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Location-based experience · Brussels 2025-26 · Oostende 2026
A zoo with no animals.
50,000 visitors anyway.
Zoo of the Future is Europe's first fully virtual zoo: three life-sized habitats in Brussels where wild animals surround you instead of sitting behind glass.
Walk the frozen tundra, the jungle and the savannah. Projection puts you inside each world. VR takes you deeper. AR on your own phone and touchscreens let you go further. About an hour, at your own pace, for children and adults.
The Challenge: Can a Virtual Experience Draw a Real Audience?
Can you feel what it is like to stand next to a wild animal without the animal being there? Screens and documentary footage had never managed it. The experience had to surround visitors, respond to them and stay with them afterwards.
The constraints:
- Work for children and adults at once
- Compete with other leisure options for tickets
- Hold attention for 60+ minutes
- Run reliably every day of a full season
- Generate revenue, press and return visits
Three Virtual Natural Habitats
The Frozen Tundra
Snow underfoot, wind in the air, emperor penguins sliding past your feet. The stillness does the work. You leave knowing how survival takes shape in extreme cold.
The Jungle
Towering trees, chattering monkeys, macaws overhead. Your eyes follow chimpanzees swinging through the canopy and parrots gliding past. You feel how much life a rainforest holds, and how fast it moves.
The Golden Savannah
Golden plains run to the horizon, giraffes reach for the sky, elephants walk past at full scale. You stand inside the story of Africa's great migrations, part of the landscape.
Full Sensory Immersion
Each habitat shifts what visitors see, hear and feel the moment they step in. Projection, spatial audio, light and small environmental cues carry them from jungle to ice to savannah, with no cameras and no fences. You hear the jungle before you see it, step into the cool hush of the ice, then feel the savannah open up.
Deliverables:
- Spatial audio and ambisonic soundscapes for all habitats
- Sensory transition cues between zones
- Lighting direction and environmental mood
- Multi-surface projection design and integration
- Motion and atmosphere effects tied to story beats
The Technical Build: What RealityMatters Delivered
Need more clarity?
RealityMatters ran the project from first concept to a working location-based experience.
1. Concept & Story Architecture
The creative and narrative foundation: one emotional arc, one educational purpose, every moment serving both.
Deliverables:
- Narrative arc and story framework
- Three habitats, each with emotional and educational flow
- Past, present and future storyline
- Scientific content as accessible story
- Visitor journey blueprint (physical, digital, sensory)
- Multi-device strategy (AR, VR, projection, mobile)
2. Creative Direction & Experience Design
How the whole experience looks, feels and behaves, across physical and digital layers.
Deliverables:
- Experience vision and creative direction
- Visual, spatial and interactive design language
- Interplay between AR, VR, projection and physical space
- UX for every interactive touchpoint
- Sensory rhythm and emotional pacing
- One art direction for all media
3. 3D Production & Animation
Every 3D creature, environment and animation, built for cinematic impact and real-time performance.
Deliverables:
- Full 3D animal production: realistic, stylised, accurate
- 3D environments for all habitats
- Real-time optimised models for AR and VR
- Cinematic versions for marketing
- Animation and movement cycles
- Consistency across projection, mobile, VR and marketing
4. AR App (iOS & Android)
The mobile AR app that carries the experience beyond the venue, before and after the visit.
Deliverables:
- iOS and Android AR app
- AR animal encounters
- QR onboarding
- Missions and story moments
- App UX and UI
- App Store and Google Play deployment
- In-app analytics
- Post-visit content
- 2,500+ downloads, ongoing performance insight
5. VR Experience
The VR journey, one of the exhibition's standout attractions, built for long voluntary sessions.
Deliverables:
- Full VR exploration experience
- Multi-zone interactive habitats
- Optimised for standalone headsets
- Natural locomotion and accessibility modes
- Spatial audio and environmental effects
- High-reliability design (45 min average voluntary use)
6. Projection & Sensory Integration
The projection-mapped environments and sensory design behind the exhibition's atmosphere.
Deliverables:
- All projection-mapped animation and content
- Habitat-specific visual transitions
- Spatial audio and ambisonic soundscapes
- Lighting, motion and sensory cues
- Coordination with fabrication and hardware partners
- Multi-surface projection integration
7. Marketing & Communication
The creative foundation for the whole campaign: one voice, strong visuals, high public impact.
Deliverables:
- Key visuals
- Trailer and promotional video
- Social and advertising content
- Website storytelling and UX writing
- Campaign and PR messaging frameworks
- 268+ worldwide press mentions on consistent branding
8. Project Leadership & Delivery
The whole production managed from concept to launch and beyond, technical and creative teams aligned.
Deliverables:
- Project management and production coordination
- Timeline and development roadmap
- Weekly stakeholder alignment
- Coordination with hardware partners and fabricators
- Quality assurance across all media
- Support from concept to post-launch tuning
- Control of the full visitor journey, campaign to exit
How the Layers Add Up
Zoo of the Future works because each layer makes the others land harder. A layer is anything that shapes the visit: the story room that tells you how to look, the projection habitats, the sound and light, the headsets and touchscreens, the freedom to wander at your own pace, the staff on the floor, the app you take home, the campaign that brought you in. Only some of that is technology.
