Anvio VR aims to offer the same kind of immersive experience that Skyrim and Fallout represent at their most cinematic and intense. Open world exploration in VR is mostly tethered to your space until now. It can sometimes feel like you must hack the game before locomotion makes sense to you.
Early adopters have primarily worked around these constraints. We’ve even devised a system that can help you grow more accustomed to locomotion in VR.
The real innovation is wireless VR, and a Russian VR developer thinks that they’ve cracked the formula with a new entertainment platform known as Anvio VR.
What is Anvio VR?
We’ve covered a few location-based attractions, and we’ve looked at the viability of warehouse-scale VR. Anvio takes these concepts up to 11. Two games, Z-City and Lost Sanctuary, put players in an immersive environment that requires teamwork for survival.
The Tech
Anvio runs on some surprisingly basic technology for what it can accomplish. An Oculus Rift headset with hand-grip controllers offers superior motion tracking. Players wear a Zotac VR Go System, which is designed to be cool and energy efficient. Foot trackers provide extra sensory data to the Rift, allowing the game to give a more accurate simulation of your body.
Players will maneuver through 200 square meters for around 30 minutes, working to stop the undead invasion in Z-City or outwit ingenious traps in the Lost Sanctuary.
Z-City
Z-City offers the best opportunity to test our physical skills. Players will use handheld props, not unlike the PP Gun, to help with immersion and provide a better intuition. The props have some feedback, so players can tell when they are shooting or reloading.
Players also have swords they can use when the undead get too close.
Extreme landscapes test teamwork and survival. Teams will need to help one another across great chasms and rickety old bridges to get to the end while dodging large boss monsters in intense standoffs.
All of this sounds like a routine affair for Arizona Sunshine players, but players are moving through a 200 square meter space. They are opening doors and finding hidden passages while running and jumping in a physical area.
Just make sure you keep plenty of ammo handy, and your guns locked and loaded. The undead run in this game. This is pretty much the nightmare scenario, by the way, so we hope your team has gotten plenty of cardio.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfqeA1QQO2M&w=560&h=315]
The VRFI Bottom Line
Wireless VR is where true immersion is possible. 200 square meters holds a lot of promise, especially when you consider how locomotion works in VR. You can maneuver through an office building, clearing each room one at a time, and never leave a space that big. With good level design, you might not even explore half of that space.
It’s becoming clear that arcades are where the most immersive VR experiences can be found. Like a gym, the beach, or anywhere else that’s fun to show off, the future of gaming is as much a fitness challenge as it is a skill-based one.
Available in Moscow, St. Petersburg and London, the location tests are somewhat limited. The entire experience is also built around camaraderie and friendship. After a five minute demo, up to four friends play together and then take pictures.
We know that location-based VR drives sales for home units, while everyone gets a good first taste. I grew up with laser tag and paintballing, for me, this is just the next iteration. I’m excited to see Anvio, and others like it, roll out location tests in America.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae_MoNiI-sQ&w=560&h=315]
Think you could survive the zombie apocalypse? Got any fitness tips for those who want to outrun the zeds? Sound off in the comments!
