An emerging technology, along with its headsets that allow users to immerse themselves in an immersive experience, virtual reality (VR) has featured Notre-Dame in several projects.

French publisher Ubisoft is making for this spring an escape game adapted from Jean-Jacques Annaud’s feature film. Notre Dame is on firewhich was released in theaters in France on March 16 and traces the thread of the fire.

In the shoes of a firefighter who has to fight the fire on April 15, 2019, the player must progress to the cathedral with a mission to rescue the precious relics that are in it.

Another virtual reality experience, Eternal Our Ladyis currently on display in a space located under the Grande Arche de la Défense, in Paris.

time travel

Equipped with a virtual reality headset wirelessly connected to a backpack containing a computer, the visitor begins their journey through space and time in an animated 3D landscape in the presence of a holographic human guide while on his journey.

The real physical space of 500 m2 where this experience takes place can accommodate up to 50 people simultaneously.

This 45-minute tour begins on a street adjacent to the cathedral in the Middle Ages, where rain fell on glowing cobblestones, and then takes you on a tour of the three-tiered cathedral.

At the Collège des Bernardins, Notre-Dame de Paris, the expanded exhibition uses augmented reality to bring visual elements to the real-world image that appears on the screen of a device. On the tablet, the public must point their camera at approximately twenty images that trigger a hyper-realistic 3D on-screen representation depicting an important stage in the building, during its 850 years of existence.

This production was previously shown in the French pavilion at the Universal Exhibition in Dubai, where it attracted about 150,000 people a month.

The favorite cathedral of video games

Notre-Dame Cathedral has had many performances in the video game world.

The shooting game Overwatch from American Blizzard Entertainment, for example, in 2019 hosted a map of Paris that reproduces its streets and its major historical monuments, including Notre-Dame.

In this fictional version of the French capital, between futurism and reality, the cathedral faces the Eiffel Tower, the two buildings separated only by an arm of the Seine.

One of his most famous appearances remains in 2014, in an episode of Ubisoft Montreal’s Assassin’s Creed saga taking place during the French Revolution.

If nearly two years of work is required to build this virtual building, Ubisoft has allowed itself some anachronistic freedoms: this game gives pride of place to the ascent sequences, the famous Viollet-le-Duc’s arrow, inaugurated in the 19th century and destroyed by fire, is noticeably present so that the player can climb it and jump from its top.