You can see it from the Canadian side, you can see it from the USA side. Watch the water cascade over the edge or walk behind it.
You can even fly over it in a helicopter. But coming soon, opening Spring 2025, you will now be able to explore Niagara Falls in a way you never have before.
Rainbow Air Helicopter Tours, which already gives tourists helicopter rides over the falls, has partnered with Frontgrid, which creates innovative experiences, to create a gamified flying experience over one of the world’s most iconic waterfalls in virtual reality (VR).
Anna Pierce, VP of Rainbow Air, said: “It is truly magnificent seeing Niagara Falls from the air. You really get a sense of scale and can appreciate the vastness of the volume of water as well as the journey the river takes through the wider landscape, where it comes from and where it goes to.
We’ve been taking visitors to see the falls, from above, in a helicopter for 30 years now, and we love giving people, what they always say is, the highlight of their stay at the Falls.
Now, we are excited to be launching this VR experience as a new, gamified way of exploring and connecting with the land and cityscape.”
A major attraction for the USA side of Niagara falls
The VR attraction will open on the USA side of Niagara Falls, in the new custom-built Rainbow Air Tourism Center, which will home a museum and heritage site, gift shop, photography studio and a Rainbow Air launch pad of the helicopter rides over the falls. People will be able to participate in the VR attraction while they wait.
A sensational experience featuring ParadropVR
The VR attraction combines motion-based engineering and gamified content to create a sensational flying experience under canopy.
Matt Wells, the CEO of Frontgrid said: “This attraction is going to be a world-first. It uses our motion-based engineering, called ParadropVR Rize 4, which moves people through a 4m drop. The motion is finely tuned with what the participant is seeing. They use handles to self-steer themselves around the environment. It really does give the sensation of flying under canopy.”
ParadropVR Rize 4 is the latest model of the hardware, which has proven its reliability and business model globally, in 15 countries and counting, since its inception in 2017. This latest edition includes canopy upgrades, modified access, new lights and further motion-based optimisations. This attraction will be made up of 11 units, which will create an impressive, futuristic, horseshoe shaped ampi-theatre.
‘Fly Niagara’ in-game screenshot (Final product may differ)
The pioneers of gamified-location-based flying
Frontgrid coined the term location-based-flying (LBF), a play on words for location-based entertainment as a new category of immersive experience. Matt said: “What we discovered is that flying in VR, you can explore any environment you can imagine. It is a futuristic new way of exploring a real-world destination. The gamification really makes it something different from the real thing. LBF is a fun and profitable attraction for a venue to offer, drawing new footfall and capitalising on existing footfall to a destination.
“We have really valued working with Rainbow Air on this exciting project, which has furthered our combined objectives of celebrating flight in a new way. The launch of this major new attraction has allowed us to turn our vision of creating location-based-flying as an entertainment category – into a reality.”
Experience the exhilaration from a first-person perspective
The VR experience is fronted with an introductory film that plays in the headset, which is filmed in 360. This means that the person watching it experiences the story as if they are themselves walking through the film. They can look around and out of the window as the helicopter takes off, and the film culminates in the helicopter door being pulled back, and the participant jumping out of it, before being spawned into the game.
Tammy Owens, Business Development Director and Producer on the project said: “It’s pretty dramatic. The game has been built so that it starts exactly where, in real life, we filmed from the helicopter over Rainbow Bridge. When you marry up the real-world footage and the game environment it is pretty impressive.”
Kurt Stevenson – Lead Games Developer
Tammy Owens – Business development director and produce
Matt Wells – Chief Executive
Using innovative, world-building-techniques
The environment has been built using satellite data, 3D models and game engine software. Flyers collect points along the way and their score is tracked in a global online league.
Kurt Stevenson Bills, Lead Games developer on the project said: “The level of detail which has gone into the game really brings it to life. Ranging from the lifts moving up the iconic Skylon tower, the volcano erupting in the theme park, the boats on the water and the game even includes crowds of people wearing the different coloured poncho macks that you see everywhere if you visit Niagara Falls.”
Explore a real-world location differently
Tammy said: “Even our internal team, when we are testing flying through the game, can’t help but go ‘ahh that was the hotel we stayed in, the platform we stood on, where we walked…’ . As well as we see things we just hadn’t seen in the real world, that next time we are back, we will go and check out.”
Kurt Stevenson Bills, Head of Products and Games Development on the project said: “It is pretty awesome. Whilst you can fly over a real-world location in a helicopter and that is spectacular. Flying restrictions mean you see it from quite high up, which is a different experience. With VR you can get a lot closer so you can see different things.
“You are also the hero of your own journey, so you can decide where you go and what you want to look at. We’ve also added gamification to help the user explore the environment and get really close to the water and the falls. The experience is set up to be a race, which you can choose to take part in or just float around and enjoy the view. It is up to you.
“We had a lot of fun adding details to spot along the way – that are so iconic to the history of the place. When you fly it yourself, see if you can see the barrel going over the top of the falls!”
Showcasing at IAAPA Orlando 2024
We’ll be showcasing eh immersive VR experience at IAAPA Orlando, where you can now book a meeting to preview, and experience the exhilarating world-first attraction through a virtual reality headset. Not attending IAAPA Orlando? Meet us online!