For a long time the grandest answer to that wish was the theme park. A great one is unforgettable, but it is also expensive: a trip to Disneyland for a family of four runs into the thousands. For attractions operators, it meant a multi-million dollar install and a commitment measured in decades. Plenty of beloved franchises will never justify a single permanent attraction, and plenty of fans will never be able to make the trip.
Immersive experiences have changed that. A world can now be brought to life in a way that reaches fans in dozens of cities at once, and opens in time for the cultural moment that makes it matter. This accessibility works across three levels: how easily fans can reach the experience, how feasibly a brand can build it, and how wide the range of stories is that can come to life at all.
McKinsey’s analysis of US consumer spending shows money flowing to experiences faster than to goods, and the pattern is sharpest among younger consumers. 52 percent of Gen Z say they splurge on experiences when they travel, cutting back on flights, shopping and food before they give up doing something memorable. Live entertainment, McKinsey notes, converts attention into revenue more efficiently than almost any other format.
Immersive formats skew young in particular. McKinsey’s research puts Gen Z at 1.5 times more likely than the general population to visit an immersive experience, and four times more likely than older generations. Demand has rarely been the problem. Supply has, because the destination model is expensive, fixed in one place and slow to build. McKinsey’s own conclusion is that the opportunity now sits in smaller, nimbler formats that need less capital and can be timed to a moment of cultural relevance. Free-roam VR is one of the clearest examples, delivering the immersion of a large attraction in a footprint under 2,000 square feet. Because the experience is created digitally and streamed to the headset, it removes the headaches of expensive build-outs and lets one space become many worlds at the switch of a button.
“The location-based VR market has become significantly more mature over the past few years,” says our CEO, Tim Ruse. “What we’re seeing is a clear evolution away from VR as a novelty and toward VR as a premium entertainment category in its own right.”
Guests now expect high-quality content, reliable technology and an experience that feels considered from the first minute to the last, and they measure it against other top-tier nights out rather than on novelty value. Two forces sit behind that. Rising expectations have pushed weaker operators out and rewarded the ones investing in quality. And the rise of competitive socializing has given the whole category a tailwind, as people look for things to do together.
That social pull runs deeper than a night out. “In today’s world, where people are increasingly disconnected and experiencing a real loneliness epidemic, shared experiences are more valuable than ever,” Tim notes, pointing out that immersive attractions are now outpacing traditional attraction growth. The takeaway for any brand weighing up the space is simple enough: free-roam VR is no longer a cheap stand-in for the real thing. It has become a premium experience in its own right, which is exactly what makes it a serious way to bring a premium IP to life.
Start with the fan. A destination park asks people to travel to the IP. Free-roam VR brings the IP to the fan’s local area. Our VR arenas sit in cities around the world, which turns the experience from a once-in-a-lifetime visit into a local night out. That opens the door to themed group events, whether it is a kids’ Jumanji birthday party or an office team-building session. Guests only pay for the world they want to experience, rather than a single ticket for a whole park, and they can pre-book timed slots, removing the queuing friction of a theme park.
The same shift changes the calculation for rights holders. Building it as an immersive VR experience costs less than a physical themed build-out, and it is a networked format: produced once and rolled out across entertainment facilities, so a brand reaches audiences in dozens of markets from a single build rather than one flagship destination.
A high-quality immersive experience can be developed in a 12 to 18 month window, quick enough to line up with a new season, game or movie. Our Jumanji experience, made under license with Sony Pictures, is designed to arrive alongside the next Jumanji movie in December 2026, when the franchise is back in the conversation. A permanent build cannot move at that speed.
There is a commercial dividend beyond reach and speed. Licensed experiences, in Tim’s words, open doors to collaborative marketing where partners “amplify the reach and impact of a game launch,” while a world people already recognize lowers the barrier to walking in the door and the group format lifts the spend once they do. McKinsey makes the same point from the brand side, quoting Mattel’s chief strategy officer that the most engaged fans can be far more valuable than the average customer over time.
That reach does not come at the cost of control. We develop each licensed title in step with the brand. “We work closely with the license holder every step of the way, from scriptwriting to environment design, to ensure we’re staying true to the source material while delivering something extraordinary in VR,” says Tim.
The most overlooked form of accessibility is how many kinds of story the format can carry. A permanent attraction has to chase the broadest possible audience to earn back its cost, which is why theme-park IP skews toward four-quadrant blockbusters. Immersive VR carries far lower overheads, so a devoted but more focused fandom can be worth building for. Our catalog includes popular gaming titles: Far Cry VR: Dive Into Insanity in partnership with Ubisoft, and Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine VR, Defenders of Avarax in partnership with Games Workshop.
What connects them is why the medium suits IP so well. “Licensed products offer a powerful shortcut to connection,” says Tim. “There’s already emotional investment, narrative depth and world-building in place.” Free-roam VR turns that investment into something physical: fans “aren’t just watching their favorite worlds unfold, they’re stepping inside them.”
Gaming titles feel this shift most sharply. A solitary experience becomes a shared one, and the connection between fan and franchise deepens when players get to embody their favorite characters rather than watch them, standing inside the world together.
None of this works if the experience is thin. Fans arrive already knowing the world, and they are quick to notice when something rings false. The attractions trade has learned this the hard way, and across the industry operators now talk about VR earning its place only when the content is strong, kept fresh and genuinely immersive rather than a passing tech demo.
Tim is clear about where the line sits: “If the license feels like a skin rather than the soul of the experience, players will know instantly. Fans are incredibly savvy.” We build our licensed games around the story, themes and tone of the brand from day one, rather than treating the IP as an add-on. “Everything you see, hear and do is designed to honor the IP and elevate it,” he says. “When done right, players walk away not just entertained, but transformed.” That is the discipline behind the format: stay faithful to the source, ground the design in what fans actually want, and build it properly. Accessibility gets a world in front of more people. Craft is what makes the visit feel premium enough to earn their time, and the brand’s name on the door.
The instinct that 65 percent of Gen Z described, the wish to step inside the worlds they love, is not going anywhere. Immersive, free-roam VR offers a way to bring a world to life close to where fans already are, fast enough to catch the moment and premium enough to protect the brand. For location-based entertainment operators, partnering with Zero Latency is a way to stand out from local competitors and bring fan-favorite worlds to your floor, many of them in a single space.
At Zero Latency, we take a franchise and turn it into something fans can walk into together, shoulder to shoulder, proven across 150+ sites worldwide. Jumanji: The Lost Levels arrives at Zero Latency venues worldwide on December 4, 2026, and Cyberpunk 2077 is set to join the blockbuster line-up in 2027.
Interested in bringing fandom to your floor? Contact us