Take the penguins. You meet them in the projection room, so when the headset goes on you already know them. When they turn up in the app at home, the visit keeps going. Each moment borrows from the last.
More than 50,000 visitors later, the average visit runs over 60 minutes and the rating sits at 4.6 out of 5.
Why This Project Worked
Six lessons we now carry into every experience we design:
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The Message Is What You Feel
Nobody reads their way through Zoo of the Future. Every layer puts you closer to an animal than a real zoo allows, and that closeness is the message. The technology is how it gets felt.
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Strong Framing Matters
The 360° story room told visitors what to expect, why it matters and how to move through it. Skip that and people don't know how to engage.
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Visitors Set Their Own Pace
No guided tours, no forced path. Visitors moved through the three habitats at their own speed and picked the layers that interested them. People who feel in control go deeper and stay longer.
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One Story, Many Layers
Projection, VR, AR, touchscreens and the app tell one story. Meet the penguins in the projection room and you know them when the headset goes on. The app carries them home.
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Design for Day 100
This runs daily for months, with thousands of visitors, so it needed reliable kit, trained staff and the same experience every time.
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Just the Beginning
What we built in 2025 will look quaint in a few years. "Feels real" is turning into "indistinguishable from real" faster than most people expect, and Zoo of the Future proves it already works.
Your Questions About Zoo of the Future
How does a virtual zoo work, how long does it take to build, and could the model work for your venue? These are the questions visitors and venue operators ask us most often.
Need more clarity?
Still have questions?
Here are a few common questions about Zoo of the Future.
How long did it take from concept to opening day?
Roughly 7 to 9 months, concept to public opening:
- experience strategy and story development (6-8 weeks)
- 3D content production and VR environments (12-16 weeks)
- physical installation design and fabrication (8-10 weeks)
- technical integration and testing (4-6 weeks)
- staff training and soft opening (2-3 weeks)
Simpler installations, or ones that reuse existing content, go faster. Anything meant to hold people for an hour or more needs the testing time, for the creative and for daily reliability.
What technology becomes obsolete, and how do you future-proof these investments?
Headsets, on a 3 to 5 year cycle; the content does not have to. Zoo of the Future was built in Unreal Engine, so one set of 3D animals and habitats runs on VR, AR, touchscreens and whatever comes next. Keep content separate from hardware and choose industry-standard platforms, and the 268+ press mentions and brand equity outlive any headset model.
Can this model work for B2B or corporate experience centres?
Yes, and the same framework applies wherever people need to grasp something complex: emotional framing, self-directed exploration, deep immersion, continued engagement after the visit. For manufacturing clients such as Toyota Material Handling, interactive 3D experiences shortened sales cycles by 20-30%. Only the measurement changes: B2B tracks lead quality and conversion instead of ticket sales.
What staffing does an installation like this need day to day?
Four to six people at peak: one on greeting and tickets, two VR attendants (headsets, queues, light troubleshooting), one roaming host for AR and touchscreens, one technical coordinator. A lean crew works because the experience is built for autonomous exploration rather than guided tours. Training took one day: VR hygiene, common resets, visitor flow, emergencies. In a corporate setting the existing facilities team usually runs it, provided the technology is built robust and simple.
How do you measure success beyond visitor counts and press coverage?
We track behaviour, alongside attendance: dwell time per zone (which habitats resonate), VR session length (when people choose to stay), touchscreen depth (learning), app downloads and post-visit use (what continues at home), and flow patterns (bottlenecks and dead zones). Surveys measure emotional impact and likelihood to recommend. For B2B we track lead quality, sales cycle compression and deal conversion, because experiential metrics have to connect to the outcomes leadership cares about.
What were the biggest technical challenges, and how did you solve them?
Three: VR comfort over long sessions, hardware reliability under daily heavy use, and visitor flow at peak. Comfort came from content design with no artificial locomotion, high frame rates and proper seating. For reliability we chose headsets carefully, kept hot-swap backups and cleaned fast between users. Flow was solved with timed entry, clear wayfinding and VR that is never a mandatory bottleneck. Everything was stress-tested under full visitor load before opening.
Could this experience travel to other cities or scale to multiple locations?
Yes, with the right planning it travels well. The digital assets (3D environments, VR, app) are fully portable; only the physical fit-out changes per venue. A travelling version could run in 500-700 m² with fewer VR stations and the same narrative. For multi-location rollouts we recommend a hub model: build the flagship, measure, then template it. Content carries across locations while installation costs repeat, which suits brands, cultural institutions and trade show programmes wanting one consistent experience worldwide.
Are there zoos without real animals?
Yes. Zoo of the Future in Brussels is Europe's first fully virtual zoo: projection mapping, VR and AR put visitors among wild animals in their natural habitats.
Can a virtual zoo attract real audiences?
Yes. Zoo of the Future has drawn 50,000+ visitors and 268+ press mentions. Visits average over 60 minutes and visitors rate it 4.6 out of 5 across 2,861 responses, engagement most traditional venues cannot match.
Go deeper
See it in the work
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What Does Your Audience Need to Feel?
Planning a venue, exhibition or experience that has to move people? Let's talk about what a first layer could do for your space.