Zero Latency VR opens virtual doors in Sydney

Zero Latency VR, a Melbourne firm renowned for its pioneering warehouse-style virtual reality experiences, finally is opening in Sydney.

Undead Arena - Virtual reality experience by Zero Latency VR

Zero Latency VR, a Melbourne firm renowned for its pioneering warehouse-style virtual reality experiences, finally is opening in Sydney. That’s not before time, given it has 45 venues in 22 ­countries.

Since 2015, customers have donned VR headsets and a small backpack computer and walked around huge open spaces of up to 500sq m, experiencing being somewhere else through their glasses.

Zero Latency VR has simulated taking patrons on a virtual lift ride, and even being lifted on a platform from the inside of a huge aircraft carrier onto its deck. You feel you are at these places.

You are free to walk around these virtual environments and interact with others who are ­represented as cartooned icons. Zero Latency VR provides its experiences through a series of games.

CEO Tim Ruse told The Weekend Australian that due to state border closures, the Sydney staff for its new venue at Mascot were interviewed and selected remotely. Even its system was installed from afar.

“At the start of the pandemic, we changed our processes so we can deploy our systems without having to travel,” said Ruse, who is based in Melbourne. “We sent the gear, and we did a lot of remote training.”

Zero Latency VR CEO Tim Ruse.

Zero Latency VR gained world acclaim because of its technology. In 2015 it offered a cables-free free-roaming VR experience at a time when headsets were less developed and VR systems were tethered. The small Dell Alienware backpack worn by players communicated wirelessly with its bespoke VR games system. About six players could see representations of each other in real time.

As VR technology developed globally, the company formed partnerships with Microsoft, Intel and HP and assessed whether to use new VR headsets such as Microsoft HoloLens, HTC Vive and Oculus headsets by Facebook. This approach to remaining at the cutting edge saw the firm expand rapidly.

It now has six Australian venues, at Brisbane, Melbourne, the Gold Coast, Perth and Sydney. France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, Qatar, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, the UK and US are among countries hosting other venues. Many involve collaborations with local companies.

Mr Ruse said Zero Latency VR closed its business in April, but slowly reopened around the world where possible and achieved “quite good returns”. Its first venue in Melbourne will reopen in about two weeks and its Sydney venue opens on December 1. It has a second Melbourne venue at the Le Mans Go Kart centre southeast of Melbourne.

Singularity VR experience

Its Brisbane venue was open “and was doing better than pre-COVID”. Mr Ruse said: “I think people have got money in their pockets, and they want to go out and do stuff.”

He said the Mascot, Sydney venue would offer a 200sq m playing space that he said size-wise was “a sweet spot”. He said Zero Latency VR could augment space — make the playing area look larger than it is in the virtual world.

In Sydney, Zero Latency VR will offer three games initially. Undead Arena is a reality-TV show set in the apocalypse about surviving a zombie horde, while Singularity places you in a sci-fi adventure where players work together to escape a stranded space station taken over by robots.

Next year it will add Far Cry VR, in a collaboration with Ubisoft. Players try to escape from the evil Vaas and his henchmen. He said one of the games would see patrons fly in a virtual helicopter across a city. He said shooter games remained popular.

Mr Ruse said most games were still developed in-house. Content had been changed to comply with social distancing and there was a strict regime about cleaning equipment between sessions.