Entertainment studio BlackBox TV will release a short series exclusively on Meta Quest TV and Meta Horizon Worlds for Meta Quest 2 headsets when it launches on October 8, TechCrunch reports. The 360° VR experience Scream Park takes users on a virtual reality horror roller coaster.
Meta Quest TV is the VR homepage for the VR headsets Meta Quest and Meta Quest 2. Users need a Meta Quest 2 device to watch Scream Park. In August, Meta raised the price of Quest 2 from $299.99 to $399.99 due to high production costs.
Each episode will be seven minutes long and include “active playground scenes” that involve blinking lights, getting into the mouth of a creepy clown, and meandering turns and spins. Each episode is preceded by a warning that it is not suitable for photo-sensitive audiences. At launch, the first four episodes will be released. The remaining four episodes will roll out throughout the fall.
Unlike new games in Quest 2 such as Ghostbusters, Among Us, and Red Matter 2, BlackBox TV’s eight-episode series aims to provide users with non-interactive 360° VR entertainment, blending live action into a CGI world .
“The team is using VR gaming technology to build a dark, complex and relatable story in the cinematic space,” producer Tru Collins said in a statement. “The eye is a physical extension of the central nervous system, so when the visuals of 360° VR meet the emotional connection to the story, it hits the gut in a way that 2D entertainment can’t.”
The company claims that the video is “a new work from Meta,” and “to our knowledge, it is the first to incorporate live action into a CGI world (mostly the other way around), and one in the game universe. The immersive story/journey outside the 2D series feels more real than the 2D series,” BlackBox TV told TechCrunch.
“With Scream Park, we’re not trying to replicate reality in VR; we’re creating an experience you won’t find anywhere else,” said creator and director Tony E. Valenzuela.
While there are roller coaster games for Meta Quest devices, Scream Park is a narrative story video with characters acting as if speaking directly to the audience.
The Meta Quest 2 exclusive series also stars a familiar face from the hit Netflix show Stranger Things. Grace Van Dien — who played possessed cheerleader Chrissy on Stranger Things — will play Kelly Q on Stranger Things, who is trapped and needs to be rescued before the sun rises. Another live-action character in the series is American Horror Story star Zach Villa, who plays Will.
CGI characters such as robots will be voiced by Monique Colema, who starred in High School Musical. Online celebrity and singer Steve Zaragoza will voice villain Toby Terrific.
“Scream Park” is a continuation of BlackBox TV’s “Enter Scream Park,” which premiered on its YouTube channel in 2021 and currently has more than 680,660 views. The channel has 1.1 million subscribers. BlackBox TV claims that due to the success of the video, the horror/sci-fi studio decided to create a whole series for the world of Scream Park.
“We are excited to continue our Scream Park journey with the new series and thank Meta for their continued support,” added Valenzuela.
BlackBox TV specializes in VR/360° experiences and was founded by filmmaker Valenzuela. The studio has released various other series to Meta Quest such as Before Scream Park, Into Scream Park, Alan Wake in VR, The Monster Challenge, Freddy Krueger, Lights Out , Pennywise the Dancing Clown, and more.
The announcement of the 360° VR series comes ahead of Meta Connect, Meta’s annual conference on Tuesday, October 11. The meeting will include announcing “significant updates to Horizon and avatar graphics,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in his Instagram caption in response to a selfie of his avatar.
The Verge recently reported that Horizon Worlds experienced a number of performance issues, and even Meta’s employees wouldn’t use it.
