Jumanji will come to life at select VOID locations soon.
We’ve just reviewed the VOID’s latest Marvel hero-filled experience Avengers: Damage Control as the best adventure yet from the Utah-based company. Now the company with VR-powered locations worldwide is preparing to launch another experience ahead the upcoming sequel Jumanji: The Next Level starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.
Jumanji: Reverse the Curse will open at select VOID locations starting Nov. 27, announced today through a partnership between The VOID and Sony Pictures Virtual Reality. The movie opens Dec. 13 in United States theaters, with the VR experience allowing visitors, according to a press release, to take “on the form of its heroes, Dr. Bravestone, Ruby Roundhouse, Professor Oberon and ‘Mouse’ Finbar, to save Jumanji from a new dark and mysterious villain. Fans will be enlisted on a daring quest to rescue the Scepter of Se’payu containing the Red Jewel of Jumanji and return it to the temple from which it was stolen. Pulled into the perils of Jumanji, players face challenges just like those that the avatars face in the movie – evading man-eating wildlife, navigating across treacherous landscape, battling evil henchmen – to survive and return to real life.”
The VOID previously partnered with Sony on its first Ghostbusters: Dimension attraction, which launched in 2016. According to the company, the Jumanji experience will be available only at select VOID locations including “Cinemark West Plano, Plano, Tx.; Grand Canal Shoppes in The Venetian and The Palazzo Hotel, Las Vegas, Nev.; Third Street Promenade, Santa Monica, Calif.; The Battery Atlanta, Atlanta, Ga.; Mall of America, Minneapolis, Minn.; The Rec Room at Square One, Mississauga, Ont.; The Rec Room Toronto Roundhouse, Toronto, Ont.; The Rec Room West Edmonton Mall, Edmonton, Alta.; and Resorts World Genting, Pahang Darul Markmur, Malaysia.; Tysons Corner, McLean, Va., and Westfield San Francisco Centre, San Francisco, Calif..”
There’s no trailer yet for Jumanji: Reverse The Curse and tickets aren’t available just yet, but we’ll bring you updates on the new experience as soon as we have them.
Hot on the heels of Avengers: Damage Control, the next experience heading to VR attraction The VOID is Jumanji: Reverse the Curse, made in collaboration with the Sony Pictures Virtual Reality group. The title will come to select VOID locations starting on November 27th.
The VOID is a location-based VR attraction where players don headsets & haptics vests, and physically navigate through a stage filled with props and immersive tricks which bring the virtual world to life in a unique way. The attraction is home to a variety of experiences based on recognizable IP like Ghostbusters, Wreck-It Ralph, and Star Wars.
The VOID today announced its newest VR experience, Jumanji: Reverse the Curse.
Jumanji: Reverse the Curse will give fans the ability to truly enter another game, taking on the form of its heroes, Dr. Bravestone, Ruby Roundhouse, Professor Oberon and “Mouse” Finbar, to save Jumanji from a new dark and mysterious villain. Fans will be enlisted on a daring quest to rescue the Scepter of Se’payu containing the Red Jewel of Jumanji and return it to the temple from which it was stolen. Pulled into the perils of Jumanji, players face challenges just like those that the avatars face in the movie – evading man-eating wildlife, navigating across treacherous landscape, battling evil henchmen – to survive and return to real life.
Jumanji: Reverse the Curse is The VOID’s second collaboration with Sony Pictures Virtual Reality; the first was Ghostbusters: Dimension which was the first VR experience based on external IP to be hosted at The VOID. While Ghostbusters has been mostly phased out of The VOID, the company says Jumanji will be one of its best yet.
“Through close collaboration [with Sony Pictures Virtual Reality] on this project, we have been able to develop a dimension that is more interactive and immersive than any VOID experience has ever been before,” says Curtis Hickman, The VOID’s Chief Creative Officer. “Utilizing new technology and more illusion design, Jumanji: Reverse the Curse is a true adventure that travelers will want to experience over and over again.”
