First Look Inside ‘The Void’ Ghostbusters: Dimension, Opens July 1st

By
Paul James
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6

The Void are one of the first mixed reality experience specialists and their first big experience opens to the public July 1st at Madame Tussauds New York. It’s called Ghostbusters: Dimension and here’s a sneak peak.

See Also: First Hands-on: The VOID, a Mixed Reality Experience That Blends Real and Virtual
See Also: First Hands-on: The VOID, a Mixed Reality Experience That Blends Real and Virtual

It feels like only 5 minutes ago we caught wind of a new startup riding on the back of the new virtual reality revolution, one based in Utah that had its sights set on creating a cutting edge mixed reality theme park. The Void was to be an entertainment destination that promised custom built sets designed to match virtual worlds players experienced through VR headsets – a full body, wireless simulation of a virtual world. When we finally did get our hands on it, we were impressed.

Tomorrow, the team behind The Void are celebrating their first major publicly available experience built on their technology. Installed at Madame Tussauds New York City, the new experience is a tie in with the forthcoming Ghostbusters franchise movie reboot and is subtitled ‘Dimension‘.

Ghostbusters: Dimension will give players the chance to strap a virtual proton pack to their backs and track a supernatural manifestation through a New York apartment block. The experience is apparently around 15 minutes long, with groups of three players taking part at any one time.

“The Ghostbusters world is the perfect fit for THE VOID because you literally strap our RAPTURE gear on and it turns into your proton pack and proton gun,” said James Jensen, Chief Visionary Officer at THE VOID.

The virtual portion of the experience is powered by The Void’s proprietary VR hardware and built entirely on the Unity game engine, one of the first engines to offer Oculus Rift integration and remains of the most popular among VR devs.

“This is precisely the kind of innovative use of VR that Unity is now powering with our 3D engine and platform,” said Clive Downie, CMO Unity Technologies. “With an untethered VR experience that allows people to roam freely and interact with a physical world that matches the digital one they are seeing, consumers will have whole new levels of delight as they lose themselves in another realm. It’s giving presence to interactive storytelling putting people into the Ghostbusters world with high definition, high frame rate high excitement action, powered in part by Unity.”

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We’ll be going hands on with the new Ghostbusters experience at the press showing tonight and will report back soon. In the mean time, you can book tickets for yourself by heading over to Madame Tussauds’ website here. The Void – Ghostbusters: Dimension opens to the public on July 1st.

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Paul James
Based in the UK, Paul has been immersed in interactive entertainment for the best part of 27 years and has followed advances in gaming with a passionate fervour. His obsession with graphical fidelity over the years has had him branded a ‘graphics whore’ (which he views as the highest compliment) more than once and he holds a particular candle for the dream of the ultimate immersive gaming experience. Having followed and been disappointed by the original VR explosion of the 90s, he then founded RiftVR.com to follow the new and exciting prospect of the rebirth of VR in products like the Oculus Rift. Paul joined forces with Ben to help build the new Road to VR in preparation for what he sees as VR’s coming of age over the next few years.
  • mrtexasfreedom

    We are living in exciting times and this Ghostbusters VR tie-in is a profound example of the rapidly changing landscape of media.

    At my neighborhood theater, when I arrive early, I become part of what was sold to advertisers as a “captive audience” for commercials. Frequently, these commercials are promoting television shows. I find it ludicrous that a theater owner would choose to accept money to display a message that is attempting to convince patrons that they should stay home and watch television instead of drive to a theater and pay for a ticket to be entertained. But the movie industry is throwing up huge box office numbers these years, so maybe I’m the idiot.

    Similarly, these clever people at the Void have struck a deal Ivan Reitman to use Ghostbusters IP as a way to promote their immersive VR themepark experience. The movie studio people are excited by the deal because it’s a good promotional vehicle for the franchise they are attempting to relaunch– people will be curious about VR and Reitman hopes their experience in VR will create more word-of-mouth buzz about the Ghostbusters franchise.

    But that’s a short-sighted cashgrab on what will serve as a wakeup call to media consumers– I predict Ghostbusters: Dimension participants will come out of there wondering why they should pay money for a movie ticket that puts them passively into a seat where a story is displayed on a distant 2-D screen. Their eyes will have been exposed to a near-future storytelling medium that is interactive and far more immersive than a traditional movie theater.

    The guys behind the Void came from the movie industry and have seized on this potential. Ivan Reitman might be aware that future Ghostbusters stories will be told in VR and is choosing to cross the streams early in downtown NYC.

    • Jon

      Not that I disagree with you point as with the big picture of things it makes sense…. but I’d say 99.99% of the viewers who hear about this Ghostbusters/Void tie (via word of mouth, the above videos and future ones) will not experience it.. but the immediate benefit for the film sales is that people will discuss the fact that the film is out/coming out. People will then say did you see the first trailer “I was like, looks mediocre , then I saw the second film trailer and thought.. oh wait maybe it’ll be awesome”… which should increase sales… just get everyone aware that it’s coming out…

      Either easy it all helps boost the toy sales :-)

    • DiGiCT Ltd

      You are right for how stories will be in future.

      For the ones who want to make their own compare there is a small free vr movie called “the rose and I” on STEAM made by the creators of the cartoon movie.
      Both are great, my kidd liked the movie but in VR its just way different to expierence, even its only lasting 5 minutes it is way better to feel the story as the long 90 minutes movie.

    • Kai2591

      This guy sees whats ahead :)
      Exciting times indeed!

  • Ian Shook

    Thanks that was an exciting two seconds.

  • Alex Coulombe

    I got to go on Tuesday– it was super cool. The feeling of a ghost moving through you is insane, and during the gargoyle battle on the roof I couldn’t bring myself to step off. There’s also a cleverly placed elevator that allows them to re-use a lot of the level, while mapping a totally new environment to it. Only complaints– headset wouldn’t stay tight, and I don’t think the framerate was ever much above 50 fps