Eurostar today announces ‘Eurostar Odyssey’, the first virtual reality experience designed to enhance a journey through an immersive onboard adventure, with specially designed headsets distributed throughout the summer at peak travel periods for families.
Created in collaboration with AKQA, Eurostar Odyssey captures the magic of Eurostar’s passage under the sea. As travellers make their way at high-speed under the channel, they’ll enter the hidden depths of the sea bed for the first time, looking into a virtual world of sea creatures, sunken treasures and mysterious sea-scapes.
As the summer holidays begin, the unique experience has been created to help the young and the young-at-heart see the journey to Europe in a new dimension. The free adventure is accessed by logging on to Eurostar’s onboard entertainment system on a travellers Apple or Android device, and opening up the voyage of discovery.
As travellers take their seat, the roof of the virtual train transforms into a glass ceiling revealing the underwater world around them. Guided by two ocean explorers, Rose and Benoit, the journey is packed full of stories from pirates’ legends of lost treasures, to meetings with mermaids and an encounter with a charismatic octopus. A gaming element allows voyagers to count different species along the way, for those that like to compete.
Guillemette Jacob, Head of Marketing, Eurostar, said: “With Eurostar Odyssey, our passengers are invited to rediscover their inner explorer, before they even arrive at their destination. This unique and innovative adventure is exclusively designed to enrich the travel experience for our customers. Speeding under the sea on a train is an exciting part of the Eurostar journey and with virtual reality, we’re making it even more memorable.”
AKQA Creative Director Peter Lund said: “With this experience, Eurostar is re-inventing on-board entertainment; now traveling under the channel is as much of an attraction as the destination. Thanks to Mobile VR, passengers can bring the deep-sea world to life using their own devices – no need to download any additional software.”
Available on all of Eurostar’s new e320 and refurbished e300 trains through the on board entertainment system directly to a user’s own device, the experience will be accessible on services between London and Paris, Lille, Brussels, Lyon and the South of France.
All Eurostar e320 and e300 trains offer wifi connectivity with over 300 hours of onboard entertainment streamed to customers’ personal devices, providing travellers with a variety of TV shows, films, documentaries, games and news whilst traveling at high-speed across the European countryside.