Jumanji: Reverse the Curse will launch on November 27th (tickets available starting November 16th) and be available through the holiday season at the following VOID locations, according to the company:
Cinemark West Plano, Plano, Texas
Grand Canal Shoppes in The Venetian and The Palazzo Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada
Third Street Promenade, Santa Monica, California
Westfield San Francisco Centre, San Francisco, California
The Battery Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia
Mall of America, Minneapolis, Minnesota
The Rec Room at Square One, Mississauga, Ontario
The Rec Room Toronto Roundhouse, Toronto, Ontario
The Rec Room West Edmonton Mall, Edmonton, Alberta
Resorts World Genting, Pahang Darul Makmur, Malaysia
Tysons Corner, McLean, Virginia
Jumanji: Reverse the Curse launches ahead up the upcoming film Jumanji: The Next Level, which is due for release in December.
The VOID’s latest immersive experience, Avengers: Damage Control is available now. We got a look inside and found a great example of what a VR attraction should be.
Guest Article by Noah Nelson
Noah, a veteran public media reporter and producer, is the founder and publisher of No Proscenium, which covers all forms of immersive art and entertainment. He’s also a founder of the HERE Summit, the next great gathering of the immersive creative community, in Pasadena, CA in March 2020.
In Wakanda, under the guidance of the world’s most fashionable genius and member of the royal family, Shuri, the armor designs of Tony Stark have been updated and given a makeover. That’s right. The latest in Wakandan technology and Stark Industries state-of-the-art are about to be yours to test drive.
But what was going to be a simple shakedown cruise gets turned into a life or death battle as the unconscionable Ultron has returned from the brink of oblivion to menace first Los Angeles and then the world!
Suit up, recruits, there’s no time for learning the ropes. It’s just the four of you and every last living Avenger against one of the deadliest of their foes!
And that, my friends, is the plot of Avengers: Damage Control, the first collaboration between Marvel Studios and ILMxLab, that also happens to be the longest adventure yet to hit The VOID at around 18 minutes. After donning a VR headset and backpack with up to three other friends, all sense of real space and time gets distorted as the story jumps from Wakanda to Doctor Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum to a technology graveyard where the past comes back to haunt the heroes of the MCU.
Marvel Studios really opens up the toybox for the ILMxLab and The VOID, with cameos from more characters that you can count, and lead voice performances from Letitia Wright (Shuri), Benedict Cumberbatch (Doctor Strange), Paul Rudd (Ant-Man) and Evangeline Lilly (The Wasp).
And while this feels like it could be one of the short films that accompanied the home video releases of the major Marvel films, this is a ‘hyper reality’ experience, which stands alongside the work that ILMxLab has done with The VOID in the past. Thankfully, what had started to feel a little rote gets switched up with the gifts from the Marvel toybox.
For starters, The VOID’s signature ‘blaster’ gun peripherals stay holstered, relying instead on hand-tracking and gesture controls, allowing you to strike a superhero pose to blast drones out of the sky or block incoming laser blasts. While we’re still in a shooting gallery, it genuinely feels different—and awesome—to get your Tony Stark on.
The tracking here appears to come from the same forward facing sensors that The VOID’s finger tracking relies on, and at times the ‘fist up’ shield-activating gesture didn’t work as consistently as I would have liked. Considering that the punishment for getting hit with a laser blast is a effectively distracting buzzing sensation in the feedback vest, the gesture failures are unfortunate.
What remains interesting is how good, otherwise, the gesture input of The VOID remains. It’s not laser sharp, as there can still a little sense of miscalibration when directly interacting with other players (like shaking hands or high-fiving), still, this is more of a theme park ride than a test of fine motor skills, and the immersive qualities work well enough to suspend disbelief and get you on your way.
Image courtesy Marvel Studios, ILMxLAB
The best new features in this particular VOID experience come with the traversal elements. With Stephen Strange in the mix we’re now playing with portals, and the usual ‘you’re in a building doing X’ scenario gets tossed aside for a globe-spanning quest. One of the most memorable moments comes from just walking through the twisty halls of the Sanctum, where the floor looks like it’s ramped down, but because you’re on a flat surface it feels like you’re being pulled backward the entire time. And when you finally reach your destination you discover you’ve been walking up the entire time.
Magick! It’s weird, man.
There’s another great thing about the twisted nature of the halls and the portal jumps from set piece to set piece: I totally lost track with where I physically was on The VOID’s underlying stage. After having run most of the VOID’s experiences before, I’d started to recognize the layout of the stage. They’ve rearranged the virtual map and added some physical details that make the space feel radically different, which is a testament to the VOID’s underlying premise: that a virtual skin can be layered on top of a modular set to create an infinite number of virtual world (hence the acronym: Vision Of Infinite Dimensions).
