Astrea Immersive presents Wallace & Gromit in The Grand Getaway, a VR adventure from multi-award-winning independent animation studio Aardman and immersive storytelling experts Atlas V! The iconic stop-motion animated duo’s first virtual reality experience revealed its key art, logo, and an exciting teaser trailer during Saturday’s Future Games Show, as part of Summer Games Fest, following its initial announcement last year.
See how the whimsical world of Wallace & Gromit translates to VR in the exciting first teaser below:
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Wallace & Gromit in The Grand Getaway is an interactive, narrative-led VR experience for Meta Quest VR headsets which will take fans on a brand-new adventure with much-loved characters Wallace and Gromit. For the first time, users will be able to walk around, explore and get a hands-on (or paws-on!) experience within the world of Wallace & Gromit, and truly be a part of the pair’s adventures.
In The Grand Getaway, holidays are in the offing for Wallace and Gromit. Everything is prepared to enjoy some sun, sand, and the chance to test out their latest contraption, the Auto-Caddy. But Wallace has his dates mixed up and the pair have to be on the other side of the country in just half an hour. There’s only one solution… they’ll take the Rocket!
Under the guidance of BERYL, their beverage and employee-related logistics contraption, Wallace and Gromit pack and prepare for take-off. But shortly after launch, a mishap with the controls sends the team hurtling off course. This is going to be a holiday to remember!
Wallace and Gromit, Aardman’s most beloved and iconic duo, have been delighting family audiences around the world for 30 years. First hitting our screens in Nick Park’s Academy Award®-winning Wallace & Gromit: A Grand Day Out (1989) the pair went on to star in three further half hour specials (Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers (1993), Wallace & Gromit: A Close Shave (1995), and Wallace & Gromit: A Matter of Loaf or Death (2008) and a feature length film, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005), and are internationally celebrated winning over 100 awards at festivals, including 3 Academy Awards® and 5 BAFTA® Awards. Most recently, the duo featured in their first augmented reality story, The Big Fix Up, launched in 2021, and a new Wallace & Gromit film has been announced for 2024, directed by Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham.
Finbar Hawkins and Bram Ttwheam are co-directing the experience for Aardman with the support of Academy Award® winner and creator of Wallace & Gromit Nick Park, and Wallace & Gromit Creative Director Merlin Crossingham. Ben Whitehead will again voice Wallace, as he has done for previous Wallace & Gromit projects, following in the footsteps of the late Peter Sallis.
The project is a co-production between Aardman and the award-winning creators of the VR experience Spheres and Gloomy Eyes at Atlas V, in association with No Ghost and Albyon, and published by immersive distributor and publisher Astrea, with Meta Quest team support.
Wallace & Gromit in The Grand Getaway will launch in 2023 for Meta Quest.
A full press kit, including key art, logos, and fact sheets, can be found here: https://uberstrategist.link/Wallace-Gromit-VR-Press-Kit.
Stay up to date on all things Wallace & Gromit by following their official Instagram and Facebook channels.
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About Aardman
Aardman is an employee-owned company, based in Bristol (UK) and co-founded in 1976 by Peter Lord and David Sproxton. An independent, multi-Academy Award® and BAFTA® award winning studio, it produces feature films, series, advertising, games and interactive entertainment. Current animated productions include the feature length sequel Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget and a brand new Wallace & Gromit film for 2024.
Its productions are global in appeal, novel, entertaining, brilliantly characterized and full of charm reflecting the unique talent, energy and personal commitment of the Aardman team. The studio’s work – which includes the creation of much-loved characters including Wallace & Gromit, Shaun the Sheep, Timmy Time and Morph – is often imitated, and yet the company continues to lead the field producing a rare brand of visually stunning content for cinema, broadcasters, digital platforms and live experiences around the world. Recent celebrated projects include the Academy Award® and BAFTA® nominated short film Robin Robin, International Emmy® award winning Shaun the Sheep: The Flight Before Christmas, BAFTA® nominated preschool series The Very Small Creatures and the brand new CGI comedy series for kids, Lloyd of the Flies. Alongside these film and TV projects the studio is also responsible for the ‘visually astonishing’ (The Guardian), BAFTA® nominated console game, 11-11: Memories Retold, the four-times Gold Cannes Lions-winning StorySign app, and AR experience Wallace & Gromit: The Big Fix Up.
