Otherworld: virtual reality bar & kitchen, Haggerston

If you sometimes find yourself wishing you could grab your favourite people and escape from reality for a bit, you can...for 40 minutes or so. Visionary company The Dream Corporation have jumped on the virtual reality (VR) zeitgeist and created an adult playground, appropriately called Otherworld, which houses 16 different VR adventures.

Amid the purply pink hues of the Otherworld hub are individual VR pods offering multisensory experiences. Each player gets their own, meaning you won’t feel exposed when wearing your headset – a state-of-the-art VIVE model – or have to worry about onlookers laughing at your flailing arms. At the same time, the pods have been designed so that guests can still hear their fellow adventurers making their way through their own experience, meaning you won't feel cut off, either.

Between the 16 different experiences, the tastes of all kinds of gamers have been catered for. The daring with a taste for virtual violence can fight a zombie apocalypse or blow up robots using a laser cannon, while the curious may wish to follow a mouse on its own miniature adventure.

Those who have been dragged to Otherworld but would far rather be outdoors can climb Mount Everest, while those who feel most at home in the kitchen can ‘slash’ fruit playing ‘Fruit Ninja’.

If you’ve had a tough day at work, you might find you want to right those wrongs with ‘Job Simulator’ – an experience aiming to give users job satisfaction by having them complete tasks and get their workspace in order. And those with a thirst to learn at all times can choose to rise above and look down on pockets of the earth with Otherworld’s Google Earth VR experience.

Lending the VR complex a trendy edge is Otherworld’s food and drink offering. Californian-inspired poké maestros Lords of Poké are in charge of the food, serving small plates (which range from steamed edamame beans to teriyaki beef sliders in healthiness), poké bowls and five different flavours of mochi ice cream for dessert. Drinks wise, craft beers and a cocktail menu curated by an ex-Milk & Honey mixologist are on offer, providing gamers with something to wind down with when they crash back down to reality.

Otherworld opens on 15 April 2019. Groups of up to 14 can play at one time and adventurers can choose whether to commit to a 25 or 40-minute experience.