It’s working.
In Avengers: Damage Control, players will fight robots in Wakanda, get their marching orders from Doctor Strange, fight some more robots in Los Angeles, then take to the skies in a S.H.E.I.L.D. drop ship (apparently the new Stark/Wankadan armor doesn’t come with jet thrusters) for a chase sequence ending in an ultimate battle which has the scale of any MCU third act. All the way you’re mostly blasting things or blocking incoming blasts, as Damage Control is more of a thrill ride than a puzzle box. With things stripped down to the bare essentials in terms of interactivity, the new experience feels squarely aimed at newcomers to location based virtual reality.
Image courtesy Marvel Studios, ILMxLAB
Because Avengers remains among most beloved film franchise at the moment, there’s enough ‘oh, cool’ moments packed into Damage Control that we’re bound to see MCU fans headed to The VOID to see what the fuss is about. The good news for them—and those of us holding a torch for immersive entertainment—is that Avengers: Damage Control makes the best case yet for what this kind of experience can be. I envy those who get to have this as their introduction to VR.
For those who have been devouring all things VR, the most interesting things here are the traversal tricks. Redirected walking remains a trip, and there’s some perceptual shenanigans that use The VOID’s stage tech to great effect. We might still be running all this in a game engine, as opposed to doing full volumetric capture of performers, but overlooking the ways in which The VOID activates touch, smell, and kinesthetics would be a mistake. VR isn’t just a visual medium; The VOID recognizes this and engages a broader set of senses. Not to mention that the whole thing is designed so that four teams of four players can use the stage simultaneously. That’s an incredible feat of engineering in and of itself.
It’s also encouraging to see the ILMxLab play in longer formats. They’re already setting the gold standard for storytelling in at-home VR with the Vader Immortal series, and here they get to deliver a blockbuster’s measure of action in a tidy three act short.
The latest location-based VR experience from The Void, dubbed Avengers: Damage Control, has launched and I got the chance to run through the ILMxLAB-developed official Marvel experience while visiting Anaheim, CA last weekend.
Similar to Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire, Avengers: Damage Control is an official story directly connected to the franchise’s cinematic universe. In the experience you meet up with Shuri in Wakanda and are granted access to a new prototype armor system that blends Iron Man’s suit technology with cutting-edge Wakanda science to deliver something that feels adequately next-generation and powerful.
While testing out the new suit the base is attacked and you’re thrust into a huge battle alongside The Avengers to beat back a resurgent Ultron that’s erupted out of the Damage Control facility back at a Stark Industries compound.
Narratively it takes place after Endgame in a world that’s still coming to grips with the aftermath of those events. Being able to step into a world I’ve become familiar with over the course of over 20 different feature films is pretty fantastic.
Just like all other experiences from The VOID, Avengers: Damage Control is part video game and part roleplaying experience. The employees at the Downtown Disney location in Anaheim, CA treated us like new recruits at S.H.I.E.L.D. and asked us to “assemble” and select the suit of armor we most wanted to wear inside the experience.
Getting debriefed by the actual live actors from the films via video transmission felt appropriately superhero-esque and it absolutely measured up as an extension of not only the cinematic universe, but as an extension of the Disneyland experience.
In Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire you’re given a rifle that’s tracked using sensors around the facility and the experience is heavily focused on firing the rifle at enemies like Stormtroopers as you move from one room to the next, with some light puzzle-solving elements here and there. Avengers: Damage Control is actually quite different since there is no gun at all.
In lieu of shooting a gun there are four main movements you can do in combat. To fire energy blasts out of your hands you can either point a single hand forward to fire or hold both hands close together for a more powerful shot. In either case it takes about a second to charge up and fire a shot which gives you time to line up your aiming reticle. However, this means you can’t shoot rapidly and are required to wait for energy beams to shoot automatically while aiming.
Alternatively, you can also hold up your wrists, facing outward (shown above,) to absorb enemy fire. Once charged up you can then hold both hands together to fire lock-on missiles for big damage.
