I jumped in surprise within 30 seconds of entering The Void in Las Vegas. I was cowering in fear just a few minutes later.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something rush toward me. I heard it coming closer as I pointed my head down and closed my eyes. I waited for it to pass.
And then I felt something dig into my shoulder.
A powerful chill moved down my spine and throughout my body. I crossed my arms to rub the goosebumps and tried to laugh off the feeling something had grabbed me. I remembered earlier, when I was getting strapped into the headset, I was looking down at my vest and reading the word “Rapture” upside down. Of course — it was The Void’s haptic vest.
When The Void upgraded to Rift-level visuals last year, I drove out to Utah to experience it. Their walk-around system and environmental effects impressed, though both the Ghostbusters and Star Wars experiences from The Void invite comparisons to forms of 2D entertainment. Is around $33 per person in The Void worth the price in comparison to $15-$20 per person for a two-hour movie? Or $60 for a new video game with 10 or more hours of gameplay?
The Voud’s first public VR experiences draw people to venues with the promise of stepping into a world made famous on the big screen. In places where there are Void locations like Downtown Disney and The Venetian, there’s a built-in audience of people ready to pay some money to visit another world for a bit. And in each of the first public Void attractions, you hold a gun in your hands to defend yourself. The weapon provides a sense of security in Ghostbusters, for example, when spirits are ready to rush at you. These guns, though, tend to limit interaction while inviting comparisons to first-person shooter games.
It is much harder to make comparisons to 2D forms of entertainment with Nicodemus: Demon of Evanishment when you naturally use your hands to interact with the world while exploring a haunted building. The only comparison I can make to a video game is the setting in the late 1800s at an abandoned world’s fair is a bit like stepping into Rapture or Columbia from BioShock. According to The Void, cofounder Curtis Hickman helped develop the story (built in partnership with Ninja Theory) and found inspiration in a love for haunted houses.
A wide range of VR attractions are rolling out worldwide and The Void’s Nicodemus leads the way into high-end VR horror. Dave & Buster’s restaurants just launched an impressive Jurassic World attraction which costs just $5 for an intense five-minute action-packed experience. The Void suggests its experiences last around 30 minutes from when you’ve checked in, but that time includes watching an introductory video and strapping into and out of the headset. Actual time experiencing another dimension is some fraction of that half hour. That means The Void tends to fall far above the $1-per-minute rate that some companies are using as a guide for VR attractions. There’s also a vague sense in experiences from The Void that you’re being moved along without too much time to solve puzzles or enjoy the scenery. With Nicodemus, though, moving to a new room at least takes your mind off the dark corners in your current space.
The Void again shows off its industry-leading capabilities with this haunting ride. The startup is operating at an unmatched scale to produce truly visceral reactions through haptic and environmental effects. Come Halloween, Void locations offering tickets to this experience will offer an incredible scare. For now, Nicodemus: Demon of Evanishment is only available in Las Vegas.