VR rollercoasters are nothing new, but an upcoming attraction for Germany’s Europa-Park is taking a unique approach to them.
The park teamed up with VR Coaster, Holodeck VR and MackMedia for a new attraction based off of Luc Besson’s sci-fi blockbuster, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, which is based on the pre-existing Eurosat rollercoaster. Rather than just fitting you with a VR headset once you sit down inside a cart, though, visitors are treated to a pre-ride VR experience using Holodeck VR’s tech. Its creators call this system ‘Roam & Ride’.
The pre-ride experience is a multi-user piece that gives every visitor their own avatar. Holodeck uses untethered headsets, allowing people to roam around in an experience that mixes pre-rendered and real-time 3D assets. Once that’s done, visitors jump inside a cart and head out on the rollercoaster in VR. Anyone that doesn’t want to wear the headset can do that also.
Europa-Park was one of the first to implement a VR rollercoaster back in 2015 with the Alpenexpress ride. Since then we’ve seen countless theme parks across the globe adopt the tech, including well-known names like Six Flags and Legoland.
The ride is set to open next month.