The headsets used for this experience are the same as all other VOID experiences, which means they’re original Oculus Rifts that are retro-fitted into helmets alongside backpack PCs to power things, with Leap Motion sensors embedded into the front of the visor. In late 2019 I can definitely say that Leap Motion is starting to get quite long in the tooth. Generally it works well enough and if I hold my hands out directly in front of my face it does a decent job, but it can’t keep up with quick movements and seems to have a very narrow field of view to see where my hands are located.
For an experience that is entirely based on hand tracking, the technology here leaves a bit to be desired. It lacks the haptic feedback and satisfaction of holding a rifle, cradled in your shoulder, like Star Wars and instead preys on the childhood nostalgia of wanting to shoot energy beams from your palms. It worked for me given my nerdy upbringing, but won’t be as awe-inspiring for others.
It’s also worth mentioning that I and one other person in my group lost tracking at one moment and only saw a black void. Neither of our other two team members could see us and we couldn’t see them but voice communications still worked. After fumbling around in the dark for a minute or two we eventually popped back in. This happened during a scene where we all had to walk through Doctor Strange portals and it felt like what I imagine it would to get lost in the Dark Dimension for a bit.
Not only are you not given a physical weapon prop at all, but it actually feels much longer and more involved in general. I didn’t time it specifically so I can’t be absolutely certain, but I’m pretty sure my group and I spent close to 30 minutes inside the experience itself not counting onboarding prep. For comparison, the other experiences I’ve done at The VOID felt more like around 15-20 minutes. Again, I’m not positive, but it definitely seemed longer. On top of that, combat was only around half of the content this time around as there was much more exposition with several characters jumping in and out of scenes from across the entire MCU.
What really makes Avengers: Damage Control stand-out above other experiences from The VOID I’ve tried and even other LBE experiences in general is just how connected and in-tune with the rest of the MCU it felt. This really did make me feel like I was stepping inside of the cinematic universe rather than just playing a quick vertical slice of mostly unrelated content.
Story-based spoilers ahead for the next two paragraphs
From the opening moments that you speak with Shuri, to the final battle against a giant Ultron, it was hard to keep up with just how much was going on around me. I got to stand face-to-face with Doctor Strange, step through his portals, fight alongside Spider-Man, Ant-Man, The Hulk, Hawkeye, Captain Marvel, Falcon, War Machine, and what feels like a never-ending list of iconic heroes.
Words cannot properly convey just how exciting it was to crane my neck upwards as an enormous hunk of metal is rocketing towards me from the sky just before Spider-Man swings into view, catches the debris, and then Ant-Man shrinks us down to be smaller than popcorn kernels on the floor. We got to fly air ships through the city, pass through portals that briefly visited arctic locales complete with snow droplets on our skin and cold air blasting, and even stand side-by-side with the God of Thunder, Thor, himself. It felt extremely similar to the final battle scene in Avengers: Endgame, complete with heroes appearing out of portals at the last minute and everything.
Story-based spoilers are now over
Avengers: Damage Control VR Review Verdict:
Despite the technological limitations of Leap Motion hand tracking, the content on display in Avengers: Damage Control is far and away the best location-based VR experience I’ve had to date. The VOID and ILMxLAB have managed to pack a short film’s worth of Marvel Cinematic Universe-quality narrative power into an immersive and exciting adventure that really makes you feel like a member of The Avengers. From the witty dialogue quips and enormous cast of familiar characters, it’s an immersive experience of unrivaled quality for Marvel fans.
Marvel, ILMxLAB and The Void are launching Avengers: Damage Control next week. A new trailer reveals a few surprise returning characters.
The story trailer for the experience just went live. It gives us our first look at gameplay. More importantly, though, it confirms that Spider-Man himself will be stopping by in the multi-user location-based adventure. We can’t tell if it’s Tom Holland voicing him, but we’re just happy to see him flip into our headsets after the recent drama between Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures.
Perhaps the bigger surprise is the return of an Avengers villain; Ultron. He hasn’t appeared in the Marvel Cinematic Universe since 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron. It’s never been confirmed if Damage Control is official MCU canon but it could well be, marking this return as one fans won’t want to miss.
Also showing up in Damage Control are Hulk, War Machine, Black Panther and Falcon. We also know that Dr. Strange, Ant-Man and The Wasp all put in an appearance too, voiced by their big-screen counterparts. Players themselves will put on a suit of armor that features a mix of Stark and Wakandan technology. It looks like a mashup of Iron Man and Black Panther suits. We’ll be interested to see how the experience feels given last year’s Marvel: Powers United VR was a bit disappointing.
