UAE: Burj Khalifa Launches New VR Experience “Mission 828”
Dubai’s Burj Khalifa – with a height of 828 meters the highest building in the world until to date, developed by Emaar Properties – has launched a new Virtual Reality (VR) experience for visitors, immersing them into a virtual parachute-jump from the tower’s spire right down to The Dubai Fountain water feature. “Mission 828” can be experienced through seven VR pods, six of which are located on level 125 and another one located at level 124.
For the VR experience the participant puts on a HTC Vive headset to enter a virtual environment of Burj Khalifa. The VR experience uses “room scale” tracking technology (Vive Tracker) that enables users to move in three-dimensional space and interact with the environment with motion-tracked handheld controllers. In the virtual world, the player first takes the elevator to the 160th level of Burj Khalifa where he/she proceeds to collect suction gloves to ascent the spire, pinnacling at 828 meters. The next step in the VR adventure is grabbing the parachute for a free-fall into the dancing fountains. In order to create a close-to-reality experience, the VR pods feature wind-effects.
The attraction was created by Inition, a company that has already equipped London’s The Shard tower with a VR experience amongst others (cf. EAP news from August 8th, 2017). (eap)
