Sandbox VR opens its Philly location to bring together gamers IRL 

A new virtual reality experience in Philly wants to fully immerse gamers in its fictional worlds.

Sandbox VR, a national chain of gaming centers, opened its 60th location in Rittenhouse Square on Wednesday, joining the trend of other adult-geared game experiences like Beat the Bomb, Puttshack and Fight Club in the area. 

Instead of just a headset, the company aims to make VR a full-body experience. Its system of sensors and motion capture cameras tracks players’ bodies and puts all of their movements into the game, Stacy Stec, vice president of sales and marketing for LOL Entertainment, told Technical.ly. 

“Because a lot of times when people put on a VR headset, it’s really just that screen,” she said. “You might be able to see your hands, but you can’t capture your whole body.” 

Players are given a VR headset, wrist trackers, ankle trackers and a haptic vest, which is used in VR to simulate sensations, like vibrations, in the game. Each player is assigned a color that matches all their gear and gets their picture taken to become an avatar in Sandbox’s system. 

The venue has five rooms, called holodecks, where two to six players can participate, costing $55 to $60 per experience. Each room has 3D motion capture cameras lining the ceiling. The cameras connect the sensors each player is wearing, record their movement and translate it into the video game. If a game requires props, like for fighting off digital zombies, those items also have the same sensors to fully track the player’s movement.

Taking the VR trend outside of gamers’ living rooms

Sandbox VR launched in 2016, just when immersive gaming was starting to pick up steam. The idea behind the company was to create an immersive experience that allowed more interaction between the players, founder Steve Zhao told CNBC in 2019. 

Last fall, Sandbox announced a franchise agreement with experience company LOL Entertainment to open four new locations along the East Coast, including Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia and Washington, DC. 

The Rittenhouse Square location offers nine games, including one based on the TV show “Squid Game” as part of a partnership with Netflix. But the company also makes its own video games, a lot of which are set in science fiction settings, Stec said. 

The games that Sandbox hosts lean into the social element of gaming; it wants to create experiences where the players are working together and communicating with each other, she said. Players also wear headphones and a microphone so they can talk to each other. 

“Being able to get people into that team mode and that collaborative mode [are] the types of games that they’re going for,” she said. “But … there’s games where you can sabotage your friends if you really wanted to.” 

Scroll on to see inside the new Philly location.