Before the gates even opened at IAAPA Orlando, Hero Zone VR announced it had acquired competitor Phenomena VR and its popular VR Esports Arena. And Spawnpoint announced the addition of Ubisoft’s escape games. And while free-roam VR continues to expand, the VR arcade cabinet market seems to be contracting, with Raw Thrills choosing to leave last year’s big hit, Godzilla, back in its lair, opting to bring only a new non-VR version. Read all about that in the One Big Thing, below the latest news.

"When it comes to VR attractions, IAAPA ain't what it used to be.”

New Developments

FECs and Arcades

Hero Zone Acquires Phenomena’s Compact Free-Roam Platform

Hero Zone has acquired competitor Phenomena and its VR Esports Arena product line to solidify its leadership in the compact free-roam segment (~400 sq ft zones). This acquisition expands their footprint to more than 550 locations, increases their content library with market-leading PVP games, and adds a North American sales, marketing, and support presence. Read more...

Spawnpoint Lands Ubisoft’s Escape Games

Fast-growing free-roam VR platform Spawnpoint announced it’s adding Ubisoft’s room-scale escape puzzle games. Ubisoft’s games include Assassin’s Creed titles Escape from the Lost Pyramid and Beyond Medusa’s Gate titles, and Prince of Persia: Dagger of Time. Read More…

A VR Gaming Center Where You Race, Battle, and Fight Zombies Under One Roof

Operators are blending high-throughput formats—racing simulators, zombie shooter missions, team-based PvP—in one venue to maximise dwell time, increase repeat visits and diversify revenue beyond traditional single-player VR units. Read more...

Nexus Lounge in Rocklin Launches With Zero Latency VR

A new immersive entertainment lounge in Rocklin now features the arena-scale system from Zero Latency, positioning VR as the anchor attraction for a premium social venue—playing to both gamers and non-gamers looking for immersive nightlife. Read more...

Theme Parks

Simtec Systems Teases a VOID-Like Hybrid Ride Experience

The company previewed a motion-based ride that marries physical sets and full VR overlays—echoing the immersion of The VOID but built for modern scalability and modular deployment (lower capex, smaller footprint). Read more...

PortAventura Adds Third MR Attraction

Theme-park operator PortAventura World has launched “Expedition ULUM: Jurassic Awakening”—a mixed-reality attraction that combines physical sets, virtual overlays, and narrative triggers to enhance guest flow and deliver higher per-capita spend. Read more...

Museums and Science Centers

Schools Are Finally Figuring Out VR – And It’s Not Just for Science Class

VR is shifting from novelty to classroom staple as educators implement immersive experiences across STEM, arts, and career pathways—reporting higher student engagement, deeper retention, and new collaborative models. Read more...

The Met Puts Its Most Iconic Artworks Into VR

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has launched two high-fidelity VR experiences (via Atopia) that allow visitors to walk around the Temple of Dendur and explore Pacific-Island art from its Oceania collection—bringing interaction, sound, and scale to what were once static gallery walls. Read more...

Chicago’s Field Museum Adds Two New VR Attractions

The Field Museum in Chicago is strengthening its immersive-content strategy by installing two new VR-based experiences meant to deepen visitor connection with historical exhibitions while improving throughput, dwell-time and cross-sell potential. Read more...

London Debuts a High-Fidelity Incan Empire VR Experience

A new museum attraction transports visitors into the world of the Incan Empire using spatial storytelling, interactive archaeology, and 360-degree immersion—targeting culture-tourists who crave more than passive observation. Read more...

Chimei Museum in Tainan Unveils an Egyptian VR Epic

The Chimei Museum in Tainan has launched a four-thousand-year Egyptian-themed VR experience called “Year Horizons: Khufu,” immersing visitors in ancient narratives (pyramids, pharaohs, mystical architecture) using interactive storytelling and spatial VR. Read more...

