Sony’s immersive The Ultimate of Us experience at CES 2025 dropped me proper right into a subway filled with zombies

As Engadget’s chief The Ultimate of Us correspondent, I was pretty pumped to look out out all through Sony’s CES 2025 press conference that season two of the HBO current would come out in April. Nevertheless Naughty Canine head Neil Druckmann moreover teased a “location-based experience exhibit” which will transport people into the tunnels of Seattle filled with Contaminated. That’s an house straight out of The Ultimate of Us Half II, and in the meanwhile I purchased a chance to try the proof-of-concept experience. It was fast, minimal, and just a bit powerful, nonetheless it was moreover one different good occasion of how Sony is trying to take its tentpole franchises from PlayStation and put them in absolutely completely totally different experiences.

Sadly, Sony had a strict “no cameras or motion pictures” protection for this experience, so you might must rely upon my phrases and just a bit video the company confirmed regarding the tech behind it.

I entered the experience with three totally different people after a quick run-down of the gear we might use: two of us purchased shotguns, and two purchased flashlights (sadly I was caught with a flashlight). Every have a bunch of small sensors linked to the doorway so that they may work along with the environment we entered; the flashlight felt like an precise flashlight with some sensors on the highest, nonetheless the weapons have been crude tubes with a take care of and set off; the set off felt pretty good from my quick check out of it sooner than we purchased started. There are moreover sensors on the barrel of the gun that detect a “pump” motion to reload it.

As quickly as we now have been outfitted, an actor having fun with a member of an unnamed militia briefed us on the mission: a couple of of our fellow mercenaries disappeared throughout the Seattle subways — possibly kidnapped by the WLF, possibly taken down by Contaminated. Our job was to look out him… what would possibly go incorrect?

Our data directed me and the alternative flashlight-holder to start out out lighting up the subway station — which was created by three massive screens surrounding us. The partitions of the room have been constructed from LED panels, and the sensors on the flashlights interacted with them to hint my second. I needed to be pretty close to the screens for it to acknowledge my flashlight, nonetheless it was pretty cool to be lighting up a digital environment in precise time.

Then, in any case, a clicker scream locations the group on extreme alert — and given that it received right here from a specific location all of us swing our flashlights in that route to find out the danger. Merely as throughout the sport, though, the disgusting contaminated creature shambled nearer to us, let unfastened one different scream and received right here charging forward, at which degree the shotgunners blasted away with abandon. That noise launched additional Contaminated charging into the world; I would mild them up with the flashlight and my companion shot them down.

Points calmed down, momentarily — then a big subway automotive started sliding out of its precarious place, which trigged considered one of many demo’s coolest outcomes. The bottom was rigged for haptic solutions, and whereas we had felt it rumble at quite a few disturbances, this was by far crucial impression. The combo of the visuals, audio and haptics all made it actually really feel, correctly, immersive. I positively didn’t neglect I was in a demo, nonetheless it was cool nonetheless. Previous the bottom haptics, Sony says that there are even scents pumped into the room to further the setting, nonetheless I wasn’t ready to detect one thing myself.

Then we purchased the obligatory cameo from The Ultimate of Us Half II co-protagonist Ellie and her companion Dina, as they scrambled away from Contaminated who start chasing them down. One knocked Ellie down and commenced ripping at her throat until Dina caught up and pulled it off her, at which degree they sprinted away. Sadly, the disturbance launched a big swarm of monsters coming at us, which launched on the big battle of the experience. I started illuminating the hordes and my companion blasted them down, nonetheless then dozens started overwhelming the screens and the screams purchased an growing variety of intense until each little factor reduce to black as our crew was overrun. That’s that!

I’m not judging the experience too harshly, because of Sony was clear every in its press conference and sooner than we tried it that it’s a very early proof of thought. The precept issue that pulled me out of it was that the world we now have been in is static — there’s no technique to run away or switch previous the boundaries of what we now have been launched with. After which, as I mentioned, you needed to be comparatively close to the “partitions” for them to acknowledge the flashlight or gun, which meant that ought to you backed as much as take up the scope of the world you gear will not work.

The other barrier to it being really scary or additional immersive is that I couldn’t ignore the reality that the danger was on a show display screen fairly than throughout the room with me. There’s no doubt that having full administration in an environment like this can be a wild technique to play a sport like this, nonetheless it was all only a bit too on the rails and away from the world I was in.

I’m trying to hint down anyone from Sony who can inform me additional regarding the genesis for this idea along with the place they see it going ultimately. Nevertheless Sony and Naughty Canine have already launched The Ultimate of Us to various totally different media, and this seems to be like a additional high-tech imaginative and prescient of what Sony did together with Frequent Studios when it launched the franchise to the Halloween Horror Nights that happens on the theme parks. Whether or not or not it’s a one-off curiosity or one factor we see down the street in a additional full pattern, though, stays to be seen.