So it looks like everyone is getting in on this theme park lark. After Nintendo announcing its plans with Universal Studios, Ubisoft has announced that a 'next-generation' theme park is being planned for a 2020 opening in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia.
“Ubisoft’s intention for this park is to immerse people in reactive worlds where they can interact with each other and become the heroes of their own life-sized game,” says Jean de Rivières in the announcement on the Ubi Blog. He's the senior vice president of Ubisoft Motion Pictures which is in charge of the project alongside Malaysian theme-park developer RSG.
The park will be an indoor complex of 10,000 square meters featuring "rides, shows and other attractions, all built around Ubisoft's games and characters." RSG, who will be responsible for the running of the park, is currently working on a park called Movie Animation Park Studios (MAPS) for a 2016 opening. It's based around Dreamworks characters such as Mr Peabody, The Croods and Casper and will have Malaysia's tallest drop tower.
And why Malaysia, you scream? Rivières has an answer for that. “Malaysia is the second-most-visited country in Asia. There is room for multiple projects to take root in the region and a growing middle class with an increasing income and appetite for entertainment.”
I'm not exactly sure where 'next-generation' comes into things but I'd imagine plenty of attractions with Spider-Man Ride style CGI simulations if it's all going to be indoors. However, I'm already calling an Oblivion-style diving coaster called Leap of Faith. All it needs is a haystack and the bottom and an eagle cry in your ears as you plummet. There's no list of attractions for the park yet but it doesn't take much to imagine that a stack of Rabbids will be making an appearance. Just keep telling yourself that and it might make you feel better about the cost of flights.
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