The nDreams Festival and 10 Years in VR Celebration

For the past two days, our teams across all nDreams studios and departments have been taking a well-earned break from running the world’s biggest VR game developer to enjoy the third annual nDreams Festival. Now an nDreams staple, the Festival always provides a great opportunity to reflect on our work and accomplishments, bring us all together as a team for two days of fun, socialising, and learning.  

2023 is the first year that an external venue has played host to the nDreams Festival, since our Farnborough HQ would have been a tight squeeze for our 230+ team members. How far we’ve come since last year!

This has been a year of milestones for our team. Our 17th anniversary as a studio, which was back on the 20th of August, also marks a decade since our transition to VR. We’ve been exclusive to virtual reality development for a full 10 years and we’re certainly not looking back. 

We’ve learned a lot in that time and have come a long way since those early days of Perfect and The Assembly. This year saw the release of Synapse, a game that has received incredible critical reception and love from the PS VR2 community, and we’re bringing beloved franchises PowerWash Simulator and Ghostbusters to VR platforms before the year is out. It's an incredibly exciting time – and just wait until you see what we’ve got cooking for 2024. 

Before we get ahead of ourselves, though, we’ve taken time to celebrate the successes we’ve already had. The nDreams Festival has been a packed two days of talks, entertainment, and team building. We’ve been fortunate enough to have another amazing roster of guest speakers sharing their knowledge and expertise with the team, including: 

• Shuhei Yoshida, Head of Indies Initiatives at Sony Interactive Entertainment, took part in a recorded sit-down discussion with nDreams CEO Patrick O’Luanaigh. 
• Luke Whitlock shared his experiences of being an Art Director on the untitled Ghostbusters: Afterlife sequel, and work on other blockbuster movies such as Avengers: Endgame. 
• Emma Rose spoke about her history and experiences as an eSports world champion. 
• Jake Meyer, a record-breaking mountaineer and adventurer, recounted his experiences of conquering Mount Everest and K2. 
• Representatives from nDreams charity partners Into Games, Limit Break, and Out Making Games shared insight into their vital work to improve access to, and diversity within, the games industry. 
• …and so much more! 

Not a fan of talks? Attendance of all activities across both days is completely optional. The nDreams Festival is all about giving everyone the space and time to enjoy themselves however they prefer. This can include board games, miniature painting, retro games from Duck Hunt to Power Stone 2, more contemporary multiplayer favourites like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, VR games (naturally), hand massages, LEGO pits, crocheting, and more.  

The nDreams Festival is an internal event, exclusively for nDreams staff, but we hope to see you at the next one! We’re actively recruiting across all departments for each of our studios, and we can confidently say you’ll be excited by our projects in the works. Be sure to check out our latest vacancies.