Tickets to Avengers: Damage Control are on sale now, with the experience opening October 18. Prices start at around $40. It’s only showing in the US and Canada for now, but fingers crossed we see it elsewhere in the near future.
The newest experience heading to VR attraction The VOID is Avengers: Damage Control. Due to launch on October 18th, the experience will take players to iconic MCU locations and have them fight alongside the likes of Doctor Strange, Ant-Man, and the Wasp.
The Void is a location-based VR attraction where players don headsets and haptics vests, and physically navigate through a stage filled with props and immersive tricks which bring the virtual world to life in a unique way. The attraction is home to a variety of experiences based on recognizable IP like Ghostbusters, Wreck-It Ralph, and Star Wars.
The latest experience coming to The Void is Avengers: Damage Control which got a teaser trailer along with the announcement today:
The experience is set to launch initially on October 18th for a “limited run” at 11 of The Voids locations across the US and Canada (and one in Malaysia). Tickets are on sale as of today for $40; you can find a list of the initial locations here.
Here’s the tease:
Assemble alongside Earth’s mightiest heroes in Avengers: Damage Control, an all-new virtual reality adventure from Marvel Studios and ILMxLAB. Shuri has recruited your team of four to test her latest prototype design, a powerful new suit that combines Wakandan and Stark Industries technologies. When a familiar enemy from the Avengers’ past seeks to steal the technology for themselves, your team must stop them before they unleash an oppressive new age upon the planet. Fight alongside some of your favorite Avengers like Doctor Strange, Wasp, Ant-Man, and more in a race to protect the world. Suit up, step in, and save the world in the ultimate Marvel Studios immersive experience. Available exclusively for a limited time at The VOID.
Avengers: Damage Control is developed in partnership with ILMxLAB, Lucasfilm’s immersive story studio, which has been behind a handful of notable VR experiences including Vader Immortal and The Void’s very own Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire.
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Image courtesy The VOID
Image courtesy The VOID
Image courtesy The VOID
The Void recently announced a major expansion which will more than double its number of locations, so if you had any prior interest in experiencing some of The Void’s exclusive experiences it might be worth checking in to see if there’s a location near you.
Location-based entertainment (LBE) attraction already has some big-name IP’s available for guests to immerse themselves in, including Star Wars: Secrets of the Empireand Ralph Breaks VR. Today, the company has announced its latest virtual reality (VR) experience in conjunction with Marvel Studios and ILMxLAB, Avengers: Damage Control.
Rather than playing one of the famous characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) like you would in Marvel Powers United VR, in Avengers: Damage Control you fight alongside them. Obviously, you’re suped-up thanks to Wakanda’s own tech genius Shuri, who has enlisted you to test her latest prototype design: Emergency Response Suits, created with a proprietary blend of Wakandan and Stark Industries technology.
When sinister forces appear you’re called into battle, fighting alongside famous Avengers like Doctor Strange, Ant-Man, the Wasp and more. You’ll visit iconic locations from the MCU universe and thanks to The VOID’s immersive technology be able to explore real-world sets whilst experiencing physical effects like heat and wind.
“We’re always looking for new stories and corners of the universe for our characters to explore. Now, after more than a decade of amazing support, we are excited to give fans the same opportunity: to be a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe,” said Kevin Feige, President of Marvel Studios in a studio. “Expanding how people can experience the MCU is something we’re always trying to do, and in Avengers: Damage Control, we wanted to give fans the chance to suit up alongside some their favourite heroes for the first time ever.”
“The opportunity to bring such a beloved universe alive through immersive storytelling has been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” said Shereif Fattouh, Senior Producer, ILMxLAB. “Avengers: Damage Control lets you feel what it’s like to shoot repulsor blasts with your own two hands, suited up in Shuri’s latest technology. This original adventure allows you to go beyond the screen, and become a character in the story itself.”
Avengers: Damage Control will be coming to select The VOID locations starting 18th October 2019. These include:
Downtown Disney District in Anaheim, CA
Santa Monica, CALas Vegas, NV
Mall of America – Minneapolis, MN
Cinemark – Plano, TX
World Trade Center – New York, NY
The Battery – Atlanta, GA
Genting Highlands – Malaysia
The Rec Room at Round House Park – Toronto, Canada
The Rec Room at Square One Shopping Centre – Ontario, Canada
The Rec Room at the West Edmonton Mall – Edmonton, Canada
Surprise! The Void just announced its Marvel VR experience, Avengers: Damage Control.
