The goal of Embrace.VR was to create an emotionally resonant, interactive installation that explored the power of human connection in an increasingly digitised world. The challenge: design a VR experience that merged emerging technologies—passthrough VR, AR, wearable tech, and projection mapping—into a unified, emotionally driven narrative. It needed to be both technically innovative and deeply human, creating a lasting impact through story, interaction, and sensory design.

We developed Embrace.VR, a one-of-a-kind immersive experience where participants entered a near-future world on the brink of emotional collapse. Their mission: save it by physically embracing hyper-real digital avatars—digital beings rendered in mixed reality using passthrough VR and layered with real-time biometric feedback and light-reactive visuals.

Structured as a narrative game, the experience asked participants to build connection through embodied action. You "won" if you embraced enough avatars to restore the emotional field of the world; you "lost" if you failed to connect. The experience used proximity, decision-making, and narrative consequence to turn empathy into a mechanic—blending spatial design, sensory immersion, and emotional stakes into a playable story.

Embrace.VR premiered at the New Museum’s New Inc: Digital Humanism Group Exhibition in New York City, showcasing the potential of immersive technologies to evoke meaning through presence and interaction.

It drew strong attention at its debut, resonating with audiences through its rare blend of technological integration and emotional clarity. The project demonstrated how gamification can be used not to entertain or distract, but to provoke reflection and connection—transforming the act of empathy into a win condition.

It served as a powerful proof of concept: that the future of interactive storytelling lies not only in innovation, but in how those tools are used to help us feel more human.