An 'Alien Zoo'comes to Los Angeles

CAIRO – 17 February 2018: A new Virtual Reality experience allowing visitors to explore an 'Alien Zoo' has come to Los Angeles, showcasing the potential of this new medium.

Located in Westfield Century City, the experience is provided by Dreamscape Interactive, a start-up funded by Stephen Spielberg and various other Hollywood giants such as 21st Century Fox, Nickelodeon, AMC Entertainment, and Warner Brothers.
The experience begins by taking participants into a Tesla Store, which is set up as a waiting room that informs visitors about what they’re expected to encounter.

In the vein of Jurassic Park, 'Alien Zoo' functions as a guided tour into a world like nothing on Earth, with a fantastic array of life-forms including the adorable Frogcats, titanic Megaraffes and even a confrontation with the Sicari, a terrifying apex predator.

The journey lasts for 12 minutes, and features several elements in the environment that add to further immersion, such as custom scents, wind, and even a unique chance to touch one of the aliens.

This sort of location-based VR marks the dawn of a new age of entertainment, combining elements of video games, Cinema and theme parks to create a wildly memorable experience.

Popular franchises such as 'Ghost Busters' and 'Star Wars' have utilized their own forms of location-based VR as well, though 'Alien Zoo' marks one of the first cases of an originals story line. The technology has been developed by Swiss researchers and successfully eliminated most of the motion success that has plagued VR technologies.

Co-founder of Dreamscape and producer of films such as 'Men in Black' Walter Parkes mentions in an interview conducted by Deadline, that "Most virtual reality companies tend to have one foot in the tech world and one foot in gaming. We have one foot in theme park attractions and one foot in big movies.”Originally running from February 7 until March 2, the popularity of 'Alien Zoo' has seen it extended up until March 14.