We first reported that The Void was making a Marvel VR experience earlier this year. The company creates location-based VR experiences often based on popular IP like Wreck it Ralph and Star Wars. Today, the company surprise revealed its Marvel project, which will be launching on October 18. You can get tickets right here. Check out a teaser trailer below (which features Shuri herself, Letitia Wright).
In Avengers: Damage Control, players are recruited by childhood prodigy Shuri to test an experimental armor. As you can see from the trailer, the prototype suit combines technologies used in both the Iron Man and Blank Panther suits. A website reveals that Doctor Strange, the Wasp and Ant-Man will appear in the experience alongside other Avengers. The piece will also feature a villain from the series’ history.
That’s all we know for now. The name Damage Control itself is a Marvel easter egg, though. In the comics, this is the name of an organization that cleans up after big superhero battles. Tony Stark coined the term in the MCU for its debut in Spider-Man: Homecoming.
Damage Control is developed by ILMxLAB, the studio that also worked on The Void’s Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire. It also just launched the second episode of Vader Immortal.
The Void says Damage Control will be available for a limited time only. For now, it’s available in the US and Canada, with no word on a possible launch overseas. Tickets start from $39.95.
Elsewhere, we also know the company is working on a new experience with Sony Pictures that’s yet to be revealed.
Whenever I used to think about brain-computer interfaces (BCI), I typically imagined a world where the Internet was served up directly to my mind through cyborg-style neural implants—or basically how it’s portrayed in Ghost in the Shell. In that world, you can read, write, and speak to others without needing to lift a finger or open your mouth. It sounds fantastical, but the more I learn about BCI, the more I’ve come to realize that this wish list of functions is really only the tip of the iceberg. And when AR and VR converge with the consumer-ready BCI of the future, the world will be much stranger than fiction.
Be it Elon Musk’s latest company Neuralink—which is creating “minimally invasive” neural implants to suit a wide range of potential future applications, or Facebook directly funding research on decoding speech from the human brain—BCI seems to be taking an important step forward in its maturity. And while these well-funded companies can only push the technology forward for its use as a medical devices today thanks to regulatory hoops governing implants and their relative safety today, eventually the technology will get to a point when it’s both safe and cheap enough to land into the brainpan’s of neurotypical consumers.
Although there’s really no telling when you or I will be able to pop into an office for an outpatient implant procedure (much like how corrective laser eye surgery is done today), we know at least that this particular future will undoubtedly come alongside significant advances in augmented and virtual reality. But before we consider where that future might lead us, let’s take a look at where things are today.
Noninvasive Baby Steps
BCI and AR/VR have already converged, albeit on a pretty small scale and to little appreciable effect so far in terms of the wider AR/VR usership. Early startups like Neurable are already staking their plot, basing their work on the portable and noninvasive method of electroencephalography (EEG), which reads voltage fluctuations in the brain from outside the skull.
Image courtesy Neurable
In terms of brain-computer interfaces, EEG is the oldest and one of the lowest ‘resolution’ methods of tuning into the brain’s constant flow of ‘action potentials’, the neuron-to-neuron pulses that form the foundation of thought, perception, action, and, well… everything.
According to Valve’s resident experimental psychologist Mike Ambinder, who held a talk on the state of BCIs and game design at GDC 2019 earlier this year, using EEG is tantamount to sitting outside of a football stadium and trying to figure out what’s happening on the field just by listening to the intensity of the crowd’s reaction; EEG can only reliably measure neural activity that occurs at the most upper layers of the brain.
Although EEG can provide a good starting point for some early data collection, Ambinder maintains, a trip underneath the skull is needed to order to derive deeper, more useful knowledge which in turn should allow for more immersive and adaptive games in the future.
There are some other non-invasive methods for viewing the brain, such as magnetoencephalography (MEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), however these haven’t (and likely won’t for some time) make their way out of hospitals and research facilities due to their massive size, power requirements, and price tags—precisely the problems implants plan to tackle.
