8:46 (video game)

Last updated
8:46
8h46 Logo.jpg
Developer(s) Anthony Krafft
Engine Unreal Engine 4
Platform(s) Windows
Release2015
Genre(s) Simulation
Mode(s)Single-player

8:46 is a 2015 simulation video game based on the September 11 attacks. The game takes place in the World Trade Center and during the plane crash into the North Tower. [1] The name comes from the exact time that American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower. [2] [3] [4]

Contents

Gameplay

The player plays as an unnamed office employee working on the 101st floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center during the September 11 terrorist attacks. They do their morning telemarketing work in a room with one other employee. Suddenly, during their work, the building shakes and multiple ceiling tiles fall out of the ceiling. The door is jammed shut, and they and the other employee are trapped within the room. [5]

A man kicks open the door and hands them a flashlight. They are warned about the slowly encroaching fire. They are trapped in the darkness of the floor after every door is tested and is jammed. They are trapped within these confines. They hear as their co-workers make phone calls to their families saying their final goodbye as smoke fills the room. The man breaks open a window to the outside. As the player stands there, they have to make the choice between dying from smoke inhalation or jumping out of a window and falling to their death. [1]

Reception

When the game first released in 2015, many news publications gave it negative reviews, calling it "disrespectful", "horrifying", "distasteful" and "offensive". [6] [2]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virtual reality</span> Computer-simulated experience

Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs 3D near-eye displays and pose tracking to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment, education and business. VR is one of the key technologies in the reality-virtuality continuum. As such, it is different from other digital visualization solutions, such as augmented virtuality and augmented reality.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Westfield World Trade Center</span> Shopping mall in New York City

Westfield World Trade Center is a shopping mall at the World Trade Center complex in Manhattan, New York, which is operated and managed by Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield. The mall opened on August 16, 2016, as the largest shopping complex in Manhattan, with 125 retail spaces. It replaced The Mall at the World Trade Center, the underground shopping mall under the original World Trade Center, which was destroyed on September 11, 2001.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Casualties of the September 11 attacks</span>

The September 11 attacks were the deadliest terrorist attacks in human history, causing the deaths of 2,996 people, including 2,977 victims and 19 hijackers who committed murder–suicide. Thousands more were injured, and long-term health effects have arisen as a consequence of the attacks. New York City took the brunt of the death toll when the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan were attacked, with an estimated 1,600 victims from the North Tower and around a thousand from the South Tower. Two hundred miles southwest in Arlington County, Virginia, another 125 were killed in the Pentagon. The remaining 265 fatalities included the ninety-two passengers and crew of American Airlines Flight 11, the sixty-five aboard United Airlines Flight 175, the sixty-four on American Airlines Flight 77 and the forty-four who boarded United Airlines Flight 93. The attack on the World Trade Center's North Tower alone made the September 11 attacks the deadliest act of terrorism in human history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oculus Rift</span> Virtual reality headsets by Oculus VR

Oculus Rift is a discontinued line of virtual reality headsets developed and manufactured by Oculus VR, a virtual reality company founded by Palmer Luckey that is widely credited with reviving the virtual reality industry. It was the first virtual reality headset to provide a realistic experience at an accessible price, utilizing novel technology to increase quality and reduce cost by orders of magnitude compared to earlier systems. The first headset in the line was the Oculus Rift DK1, released on March 28, 2013. The last was the Oculus Rift S, discontinued in April 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Palmer Luckey</span> American entrepreneur (born 1992)

Palmer Freeman Luckey is an American entrepreneur best known as the founder of Oculus VR and designer of the Oculus Rift, a virtual reality head-mounted display that is widely credited with reviving the virtual reality industry. In 2017, Luckey left Oculus and founded defense contractor Anduril Industries, a defense technology company focused on autonomous drones and sensors for military applications. Luckey ranked number 22 on Forbes' 2016 List of America's Richest Entrepreneurs Under 40.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reality Labs</span> Virtual and augmented reality products company

Reality Labs, formerly Oculus VR, is a business and research unit of Meta Platforms that produces virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) hardware and software, including virtual reality headsets such as the Quest, and online platforms such as Horizon Worlds. In June 2022, several artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives that were previously a part of Meta AI were transitioned to Reality Labs. This also includes Meta's fundamental AI Research laboratory FAIR which is now part of the Reality Labs - Research (RLR) division.

<i>Impending Death</i> Photo taken during the September 11 attacks

Impending Death is a photograph taken by freelance photographer Thomas Dallal during the September 11 attacks. The photograph depicts the North Tower of the World Trade Center, on fire after being struck by American Airlines Flight 11 at 8:46 a.m., and shortly before its collapse at 10:28 a.m. Visible in the photograph are numerous people trapped in the upper floors of the building, hanging out of windows because of the intense smoke and heat. They were unable to escape because all of the stairwells and elevators above the 91st floor were severed by Flight 11's impact.

"Grounded Vindaloop" is the seventh episode in the eighteenth season of the American animated television series South Park. The 254th episode overall, it was written and directed by series co-creator and co-star Trey Parker. The episode premiered on Comedy Central in the United States on November 12, 2014. The episode lampoons virtual reality headsets including the Oculus Rift using various science-fiction movie references, and customer service call centers.