Art, Music, and Culture

Storyland Scales With New Locations and a Titanic VR Exhibition

The attraction brand is expanding footprint while layering in immersive content—specifically a VR-enhanced Titanic exhibition aimed at families—blending physical narrative architecture with virtual experience to drive generation-Z appeal and multi-visit behaviour. Read more...

AI Plus VR Is Quietly Rewriting Cultural Tourism

A growing body of research shows that integrating AI with VR/AR can dramatically boost visitor engagement in heritage and tourism venues—personalizing narratives, creating immersive storytelling arcs, and offering alternatives to physical travel (with associated sustainability benefits). Read more...

Technology

Valve Announces New Steam Frame Headset

It's finally here – after more than four years of Valve Deckard rumors, Valve's standalone PC VR headset has landed in the exciting form of the new Steam Frame. It’s built to compete with the Meta Quest 3 AND to offer full PC VR gaming via a wireless adapter. But what else have we learned? Here are the seven main things you need to know about the Steam Frame… Read More on Tech Radar…

OTHER STUFF

LEXRA Expands Board and Appoints First Executive Officers

LEXRA, the global association dedicated to supporting and advancing the location-based entertainment extended reality (XR) industry, is excited to announce the election of its first executive officers. Jim Wyatt (Rilix) has been elected President, with Brent Bushnell (DreamPark) and Bryan Nay (Heroes VR) serving as Co–Vice Presidents, and Jason Fiber (Virewirx) elected as Secretary/Treasurer. Read more...

Assetto Corsa Rally to support VR, but after the initial early access release

For those of you with racing sims, Assetto Corsa Rally might be the best racing sim we’ve seen. It’s rendered in gorgeous Unreal Engine 5, and combined with a motion base could provide thrills for years. Read More on Traxion…

One Big Thing

Did Godzilla Just Kill VR Arcade Cabinets?

It’s just a few days removed from IAAPA, and one of the biggest surprises was what wasn’t there. Raw Thrills makes some of the most popular arcade games in the industry.  In IAAPA 2024, they brought to market the most popular VR arcade game of the year, Godzilla: Kaiju Wars. It quickly became a staple at the FECs around the world.

Two players sitting on a motion base, wearing VR headsets, fly over a hyper-stylized Tokyo, blasting Godzilla and other giant monsters. It takes the classic rail shooter up to eleven. I’ve watched hundreds of people play, both at trade shows and in venues, and it never fails to please. Operators consistently rank it among their top-earning games. 

This year, Raw Thrills unveiled a non-VR version of the same game. Where in the VR game players faced forward with the big video screens behind them, now they face the screen, blasting away at the monsters. I knew the game was coming, but what I didn’t expect was for Raw Thrills to not even bring the VR version to the show. In fact, the only VR I could find on their combined booth with Betson was a King Kong of Skull Island 2, a software update of the simulator they first showed at Amusement Expo in New Orleans in 2019.

Operators have been complaining about the cost of VR, both the sticker price and the maintenance cost, for years. And with Raw Thrills having nailed the gameplay, why not expand the market by making a more traditional version of Godzilla? But in another sense, I am disappointed to see Godzilla VR miss IAAPA, because it’s a great showcase of what’s possible in a VR arcade game. 

I am looking forward to hearing from any operators who decide to put the VR and non-VR Godzilla games to the test. It’s going to be a great A/B test to determine the economic value of a VR arcade game. How much does VR add to the cashbox? Is it worth the extra purchase and maintenance cost? In the coming months, we might finally find out. 

Stay immersed,

Bob

PS. If you haven’t joined LEXRA as a Founding Member yet, time is running out. If you need another reason to join, we will be kicking off a series of Developer Spotlights next month, hosted by Synthesis VR. AND we are launching a new series of Operator Hacks starting in January, highlighting all the tips and tricks from the XR operator community that help them drive sales, profits, and customer growth. Deadline for Founding Member status is Dec 31. Don’t wait! Sign up now.