Implants Galore
Neuralink is betting that its first generation device, the N1 sensor, will provide the sort of real world benefits its immediate target audience is looking for: a home-operated, low-latency, and high bandwidth method of basic input to computers and smartphones, enabling things like text input and simple operations—an ideal solution for those without use of their limbs.
The company’s furthest-reaching vision shared at its company’s unveiling last month however teases out a future of a mesh-like device called a ‘neural lace’ that could potentially have greater access to the brain by being injected into its capillaries.
This, the company hopes, could one day give users the ability to bypass our senses to virtually simulate vision, touch, taste, and effectively our entire perception. As the company’s founder and largest investor, Elon Musk, puts it, Neuralink’s mission is to eventually “achieve a symbiosis with artificial intelligence” through ‘full-brain’ BCI.
There’s of course no time frame available on Neuralink’s prophetic AI-merging neural lace; Musk himself says that while the N1 sensor should start in-human clinical studies in 2020, achieving full BCI will be a long, iterative process.
Adam Marblestone, a research scientist at Google DeepMind and PhD in biophysics from Harvard, isn’t so starry-eyed about the initial launch of Neuralink’s N1 tech though. Putting the company’s advances into perspective, Marblestone says in a recent tweet that although Neuralink is accelerating the current state of the technology, it’s not a magic bullet.
“They are climbing Everest with bigger team/better gear (engineering). What is really needed is a helicopter (science-intensive breakthrough),” Marblestone writes.
BCI might seem like new-fangled tech, but research has been in the works for longer than you might expect. In 1997, a bio engineering professor at the University of Utah named Dr. Richard Norman developed the ‘Utah Array’, an implant with 256 electrodes designed to rigidly attach to the brain. In fact, the Utah Array is still in production in various forms by Blackrock Microsystems, and has been instrumental in gathering neural recordings of action potentials over the past 20 years.
In contrast, Neuralink promises to deliver “as many as 3,072 electrodes per array distributed across 96 threads,” according to the company’s white paper, not to mention the added benefit of less-invasive, flexible threads designed to cause less inflammation than rigid electrodes. A detachable receiver would also power the array of smaller sensors, and transmit data to computers via Bluetooth.
Image courtesy Neuralink
There’s more than one way to skin a cat though, and the same is true for establishing what you might call ‘read & write’ capabilities of interacting with neurons, or the ability to both measure what’s happening in your brain and stimulate it too.
Besides the N1 sensor, an implant called ‘Neural Dust’ could also offer a window into the mind. The millimeter-scale implants are passive, wireless, and battery-less, and promise to provide what a UC Berkeley research group calls in a recent paper “high-fidelity transmission” of data obtained from muscles or neurons depending on where they’re implanted.
neural dust, Image courtesy University of California, Berkeley
Notably, a co-author on that particular paper is Dongjin Seo, Neuralink’s director of implant systems, so it’s possible we’ll see some further work in that area under Neuralink.
Another interesting method used in a recently published research paper by a group of scientists from Stanford University, Boulder Nonlinear Systems, and the University of Tokyo, deals with a method of optogenetic stimulation. Essentially, it’s a technique of firing light into the visual cortex of a brain, which was altered to include light-reactive proteins. The researchers were able to write neural activity into dozens of single neurons in a mouse and simultaneously read the impact of this stimulation across hundreds of nearby neurons. The end goal was to see whether they could inject specific images into the mouse’s visual field that weren’t really there. It’s rudimentary, but it works.
Admittedly, it’s not a case of using an implant per se, but it’s these early steps that will unlock behavioral patterns of neurons and allow scientists to more precisely manipulate the brain rather than just observing it. Once things get further along, BCI may well be the perfect complement to immersive AR and VR.
Read & Write: The Immersive Future
It’s 2030. All-in-one AR/VR glasses are a reality. They’re thin and light enough to be worn outdoors for when you need to navigate the city, or battle with your friends at the park in the wildest game of capture the flag you could ever imagine. When you want a more all-encompassing experience, you can simply switch the headset to VR mode and you’re instantly in a massively multiplayer virtual world.
According to Facebook Reality Labs’ chief scientist Michael Abrash, a device like this is on the horizon, and he expects it to come sometime in the next decade.
