VR Roller Coaster Sounds Awesome And Pukey

VR Roller Coaster Sounds Awesome And Pukey

Virtual reality already makes some people woozy. For others, roller coasters are also a motion-sickness nightmare. What happens when you mix two stomach-turning activities? A theme park in the UK is going to find out.

Today, Alton Towers, a theme park in Staffordshire, England, announced it would debut a VR experience called Galactica this April. The VR roller coaster hurls (lol) you through space, into wormholes and through interstellar portals alongside spaceships and droids. As far as we can see, it’s the first virtual reality roller coaster in the world.

During the ride/show/voyage, you’ll skim through the Orion Nebula, fly over the frosty crags and volcanoes of various planetoids, and apparently watch a new star be born. The trains will hit 76km/h, last three minutes, travel 840m in track, hold 28 passengers and drop riders from 20m at its gnarliest drop.

The BBC reports that the ride has been in the works for a good two years, and that it will obviously require riders to wear VR headsets. (Not sure how comfy or cool-looking that would actually be, based on this spectacle from CES last week.) The BBC also says that riders are hit a max of 3.5gs g-force in the space simulation, which set the park back millions of pounds to develop. It better be good!

[Alton Towers via BBC]