The studio runs the Aardman Academy which has a commitment to nurturing talent by delivering excellence in film and animation training and mentoring. The Aardman Academy offers a variety of courses from intensive one-day workshops teaching production skills and storyboarding, to comprehensive twelve-week courses for professionals in craft based subjects from model making to animation.
In November 2018 it became an Employee Owned Organisation, to ensure Aardman remains independent and to secure the creative legacy and culture of the company for many decades to come. Learn more at www.aardman.com
About Atlas V
Founded in 2017, Atlas V was created at the crossroads of the entertainment industry, technological innovation and traditional audiovisual production. The combination of these skills has given rise to a studio specializing in the production of immersive works and content, with the aim of creating the first immersive media group to master the entire production chain, from conception to distribution. To achieve this, Albyon, a studio specializing in real time and VR located in Lyon, was launched in 2020, followed in 2021 by Astrea, a company dedicated to the distribution and publication of immersive content.
From immersive VR and AR experiences to interactive installations, Atlas V seeks to engage audiences by leveraging new technologies, strong visual aesthetics and immersive design. Atlas V’s productions have been widely recognised internationally by the most prestigious film festivals such as Sundance, Tribeca, Venice, Annecy, as well as by awards such as the Webby Awards, Annie Awards and the Emmy Awards. Learn more at atlasv.io.
About Meta Quest
The Meta Quest team at Reality Labs lets people defy distance — connecting with each other and the world — through world-class VR hardware and software. The Meta Quest content team pursues the creation of best-in-class games, narrative experiences, and new VR use-cases like fitness, productivity, and travel. Meta Quest joins other teams at Reality Labs dedicated to cutting-edge research, computer vision, haptics, social interaction, and more. Reality Labs is committed to driving the state of the art forward through relentless innovation.
About Astrea
Astrea is the third branch of Atlas V, the renowned French studio behind VR immersive experiences like Gloomy Eyes, Battlescar, Spheres, Notes on Blindness, On the Morning You Wake, and many more. Launched publicly in September 2021, Astrea now represents over 65 VR experiences that are selected at film festivals and showcased in museums around the world. In a new industry that is full of interesting challenges, Astrea is one of the few teams that are tackling the distribution, publishing and international marketing of immersive narrative VR content. Learn more at astreaimmersive.io.
About No Ghost
No Ghost is an award-winning immersive story studio that fuses interactivity, narrative and cutting-edge technology to leave a lasting impact. Since 2016 they have been creating groundbreaking immersive content across the spectrum of digital platforms, such as the Emmy® award-winning Madrid Noir in 2021.
Built from a team of future-obsessed artists and programmers, No Ghost harnesses the power of cutting-edge technology and channels it into projects that keep narrative at their core. This combination allows us to tell stories like never before, revealing fresh perspectives, innovative narrative forms, and deeply interactive experiences. No Ghost is a truly collaborative team, working with all manner of clients from global brands to local artists, committed to pushing the boundaries of immersive productions. Learn more at www.noghost.co.uk
About Albyon Studio
Albyon is a real time dedicated studio that operates at the frontier of animated movie and video game technologies and develops narrative experiences designed for new immersive worlds. Led by video game and 3D animation veterans, Albyon brings together a team of passionate people, pushing boundaries back every day to tell stories that matter.
The studio took part in several memorable pieces of work in narrative VR, like Battlescar, Madrid Noir, Missing Pictures, and Glimpse, which just won best VR experience at the International Animation Festival of Annecy and the Cannes XR Festival. Albyon is one of the most awarded studios in its field, with distinctions coming from Tribeca, the Mostra de Venise, Numix, the Biennale de Venise, and the GIFF.
Rooted in innovation, Albyon invests in research and development to allow for the creation of new worlds and new stories. The studio creates engaging artistic experiences that go from fighting against racism, inequalities, or protection of the environment to unique experiences, at the heart of a punk concert, in the depths of the ocean, or flying a rocket with Wallace and Gromit. Learn more at albyon.io.