<i>Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes</i> 2015 video game

Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes is a puzzle video game developed and published by Canadian studio Steel Crate Games. The game tasks a player with disarming procedurally generated bombs with the assistance of other players who are reading a manual containing instructions. It was designed around virtual reality support, with availability first on Android-driven Samsung Gear VR, with later ports to supported devices on Microsoft Windows, OS X, PlayStation 4, and Linux; though could be played without virtual reality in some cases. An update for the game released in August 2018 removed the virtual reality requirement for these existing systems, as well as included releases for the Nintendo Switch and Xbox One. Non-VR ports for iOS and Android were released in August 2019.

Oculus Touch is a line of motion controller systems used by Meta Platforms virtual reality headsets. The controller was first introduced in 2016 as a standalone accessory for the Oculus Rift CV1, and began to be bundled with the headset and all future Oculus products beginning in July 2017. Since their original release, Touch controllers have undergone revisions for later generations of Oculus/Meta hardware, including a switch to inside-out tracking, and other design changes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virtual reality headset</span> Head-mounted device that provides virtual reality for the wearer

A virtual reality headset is a head-mounted device that uses 3D near-eye displays and positional tracking to provide a virtual reality environment for the user. VR headsets are widely used with VR video games, but they are also used in other applications, including simulators and trainers. VR headsets typically include a stereoscopic display, stereo sound, and sensors like accelerometers and gyroscopes for tracking the pose of the user's head to match the orientation of the virtual camera with the user's eye positions in the real world. Augmented reality (AR) headsets are VR headsets that enable the user to see and interact with the outside world. Examples of AR headsets include the Apple Vision Pro and Meta Quest 3.

<i>Robo Recall</i> 2017 video game

Robo Recall is a virtual reality first-person shooter game developed and published by Epic Games for Oculus Rift and Oculus Quest platforms. The game was released for the Oculus Rift on March 1, 2017, and an Oculus Quest version titled Robo Recall: Unplugged was released on May 21, 2019. Players that activate their Oculus Touch virtual reality controllers with its software are able to download the game for free.

Radial-G: Racing Revolved is an indie racing game, which was developed by Tammeka Games and was released on March 28, 2016, for the Oculus Rift. HTC Vive and Razer OSVR support via the Steam version was released April 5, 2016 and is going to be released on Sony PlayStation VR on September 12, 2017 for EU regions with U.S. dates to be announced.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virtual reality game</span> Video game played in virtual reality

A virtual reality game or VR game is a video game played on virtual reality (VR) hardware. Most VR games are based on player immersion, typically through a head-mounted display unit or headset with stereoscopic displays and one or more controllers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oculus Go</span> Untethered virtual reality headset by Oculus VR

The Oculus Go is a discontinued, standalone virtual reality headset developed by Meta Reality Labs in partnership with Qualcomm and Xiaomi. It is in the first generation of Facebook Technologies' virtual reality headsets, and the company's first device in the category of standalone VR headsets, which was a new category at the time of the Go's release. The Oculus Go was unveiled on October 11, 2017 during the Oculus Connect developer conference, and released on May 1, 2018. Xiaomi launched their own version of the headset in China as the Mi VR Standalone on May 31, 2018.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oculus Rift S</span> Virtual reality head-mounted display

Oculus Rift S is a discontinued virtual reality headset co-developed by Lenovo Technologies and Oculus VR. Announced in March 2019 and released that May, it is a successor to the original Oculus Rift CV1 model, with noted changes including a new "inside-out" positional tracking system with cameras embedded inside the headset unit, a higher-resolution display, and a new "halo" head strap.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oculus Rift CV1</span> Virtual reality headset by Oculus VR

Oculus Rift CV1, also known simply as Oculus Rift, is a virtual reality headset developed by Oculus VR, a subsidiary of Meta Platforms, known at the time as Facebook Inc. It was announced in January 2016, and released in March the same year. The device constituted the first commercial release in the Oculus Rift lineup.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frank De Martini</span> American architect (1952–2001)

Francis Albert De Martini was an American architect employed by the Port Authority of New York, the agency that managed the World Trade Center. He was killed in the September 11 attacks when the North Tower collapsed.

<i>The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners</i> 2020 video game

The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners is a virtual reality first-person shooter survival horror game for Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Oculus Quest, Oculus Quest 2, and Oculus Rift, developed by Skydance Interactive in partnership with Skybound Entertainment. It is based on the comic book series The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman. Initially released on Steam and Oculus platform on January 23, 2020, it was released on PlayStation VR in May 2020. Additionally, the title was ported to Oculus Quest in October 2020, alongside PICO 4 in January 2023.

References

  1. 1 2 Laukkonen, Jeremy (October 29, 2015). "This 9/11 VR Game Takes You Inside The World Trade Center At '8:46' [Video]". Inquisitr. Archived from the original on December 13, 2024. Retrieved January 6, 2025.
  2. 1 2 Williamson, John (October 30, 2015). "9/11 Oculus Rift Game '8:46' is Horrifying and Distasteful". eTeknix. Archived from the original on July 17, 2024. Retrieved January 6, 2025.
  3. Smith, Dave (Oct 29, 2015). "Makers of the 9/11 virtual reality app explain why they made the controversial game". Business Insider .
  4. Mohundro, Mike (Nov 3, 2015). "Virtual reality game takes players inside World Trade Center during 9/11 attacks". KFVS-TV .
  5. "Oculus Rift game [8:46] will portray the events of 9/11 | Gamespresso". 2021-09-26. Archived from the original on 2021-09-26. Retrieved 2023-10-22.
  6. "'Disgusting' new virtual reality simulator allows players to experience horror of 9/11 from inside North Tower". New York Daily News . November 2, 2015.