Earn Your Wings — ‘DreamWorks Dragons Flight Academy’ Takes Us to New Heights (Review)

In a far-off age Vikings and dragons were constantly at odds, until one day a Viking chief’s son brought the two entities together.

Thus began the idyllic age of dragon-riding. But this relationship is a fragile one in constant peril: Opposing clans, poachers, and hunters jeopardize the fragile balance between humans and dragons, and it’s up to you to join the fight to save dragon-kind. Can you mount a firebreather of your own, and take to the skies to defend harmony?

Not a bad premise, is it? That’s just a light descriptor for Dreamscape Immersive’s Dragons Flight Academy experience, their first collaboration with major studio DreamWorks for location-based VR entertainment. Dragons Flight Academy is a standalone adventure that takes place in DreamWorks’ How to Train Your Dragon (HTTYD) universe, based upon the animated children’s films of the same name.

For anyone that’s a fan of this franchise, this piece is recommended from the get-go, especially if you’ve seen the most recent film and want to revisit the Hidden World. (It takes place chronologically before the third film really gets going, so you wouldn’t have much spoiled for you, but some environments might seem out-of-place.) Newcomers to the story will still find plenty of joy in the experience, but might come away wanting more; the familiarity of the world and characters act as crutches for some of the experience — if you don’t know them, Flight Academy might seem a little better than a simulator ride.

Regardless of familiarity with an IP, Dreamscape has always onboarded people into its experiences well. Their VR experiences are metaphorical “train departures” from a cross-universe station, with Flight Academy added in similar fashion. When you sign up, you choose your avatar and the dragon you’ll ride inside from a pretty good variety of options. Don’t worry, you’ll be the same configuration as your party members (the experience takes up to seven others), but remember: you can try to talk during the experience, but you won’t be able to hear one another that well over the experience’s audio.

Your party is then led into a ready-room decorated within HTTYD’s world. It has an organic feel — the far wall contains a map of the isles around Berk (your fictional village launching point), and walls have wooden lockers with Viking inscriptions. The modern world is behind you, as you enter a new world of leather and oak.

Once personal belongings are stored, you’re led to a much darker room where your seat awaits… unlike other Dreamscape adventures, you won’t be walking around the stage. The seat resembles an exercise bike sans wheels. It’s very comfortable; the saddle rocks from side-to-side when you lean, and allows both turning and push/pull of the handlebars. Then wrap Dreamscape’s hand trackers on, put the headset over your eyes, and wait for your friends to do the same.

With the headset on, you’ll find yourself in a room with torches on either side. In the darkness before you… you can feel it, the floor rumbles with the footsteps, and entering the torchlight: a dragon!

It’s Astrid’s dragon Stormfly, actually, which is much larger up close. But Astrid appears alongside the dragon, and the two of them explain dragon-riding to you in an adorable way. It’s a contextual tutorial, which most experiences these days seem to lack. This is Dreamscape’s first stationary VR experience, and having an in-world tutorial on how to maneuver should be a new onboarding standard.

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You might be surprised to find that Dragons Flight Academy isn’t all about flying; first, you need to walk your dragon. After the introduction, you look down to find yourself already upon your winged steed, and your journey begins on the grass of the Viking village of Berk. The entire experience’s traversal switches between walking and flying, which flips automatically at key points in the story.

In the village, you’re joined by the other riders on their dragons, and together the group waltzes through a lively Berk with plenty of eye-grabbing details. It’s a ground-up look at the daily-life of the Berkians and the Viking-dragon harmony; the experience shows off a rare, new perspective the movies and TV show cannot quite capture. While you’re present among them at (cartoonish) life-size scale, you resonate stronger with the villagers, whether or not they are named characters.

As you progress through the village, the VR experience is mostly on-rails, allowing you some maneuverability but keeping you aimed forward. The whole experience follows a similar pattern — at no point will you ever be able to turn backwards or off in a sharp direction. Avid flyers wanting more control or maneuverability might find the lack of freedom in Flight Academy upsetting, but there are some high-speed sections in the flight path that are sure to please them.

This portion of the adventure (that actually takes place in the air) begins with the introduction of Toothless and Hiccup giving you the call to action: poachers have captured dragons and your team must retrieve them. Thus you take-off. The flight is gorgeous. Make sure to take a look around! There are some gamification elements for speed-demons to get ahead, but no one can be left behind; Flight Academy is programmed with a Mario-Kart-esque tethering system, so the group always stays somewhat together.

The rest of the mission (which will remain spoiler-free in this review) features a few familiar characters, and the ability to be led by Hiccup and Toothless through some difficult terrain. You have to make some pretty choice moves in the later section of the experience, and maybe breathe some fire to save the day. Any fan of the series will appreciate being led by Hiccup and Toothless as they exchange banter, but, unfortunately, you never get to be too close to the duo. They always feel more than fifteen feet away, which is a bit of a disappointment. We don’t see much of any action from them either, but this is your story after all.

The roughly 10-minute Flight Academy experience is well worth the journey but it’s not without some faults. For those that don’t enjoy getting wet, this one might not be for you as there are light water elements involved. Many of the character animations need refinement and the mechanics for some of the interactions are slightly finicky. If you expect to high-five or engage with your friends in the air, that won’t be in the cards. They may be flying around you, but sometimes you might lose sight of them entirely. Considering you can’t communicate well by talking, this “group” experience could feel unusually lonely.

But don’t let these things stop you. I’m a sucker for John Powell’s theme “Forbidden Friendship” from the original HTTYD film, and Dreamscape has even incorporated an adapted version in Flight Academy which still honors the franchise’s melody. They really put an effort into working with DreamWorks to make Dragons Flight Academy an authentic part of a world, which speaks volumes. Any fan would consider this flight worth flying.

So go forth future dragon riders, and head to your first mission! The skies await you.

Dragons Flight Academy is now open at Dreamscape Immersive in Westfield Century City, Los Angeles. Tickets are $20.

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