It’s all great, certainly better than it used to be when the headsets first came out in 2016. Now AR/VR headsets have near perfect eye-tracking, on-board AI that does object recognition and convincingly speaks to you like a personal assistant. The headset has an eye-tracking based UI that sometimes feels like magic. You’re still mostly using hand gestures to do things in AR though, and you still rely on controllers in VR for the best at-home experience. Going back to a headsets from a decade earlier is pretty unthinkable by now.
Concept image from Oculus Connect 5 showing what a waveguide-based VR headset may look like in the near future, Image courtesy Facebook
Besides location-based AR/VR parks like The VOID, most consumers still don’t own haptic suits because they’re expensive, and although they can simulate hot and cold through thermoelectric coolers embedded in the fabric, it still only provides a few well-placed thumps and buzzes from the same sort of haptic tech you find in smartphones today—not really practical to wear, and not additive enough to buy for at-home play.
At the same time, two generations of smaller, higher-performing neuronal implants have made their way into production. Implants, once requiring major surgery, are now an outpatient procedure thanks to AI-assisted robotic surgery. These teams, which are backed by the big names in tech, are working to bring BCI to the consumer market, but none so far have been officially approved by the FDA for neurotypical users. The latest model, which is still technically for medical use, has gotten really good though, and offers a few benefits that clearly are targeted at enticing would-be users to shop around for doctors that are willing to fudge a diagnosis. Some countries have more lax rules, and the most adventurous with a few thousand to burn are the first to sign up.
With the implant, you can not only ‘type’ ten times faster and search the Web at the speed of thought, but you can listen to music without headphones, remotely voice chat with others without physically speaking, and navigate the UI with only your thoughts. Soon enough, special interest lobbies do their thing, Big Business does its thing, and somehow the first elective consumer BCI implant becomes legal, allowing for a host of others to slide in behind it.
This opens up a whole new world of game design, and menus basically become a thing of the past, as games become reactive not only to your abilities as a player, but to your unseen, unspoken reactions to the challenges laid out before you (e.g anger, delight, surprise, boredom, etc.) Game designers now have a wealth of information to sift through, and have to completely rethink the sort of systems they have to build in order to leverage this new data. It’s a paradigm shift that reminds the long-time AR/VR developers of ‘the good old days’, back when games didn’t need to rely on always-connected AI services for passable NPC interactions.
Now imagine a further future. The glasses are sitting on your trophy shelf of historical VR and AR headsets gathering dust. Your neural implant is no longer a series of chips pockmarking your skull. You had those painlessly removed right before your most recent procedure. A supple lattice coats the surface of your brain, and delivers strategic stimulus to a carefully planned network of neurons. It has access to a large portion of your brain. The glasses aren’t needed any more because digital imagery is injected directly into your visual cortex. You can feel wet grass on your feet, and smell pine needles from an unexplored forest in the front of you.
All of this is plausible given what we know today. As our understanding of the brain becomes more complete, and the benefits of having a neural implant begin to outweigh the apparent risks, brain-computer interfaces are poised to converge and then merge with AR/VR at some point. The timescale may be uncertain at this early date, and the risks not fully understood before many jump into the next phase of the digital revolution, but we can leave that can of worms for another article.
Get yourself out of Gamescom, find a quiet spot with decent WiFi and dig in; VRecap #5 is here!
Even without throwing in our recent trip to Germany, it’s been heck of a busy week. First up, Sony acquired one of the biggest VR developers out there, Insomniac Games. They did games like The Unspoken and the upcoming Stormland, exclusively for the Oculus Rift. What does that mean for the developer’s existing relationship with Oculus? Could we see Insomniac on PSVR? Oh the possibilities!
Elsewhere, we’ve got an update from The Void that confirms the company is working with both Marvel and Sony Pictures on new location-based VR projects. Perhaps they’ll create a reality where Spider-Man is still in the MCU?
Too soon? Sorry.
Oh and, yes, we’ve been to Gamescom! We’ve got a quick preview of our adventures in Cologne this episode before we round up the week’s releases. We saw a heck of a lot of VR games out there, so keep an eye out for a bunch of previews heading your way over the next week or so. In fact we’ve already got a few ready for you, like Iron Man VR and Espire 1!
As for the competition, this week we’re offering up free copies of The Tower 2. This VR obstacle course makes full use of room scale tracking and gives you quite a workout. If you want to be in with a chance of winning, just follow this link.
Okay, time to get out of here and enjoy the weekend. What are you going to be diving into this weekend?
