A visit to the VR Arena

This week we paid a visit to the newly opened VR Arena in Zurich and scrutinised the offer by talking to one of the people in charge.

The VR Arena in Zurich, which opened in April, is part of the Mega Arena, which has grown up with paintball and laser tag, so to speak. It was only last autumn that the Lasertag Arena moved from Bellevue to its current address at Brandschenkestrasse 178, from where it is now starting its major expansion with VR from Zurich.

In addition to the geographical expansion with further centres, there are also plans to expand the range of games and their levels. But first, let's start from the beginning.

The status quo

The new VR Arena is currently offering an exclusive virtual reality experience for up to four players. The shooter game called Survivor is, as we have already reports exclusively. The concept comes from the two business partners Patrick Loepfe and Marco Marti of VR Arena and was developed by programmers in Hungary. The HTC Vive is used and the game is played with the two Vive controllers, which serve as weapons. There is currently only one prototype weapon. The game is played on an area of 5 x 5 metres.

They are still testing out what goes down well at the market. However, barely a month after the opening, they have already had their first visitors and everyone has enjoyed it, says Patrick with satisfaction. They are actually quite happy that they weren't fully booked right from the start. This gave them time to iron out any teething troubles and make a few updates.

So far, however, everything is running smoothly. As the VR Arena complements the existing laser tag offer, you can already book larger events with them and plan a company event, for example, or simply come along with a small group. However, advance bookings are increasingly necessary in order to secure a place.

The music of the future

But there is still a lot of potential, or let's say ideas. Patrick talks about other additional levels, other game plays and worlds such as expeditions, which could perhaps appeal to a different target group than a shooter, but also about increasing the size of the room or having even more players. In contrast to other concepts, where each player is in a single cube, you are in a room together with your team mates. And they will probably stick to this concept: They want to be able to offer an experience for groups. In contrast to laser tag, the VR game offers a somewhat calmer experience. "You're much more physically involved in laser tag or paintball than in VR," says Patrick. "In the computer world, you tend to get lazy, at least that's what I've realised. After all, it doesn't hurt when you get hit."

Read in the review the day after tomorrow how my mate and I mastered the exclusive shooter game. On the other hand, of course, we were also there to test the game.