneously, each with nearly 200 square meters (2,150 square feet) of floor space, or can stretch a single game over the entire cavernous play zone of nearly 400 square meters (4,300 square feet).
“When two 8-player games are underway at the same time, Zero Latency’s proprietary technology will be simultaneously tracking 16 players in real time,” added Zero Latency chief technology officer, Scott Vandonkelaar. “Nobody has the technology to provide intense, engaging, and thoroughly entertaining free roam VR gaming to 16 players in the same space at once. This massive technological feat creates high throughput so operators can keep waiting lists at a minimum and maximise their ROI by accommodating more players every day.”
The arenas have no internal physical walls or obstacles, which allow teams to freely roam, walk, explore, and fight together through different virtual terrains. Players see each other as full-motion avatars and stay in constant communication to strategise, call for help, warn their teammates, or chat together.
Players work together to battle the undead in Zombie Survival, on another world in Engineerium, or solve a deep space mystery in Singularity.
“Australia has been on the forefront of free roam VR gaming since we opened the world’s first such arena to the public in 2015 and has continued through our recent record-setting achievement of deploying 8-player capabilities,” commented Ruse. “After helping other operators leap into out-of-home virtual-reality gaming across the globe, it feels good to put our money where our mouths are and open another ground-breaking arena right here at home.”
Every playthrough is a unique experience with success measured by both a personal score and a team score. Players stay in contact with each other through R
azer integrated headphone / microphone units and are outfitted with OSVR HDK2 virtual reality headsets while wearing a military-grade backpack containing a high-performance Alienware PC gaming computer. They carry a perfectly-weighted, custom-made simulated weapon for game sessions that require firepower.