Serious games for collective training in a Virginia class submarine

RealTime Immersive Inc., an Orlando simulation and serious games company, worked on a subsurface special operations environment for collective training in a Virginia class submarine. It was built on Virtual Attain, the company's CryENGINE-powered solution, and shown in a preview trailer of real-time, in-engine footage. The company argued that the detail of every asset and the cinematic quality of the environment made the work suitable for military use.

Virtual Attain was inspired by efforts inside the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Special Operations Command. It was designed for soldiers who have already trained in skills such as patrol operations, casualty evacuation, call for fire, egress and special operations tactics. Students practice those individual skills in a simulated team setting, and review features let them study critical decisions made under time pressure, which builds situational awareness in hostile environments.

RealTime Immersive described its business as answering rising costs of live training and shrinking budgets at government, military and commercial organizations. Its work targeted live, virtual and constructive learning experiences, and it moved into new offices in the Central Florida Research Park in Orlando. CryENGINE is a trademark of Crytek GmbH.

RealTime Immersive and Virtual Attain were registered trademarks or trademarks of RealTime Immersive, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. The company located its development team in the Central Florida Research Park, a hub for simulation and training.

RealTime Immersive has been rebranded as Mass Virtual. Its site, massvirtual.com, calls the company a software company providing spatial learning in an extended reality environment, built around a platform named MassXR. It states deployment to more than 207 global units supporting 31,000 USAF annually, figures that come from the company itself.

The home page does not mention Virtual Attain, CryENGINE or a submarine environment, so the availability of the submarine training game is unconfirmed.

MassXR is described as a commercial off-the-shelf platform that combines simulations, gamification and instructional videos with content management, learner monitoring and reporting, and training on any device. The company lists claimed results on its home page: a 35% gain in knowledge retention, 45% faster course completion, 44% fewer classroom hours, a 72% cut in retraining and a 90% positive approval rating from students and instructors. It also states a 50% reduction in aircraft needed for training and estimated annual fuel savings of $30 million. All of these are the company's own claims, and none refers to the submarine project.