Dive into the universe of a popular dystopian tabletop game, as a new virtual reality experience lands in Adelaide.

Ever dreamed of donning the impenetrable armour of a genetically enhanced super-soldier with a gun so powerful its recoil would tear off the arms of a normal human, while battling hordes of aliens hellbent on mankind’s destruction?

Of course you have. Who hasn’t?

Well, now that fantasy has become a reality.

Melbourne-based company Zero Latency, in collaboration with tabletop-gaming giant Games Workshop, has recently launched its latest virtual reality, free-roam gaming experience: Space Marine VR: Defenders of Avarax.

The experience is based in the universe of Games Workshop’s popular tabletop game Warhammer 40K, in which the interstellar human empire – the Imperium of Man – has spread throughout the galaxy and is at war with multiple factions: human, alien and other, that threaten its very existence.

In the game, Space Marines are superhuman warriors created by the godlike Emperor to expand and protect the Imperium, and are humanity’s first and best line of defence.

Though Warhammer 40K is best known as a tabletop game, the dystopian setting, characters, and lore have been explored in various other media forms, including novels and video games like Space Marine 2 (released on PC and consoles earlier in September), and now, for the first time, in free roam virtual reality.

Defenders of Avarax allows you to step into the boots of a Space Marine. Working together, players must make their way through a sprawling, futuristic city on a mission while using an arsenal of weaponry to stave off swarming, hive-minded Tyranids – insectoid aliens reminiscent of the xenomorphs from the Alien franchise.

Adelaide XR Lounge, founded by Andrew Foo in 2021, has the exclusive rights to run the Zero Latency brand in South Australia. That means it’s the only place you can play Defenders of Avarax in the state.

The experience itself takes approximately 30 minutes and is ‘free roam’, a genre of virtual reality gaming that Zero Latency pioneered and has made available to the masses at over a hundred venues worldwide.

“Free roam is the ability to actually move around in an arena that is a largescale space where up to eight people can play together,” Adelaide XR Lounge founder Andrew Foo says.

Adelaide XR Lounge is home to a Zero Latency free roam arena that is over 125 square metres of unrestricted gaming space. Here’s founder Andrew Foo standing at the arena’s centre. This picture: Joshua Owen-Thomas

Andrew says players can expect the best that free-roam virtual reality gaming has to offer, made possible by cutting-edge technology.

“We’ve had to upgrade quite a bit of our technologies and also enhance a lot of our experiences to ensure that the end experience is as immersive or even better than what [customers have] ever tried before,” he says.

“We brought the latest technology which is using the HTC Vive Focus to be able to give you a 4K to a 5K visual experience, but in addition to that, we give you full surround sound headphones that take you to the next level.

“We simplify the whole thing and provide you with a gun which is our controller to ensure that you are fully into the experience.”

The technology has been upgraded three times since the establishment of Adelaide XR Lounge, the most notable development being the removal of a heavy computer backpack that players had to wear previously.

Andrew says that Defenders of Avarax, which launched on the 25th of September, has already proven popular.

“On the first week of our launch, we were actually fully booked out,” he says. “So it has been a great success for Adelaide XR Lounge.

“We collect the data on every single game, and this is why digital is so good, where we’re able to analyse the games, how people are going with them, what we can improve, and how we can upgrade.

“Obviously it is still a learning process, so as we get more feedback we are continuously improving the experience.”

All that players need to take part in Defenders of Avarax is a headset which comes with headphones, and a controller shaped like a rifle. This picture: supplied

In addition to Defenders of Avarax, Adelaide XR Lounge offers a range of other virtual reality and free roam experiences that cater to people of all ages, including escape room and action/arcade experiences, and Andrew isn’t stopping there.

“What we want to do is actually to start to leverage on what is free roam and what is VR as we move forward and move into the XR space, or the mixed reality space, and start to offer some of the mixed reality technology to Adelaide, but also to do at mass,” he says.

“So our current experiences are based around a maximum of eight people in the technology.

“The whole idea is that as more people want to do this, to actually be able to do it in a larger mass, up to even maybe 30 people if we find the right space and the right tech and the right games and experiences to bring forward.”

According to Andrew, mixed reality experiences involve a blend of virtual reality and augmented reality, the latter of which combines the real world with computer-generated content.

“Mixed reality or XR is gonna come very, very quickly, before we know it,” he says.

Beyond that, Andrew is also interested in exploring the use of mixed reality in educational settings like schools, where entire classes could potentially participate in free-roam environments.

If you are interested in embodying a Space Marine and doing your best to defend our race from the wrath of the Tyranids, book now to experience Defenders of Avarax at Adelaide XR Lounge for yourself.