How Hong Kong startup Sandbox VR built hyperrealistic virtual reality games

A swarm of monster bugs is running towards me and I’m frantically shooting at them, all while trying to ignore the fact that I’m standing right at the edge of a skyscraper. As someone with acrophobia, this is the stuff of nightmares.

Photo credit: Wren Handman

Except I wasn’t just having a bad dream – I was in the middle of a Sandbox VR game called Amber Sky 2088, perched on top of a tall building, shooting at hostile creatures trying to take over the earth. Lucky for me, my game partner Steve Zhao had already been through this hundred of times. He instructed me to hold up my shield as he calmly obliterated the enemy one by one.

Zhao is the founder and chief executive of Hong Kong-based Sandbox VR, which specializes in creating immersive, hyperrealistic games. But instead of creating consumer VR games like those for a Playstation VR console, for example, Sandbox is one of a few companies in the world that specializes in creating location-based VR games. This means players go to a bricks-and-mortar location to experience a game instead of playing it at home.

Walk into any of Sandbox VR’s seven locations around Asia and North America, and you’ll find the same set-up: a room painted entirely green, with haptic vests, backpack computers, and sensors that gamers strap onto their wrists so that motion trackers can capture each player’s movements in the game.

Unlike typical consumer VR games which are hooked up to a computer or similar processing unit, Sandbox’s powerful backpack computers mean that graphics are in much higher definition and this minimizes the possibility of its players getting motion sickness.

The company has so far raised US$68 million from investors including Andreessen Horowitz and Alibaba Group, the parent company of South China Morning Post. Rap superstar Kanye West has also tried the game, even posting about it on social media after.

“Kanye came out and he was like, ‘Oh man, let’s see how we can work together,”” said Zhao. “I think he saw this as a medium of expression … it’s a medium that hasn’t been [explored] before, and he got very excited about the possibilities.”

The interest surrounding virtual reality reached a peak in 2014, when Facebook announced it would acquire Oculus, a California VR headset maker, in a US$2 billion deal. That spurred investors to take the technology more seriously and spawned thousands of startups. But entrepreneurs and investors underestimated how long it would take consumers to embrace expensive VR headsets and although cheaper headsets are now available, sales still lag far behind voice-enabled smart speakers and other emerging devices.

Last year, 7 million VR headsets shipped globally, according to an estimate by research firm IDC, compared to the nearly 100 million smart speakers shipped in 2018.

Sandbox VR is one of several technology companies experimenting with location-based VR gaming. Its rivals include The Void, a US mixed-reality entertainment firm that has partnered with Disney to create VR games around films like Star Wars, as well as Dreamscape Immersive, a company backed by Hollywood mogul Steven Spielberg that offers narrative-driven experiences instead of games.

Zhao’s decision to build Sandbox VR came when he first tried VR technology in 2014, just as the first Oculus VR headsets had been shipped.

“The first time I experienced VR, it was with the first Oculus developer kit and everything was very basic at that time,” said Zhao in an interview. “And I thought, man, VR sucks.”

“Later on, I tried [other] consumer VR and it was not really fun. We’ve been building games a long time, and it’s all about immersion. But how can you be immersed in VR when you really can’t even see your full body?”