The team-based attraction will have you infiltrating Skynet and blasting your way through Terminators.
Sitting in the heart of Los Angeles’ booming entertainment industry, rests a discreet warehouse. From the outside, it looks like any other studio space littered throughout the city—but this one was different. Little did I know I was about to join a group of Resistance soldiers to save humanity from Skynet.
Slipping into the eerily dark studio, the first thing I notice are rows of developers and mechanical engineers, all feverishly working away and never looking up from their task at hand. Upon further inspection of the cavernous space, surrounded by the desks and 3D printers, rests a steampunk-like structure straight out of the desert from Burning Man.
It was this platform where all the magic was about to happen.
A tour normally reserved for investors and entertainment executives, I was one of the first journalists to enter the latest theme park style immersive experience VR startup SPACES has been secretly developing for months.
A proof of concept, the experience has many of the characteristics of a theme park ride. You check into a front desk and get your face 3D scanned to create your our own personal avatar. A host gives a short safety speech and gets you into character. Attendants strap you into a VR backpack and VR headset. You’re finally given a futuristic looking rifle, all while you virtually wave to others in the group before stepping into the world of Terminator.
The actual room-scale VR experience mixes haptic feedback, multiple senses like wind and heat, with the immersion of multiplayer VR. The idea is to save humanity from Skynet. But to do that, you must work as a team to solve puzzles, while shooting down Terminators as thunderous explosions around you resonate within your bones.
An intense experience that I can see most enjoying with friends and family, SPACES announced Thursday that they are preparing to announce locations around the world of this Terminator experience. The startup also revealed that a small number of eager fans will have the chance to receive an exclusive behind-the-scenes sneak peek inside the Terminator universe, physically entering the world of the movie at this “undisclosed” SPACES location. You can sign up for a shot to save humanity by applying at spaces.com.
The team at SPACES is made up of theme park, video game, and Hollywood film professionals from the likes of DreamWorks Animation. In addition to Terminator, the startup shared that they’re working on a slew of other adventures based on existing and original IP that will be installed in theme-parks and retail locations around the world.
“We want to push the boundaries of what’s possible with entertainment,” says Brad Herman, SPACES’ CTO. “We build SPACES attractions with the goal of taking guests on adventures with friends that they will never forget. With Terminator, our team of industry veterans has created a special blend of physical props, dynamic movement, and environmental effects for a social experience that fans will not only love but will want to experience again and again.”
