Unraveling The Mystery of Immersive Fort Tokyo (Review)
The world’s first immersive theme park is still finding its footing
When I learned that “the world’s first immersive theme park” was opening in Tokyo, I could hardly contain my excitement. I invited a friend and we visited on a sunny Friday afternoon in April, a bit over a month after it opened. We were surprised to find no wait at the gate.
Upon entering we were greeted with a Disneyesque town square under an artificial sky, strains of muzak betraying the impressive space’s repurposed retail roots.
Few people were milling around as we made our way to our first attraction, Identity V Immersive Chase. We only had to wait twenty minutes to get in, and this was our longest wait of the day. Based on a popular online game, the attraction effectively marries elements of haunted houses and escape rooms, delivering an exciting chase experience through a series of creepy spaces and narrow corridors.
Players are given a smart device and divided into teams. The devices provided instruction, character backgrounds, and a special skill in written Japanese, English, Chinese, or Korean, but the story elements were all Japanese, and in a game where teamwork is essential some level of fluency is a must.
The next attraction we queued up for was an immersive version of Hansel and Gretel, a walk-through storybook featuring projected computer-generated animation and an immersive sound enhanced by set dressing. The attraction offers two courses that cleverly converge at the end, one in which you see the story from the protagonists’ point of view and the one we chose, a reframing of the witch’s story. The visual elements were serviceable if not spectacular, and the story was the familiar story. This would be fine if frightening fare for kids. According to the website, this attraction is also available in English, but I was unaware of that at the time.
Our main attraction was the exorbitantly priced Tales of Edo Oiren, a seventy-minute supernatural suspense experience set mostly in classical Japan. This show delivered thrills and laughs with a team of bright young actors who excelled at making the audience comfortable and uncomfortable in turns. This was the highlight of our visit, despite the sparse English scaffolding available. Before the show, I was given a sheet with a character breakdown and a little of the background of the historical setting but once we were in it, everything was in Japanese.
We finished the day with Jack The Ripper, a fairly standard haunted-house-type attraction set in Victorian England with plenty of atmosphere and jump scares.
Large parts of the park are still under development, and we are rooting for Immersive Fort to fulfill the promise of what it could become, but considering the cost and accessibility, there are other immersive experiences in Tokyo I would prioritize when planning a trip.
Immersive Fort Tokyo is open daily, with entry tickets starting at 6800 yen (around $45 at press time) for adults and 2000 yen for children. Attractions such as Tales of Edo Oiren require an additional ticket running as much as 8000 yen (around $50 at press time).
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