Corona’s mission was to encourage people around the world to reconnect with nature and the outdoors. Provoked by a statistic that the average person spends 95% of their life indoors. Corona believes outside is where our best side shines, however 50% of the global population are urban dwellers. Thus Corona wanted to create a 'Secret Paradise' in the heart of Mexico City to provide access to a new perspective and experience in one of the world’s most densely populated cities.

The idea was to create an immersive VR installation resulting in a simulated journey through a jungle to a beach, creating the feeling of being completely immersed in nature. Upon entering the ‘Paraíso Secreto’ location and following a series of interactive moments with characters in a stylized urban bar setting, visitors gained access to the secret paradise via a hidden door camouflaged as a Corona vending machine.

‘Paraíso Secreto’ was held at the Gral Prima in Mexico City across two weekends. 3,000 people experienced the secret paradise including local influencers, contest winners and members of the public.

Over a period of six months a team of developers, artists and engineers, crafted four vast worlds using virtual portals to effortlessly transition users between these distinct landscapes.

‘Paraíso Secreto’ was built using Epic Game’s Unreal Engine, allowing a real time graphics system to be used to achieve high degrees of visual fidelity whilst also being very optimised for VR.

To create naturalistic environments Autodesk’s Maya software was used, along with Speedtree, to create realistic plants and trees.

To enable full freedom of movement a Backpack PC based system was paired with HTC’s Vive Headset, allowing the user to walk around the space whilst carrying the driving PC on their back.

The PC system used was the 'Zotac VR GO'. Attached to this was a Leap Motion sensor to the front of each Vive headset to enable full hand tracking in the VR space in real time.

Most importantly, a sense of touch was incorporated into the VR world. Elements of touch within the VR world that enhanced the experience included flowers bursting into bloom as your hand comes into contact with them in a ripple effect, mimicking the naturally occuring vibrancy of native Mexican flora and fauna.

During the 6 nights, the experience went viral across the US, UK and Mexico resulting in 178M+ global media impressions.

Ultimately, the installation, in its awakening of the senses, was successful in leveraging the Corona brand ethos - celebrating the outdoors and enjoying the simple pleasures of life.