All aboard Thorpe Park’s virtual reality ghost train
Derren Brown's going to scare you silly with HTC Vive VR tech
Virtual reality is set to haunt Thorpe Park later this year, turning the humble ghost train into something that’s guaranteed to give you nightmares.
Plucked from the delightfully demented imagination of British mentalist Derren Brown, the new ride will combine live action special effects and ‘grand-scale’ illusions with VR tech, to truly put the frighteners on every rider.
The centrepiece of the ride will be a 20m long Victorian train carriage, suspended in mid-air inside an abandoned warehouse. You’ll have to cross an iron bridge to enter the train, but what happens within is a mystery.
Riders won’t all get the same experience, either; each ride will last between 10 and 15 minutes, but there are 12 possible journeys and 2 different endings.
“Derren Brown’s Ghost Train” has been in development for over three years. Today’s announcement revealed the ride would be using HTC’s Vive VR tech, but there’s no clue as to exactly how it will all work.
With Derren Brown involved, you can expect plenty of deception and a few unusual twists and turns from the usual haunted house ride. Considering this is the man that convinced someone the world had ended for a TV show, it certainly won’t be for the faint of heart when the ride opens later in the Spring.
Tom Morgan-Freelander
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