By Laura Wybrow

Published: Monday, 08 August 2022 at 12:00 am

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If there’s a fun activity to do in London, you can guarantee the RadioTimes.com team will know about it.

Whether it’s immersive experiences, escape rooms, walking tours or experience gifts, if you’re looking for something out of the ordinary to do in London, you’ve come to the right place. And next up on the agenda is VR experiences.

What is a VR experience? VR stands for ‘virtual reality’, and it’s a simulated experience that can either mimic or be completely different to real-world environments.

VR experiences usually use headsets or multi-projected environments to create sensations that a user would experience in the real world. A person taking part in a VR experience is able to look around the pretend world, move around in it, and interact with virtual items — sounds brilliant but kind of freaky, right?

You might have seen VR play out in movies such as sci-fi film Ready Player One, where ordinary people can escape their decaying world and enter a stable, happier one.

Or, you might’ve already tried your hand at VR in gaming. VR headsets get you right in the thick of the action from the comfort of your gaming chair, and there are plenty of the best VR games to immerse yourself in: The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners, Resident Evil 4 VR, Doctor Who: The Edge of Time, and even a Squid Game VR game.

While we’re not going full Ready Player One (humanity isn’t that bad…), there are a lot of exciting experiences to try in London to submerge yourself in the action. Let’s take a look at them.

Fancying trying a live Squid Game challenge? A Squid Game immersive experience is coming to the UK this September. 

Best VR experiences in London at a glance

• OTHERWORLD, from £14
• Alice in Wonderland, £49 for two
• DNA VR, from £32
• Zero Latency, £72 for two
• Zombie Overrun, £72 for two
• Alien Strike Team Delta, £72 for two
• Jeff Wayne’s The War of the Worlds: The Immersive Experience, from £60
• iFLY Indoor Skydiving and VR Flight, for £109.99

Best VR experiences to try in London in 2022

DNA VR

London’s first VR arcade, DNA VR, has pop-ups in Battersea, Hammersmith and Camden, and it’s the perfect venue if you’re organising a fun day out. Choose between an Arcade Session, which gives you full access to the games library (including multiplayer shooters), or a Premium Free Roaming Session, where you’ll walk around with a team solving puzzles from one out of the four exciting VR rooms.

Buy DNA VR tickets from £32 at Fever

meetspaceVR

Boxpark

Situated in Wembley, meetspaceVR is a giant warehouse space where you and your friends can live out the ultimate VR experience. Teams of up to eight players are pitched against flesh-eating zombies, out-of-control robots, and each other in a variety of games. We were particularly interested in the Alice in Wonderland VR game, which includes characters from the iconic book.

We featured the Alice in Wonderland in our top escape rooms to try in London – check out the list.

Buy Alice in Wonderland tickets for £49 for two at Buyagift

Zombie Overrun

Virgin Experience Days

Ever wondered if you’d survive a zombie apocalypse? Well, here’s your chance to find out. At Navrtar’s centre in Ealing, you’ll experience three mini practices before stepping into character for your zombie apocalypse experience. Who will be the last one in your team standing?

Buy Zombie Overrun Free-Roam VR Experience tickets for £72 for two at Virgin Experience Days

Alien Strike Team Delta

Virgin Experience Days

Another virtual reality experience from West London arcade Navrtar is this alien invasion one. In a large space not limited by wires, you and your team will be battling aliens, scouring crash sites, stopping the extraterrestrial takeover and saving the world!

Buy Alien Strike Team Delta Free-Roam VR Experience tickets for £72 for two at Virgin Experience Days

iFLY Indoor Skydiving and VR Flight

Buyagift

Ever wanted to skydive but not wanted to do the actual jumping out of a plane part? Us too, and iFLY has revolutionised indoor skydiving. It still has the same wind tunnel and anti-gravity experience, except you wear a VR headset, too. The headset makes it seem like you’re soaring across spectacular scenery in California, Hawaii, or the English countryside.

Buy iFLY Indoor Skydiving and VR Flight tickets for £109.99 at Buyagift

Jeff Wayne’s The War of the Worlds: The Immersive Experience

London Box Office

For a family day out like no other, look no further than Jeff Wayne’s The War of the Worlds experience. Aliens have descended on earth, but will you be able to escape London unharmed? This immersive experience features live actors, virtual reality, and 5D effects — which tune into all five of your senses — to get you to the heart of the action.

We loved this virtual reality experience so much that we recommended it in our best immersive experiences guide.

Buy Jeff Wayne’s The War of the Worlds: The Immersive Experience tickets from £60 at Fever

Zero Latency

Virgin Experience Days

This next VR experience isn’t for the faint-hearted: the headset will transport you to a zombie-infested city, and it’s down to you to navigate your way around and find a cure (no pressure, then).

Buy Zero Latency tickets for £72 for two at Virgin Experience Days

OTHERWORLD

ENTTEC

OTHERWORLD has 16 VR pods and when the experience starts, you and your friends will step into your own one. The pods have a VR headset and use temperature, wind and rumble effects to make the virtual reality experience as immersive as possible, and the pods range from a zombie apocalypse, desert, the open sea, jungle, and more.

Buy OTHERWORLD tickets from £14 at OTHERWORLD

For more activities to do in London, check out our guide on the best West End shows – and here’s how to get cheap theatre tickets in London. 

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