Qiddiya City, the real-life city built to become the global center of gaming and esports, was on hand at Tokyo Game Show recently and provided a first look into UBAR™, its cyberpunk zone.
If this is the first you’re hearing of this, you might be wondering: What’s Qiddiya City? Well, that’s a simple question with a more complicated answer. In broad terms, it’s a massive construction project in Saudi Arabia, about 40 minutes from the capital city of Riyadh, that began in 2019 with the aim of creating the world’s first purpose-built city dedicated to play.
“Play” comes in lots of forms, so the city will be full of all kinds of different entertainment options. For sports fans, there will be a FIFA-compliant multisport stadium, a motorsports speed track, and two golf courses. There will be a futuristic Performing Arts Center, a water park, and multiple theme parks — including the world’s first Dragon Ball theme park. In all, the city will have more than 400 tourist attractions and experiences.
But perhaps its most interesting and unique concept is what Qiddiya City calls IRL Gaming, which is designed to make you feel like you’re in a living video game. IRL Gaming is the primary feature of the Gaming & Esports District, which is located in the heart of the city.
The Gaming & Esports District will be divided into four zones, each with its own theme and corresponding to a gaming genre. Those four zones: Cyberpunk (RPG), Alternate History (Action Adventure), High Fantasy (MOBA), and Space (First-Person Shooter).
The design of each zone is based entirely around the central theme, with characters, lore, and narrative built into the environment. It’s essentially aiming to provide true immersion in the types of worlds that have previously only been possible to experience in media. There are even achievements you can earn, and getting a certain number of them can grant access to additional areas of the zone.
There will also be gaming-themed hotels where visitors can stay, but the city and its districts aren’t purely for tourism. There will be housing matching the aesthetic of each zone, residents will have special perks like permanent access to areas you normally need achievements to unlock, and the district as a whole will have lots of amenities for esports players and fans.
The Gaming & Esports District will have several spaces devoted to esports matches and facilities for esports players. There will be four dedicated esports venues, the largest of which will have 5,300 seats. The city has the capacity to simultaneously host training and bootcamping for up to 20 esports teams, and there will be training facilities and permanent housing for players to use.
Representatives from Qiddiya City have been going on a global tour this year called Unearthing Qiddiya. They’ve been visiting the world’s biggest gaming events and providing experiences to attendees that give a glimpse into what each of their gaming zones will be like. At Gamescom Latam in June, the experience was built around the city’s Alternate History zone. At Gamescom Cologne in August, it was the High Fantasy zone. And recently, at Tokyo Game Show, it was the Cyberpunk zone.
Attendees got to step into UBAR™, a cybertropolis set in Arab Futurism rather than the dystopia often depicted in pop culture. People could earn achievements to get a chance to win a replica Sentinel, create an UBAR™ ID that they can use in the real zone once it launches, and they got to see and hear some of the music, fashion, and characters that will be featured in the final product.
Their world tour isn’t over, with a planned stop at G-Star in Busan in November to unveil their final Space zone. Qiddiya City also was one of the founding members of the Esports World Cup that debuted this year in Riyadh, and in the future it’ll be the home to the annual event.
Qiddiya City is an incredibly ambitious project with incredibly ambitious goals. It wants to establish itself as one of the world’s foremost tourist destinations while giving people experiences they can’t find anywhere else. Their goal is to be hosting at least 10 million visitors annually by 2030. If you’d like to stay up to date on what’s happening with Qiddiya, you can join the communities on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Twitch, and Discord.
