Empire At Sea Puts 10 Apple Vision Pro Wearers Inside One Shared MR Drama

Ten people put on Apple Vision Pro headsets, gather around the same physical table, and watch volumetrically captured actors act out a branching sci-fi drama in the space between them. A group of ten people wearing Apple Vision Pro gathers around a table. Through passthrough mixed reality, volumetrically captured actors appear within the scene in front of them, while viewers can move around the table, change their perspective and take part in a branching story. That is the premise behind Empire At Sea, a new 22-minute immersive drama from director Peter Flaherty premiering in competition at Venice Immersive this week, with a trailer that debuted exclusively on UploadVR.

Early viewers seem most struck by how naturally the shared passthrough setup lets ten strangers occupy the same fictional room without headsets isolating them from each other:

A Solarpunk Drama About Letting Strangers Aboard

The creators describe it as a “solarpunk AR drama”, drawing on a science-fiction genre that imagines more sustainable futures. The story follows a group of climate scientists who relocate to a remote oil rig, according to the project’s own description at the Worlds in Play showcase, aiming to build a self-sustaining city at sea before an unnamed catastrophe cuts them off from the mainland entirely.

Five years pass with no contact from the outside world. The drama’s central tension arrives when a boat appears on the horizon, forcing the group and, by extension, the audience wearing headsets, to decide whether to let the newcomers aboard or turn them away by force.

The Cast and the Capture Tech

The cast includes Orlando Jones (American Gods), Ayelet Zurer (Munich), Geoffrey Arend (Goliath), Beth Grant (No Country for Old Men), Imani Jade Powers and Mary Chieffo. Venice’s own listing for the immersive competition adds several more names to the ensemble, including Terrence Bernie Hines, Charlene deGuzman, Julanne Chidi Hill and Robert Baker.

The actors were volumetrically captured for the production, which uses technology from 4DV.ai. That capture is what lets each of the ten viewers walk a full circle around the actors and see the scene from a different angle than the person standing next to them, all inside a single shared headset session.

Peter Flaherty’s Run Through Immersive Media

Flaherty is not new to putting audiences inside a story instead of in front of one. Flaherty previously created the AR and projection-mapping experience The Dial, shown at Sundance in 2019, and served as creative director for Marvel Studios and Disney’s Eternals AR project in 2021, among other immersive media projects.

Venice Immersive itself is no small stage. Venice Immersive runs September 2-12 as part of the 83rd Venice International Film Festival, with Empire At Sea among the projects competing in this year’s immersive program. The section draws entries built for VR, AR and mixed reality headsets from studios and independent creators worldwide, and a competition slot there carries real weight for anyone working outside conventional cinema.

Lincoln Center Booking Set for January 2027

Empire At Sea was commissioned by Lincoln Center and ASU Gammage, and Venice won’t be the only place to experience it. The production is scheduled to appear at Lincoln Center in January 2027, and its press notes say versions are also planned for VR headsets and mobile phones for at-home audiences.

No hardware, storefront or date has been locked in for that consumer release. Specific platforms and release timing haven’t yet been announced, per the production’s press notes. For now, the only way to see it is inside the shared Vision Pro setup running through the Venice Immersive program until September 12.

Reported from

• UploadVR
• La Biennale di Venezia
• Tom's Hardware Italia