While immersive and promenade theatre have picked up real steam in recent years, jumping from an experience where you live to narrative, to where you _are_ the narrative, has always been the final frontier. Zed’s exhillarating new production, Wasteland Experience, manages just that.
Directly following on from their lauded zombie experience, Wasteland picks up half a decade down the line after a scorched earth strategy left the UK in ruins. With the undead finally rotten away, tribes have formed across the UK, with a few key outposts forming the basis of a new society. But when a number of traders and tribespeople enter the outpost, and none make it out, it seems something might be a miss. So you are part of a special team sent to investigate and rescue any surivors, that is, if you can make it out yourself.
Set inside a full-size, derelict shopping centre, complete with open shopping concourse, dis-used stores, and a myriad of back-stairways and eerie service corridors, your arena feels straight out of a Call of Duty video game, and you have the weaponry to match.
Wasteland Experience kits out the players with the iCombat tactical training system, an amazingly realistic weapon simulation used to train police and military around the world. You’re given a would-be semi-automatic weapon, complete gas-powered recoil, noise, muzzle flash, and a cartridge which you have to reload every 30 shots. There’s also hit detection without any projectiles being fired, so your shots will register with the enemy, and likewise you can take a hit, meaning your gun will power down for a couple of minutes before powering back up again.
As you play through the Wasteland Experience, more often than not, you’ll be in a moment of terror or exhiliration. There are firefight sequences where you have to shoot your way out of a corner, blacked out rooms that you have to clear one-by-one, and a myriad of wierd, wonderful, and downright terrifying characters standing in your way. It’s like 2 hours inside a steampunk first-person shooter, meets Mad Max, meets Silent Hill.
When the experience finally drew to a close, my nerves were shredded. I was exhausted from being chased through corridors, and totally swept up by the chilling narrative concocted by the Zed team. Yet I was ready to go straight back in. A totally unique experience that somehow at £99 per ticket, manages to be one of the best bargains around. This isn’t immersive theatre, Wasteland Experience is living it.
For more information and tickets head to the Zed Events website: www.zedevents.co.uk