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Activate opened its first location in Germany on August 17, 2026, inside Mall of Berlin. The venue covers 10,097 square feet and holds eleven interactive game rooms, the Winnipeg company said in a release the same day. VRex Entertainment’s co-founder Christian Ebster leads the DACH rollout as one of two regional partners; Jeremiah Sizemore represents the other, Sounds Fun Entertainment.
Players form teams of two to five and move between interactive game rooms, according to the release. Each room sets a different physical or reaction challenge. An RFID wristband tracks each player’s levels and achievements from one game to the next and across return visits. Activate said the Berlin venue offers more than 800 challenge levels.
With eleven rooms and teams of up to five, at most 55 players are in the game rooms at one time. Activate did not publish session length or ticket price for Berlin.
VRex Entertainment GmbH is based in Herzogenaurach, near Nuremberg. Activate’s earlier release announcing the DACH deal described VRex as the leading BattleKart franchisee and Germany’s first EVA franchisee. BattleKart is a projection-mapped karting format; EVA is a free-roam VR esports format from France. Ebster first saw Activate in 2022 through a video of its Mega Grid game, according to that release.
“Germany has a strong culture of social entertainment and Activate offers something entirely different, an experience where teams move, think, and compete together,” said Ebster, co-founder of VRex Entertainment. Sounds Fun Entertainment worked with VRex on the launch, the release said.
The second German site opens later in August in Fürth with twelve rooms. It sits inside Next Level Funpark, an existing family entertainment centre. Wiesbaden follows in November at Lili Mall. Vienna is scheduled for spring 2027. Activate said further locations are planned across Switzerland.
Activate said it now operates 80 locations in twelve countries. They are Canada, the United States, Denmark, Germany, France, Finland, Malaysia, Mexico, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates.
“Germany has an incredible gaming culture, and we’re excited to watch Players make Activate their own,” said Adam Schmidt, co-founder and chief executive of Activate.
“The challenge with challenge game rooms is that you need to constantly refresh the variety, faster than most operators realize. If someone returns to play again, and they wind up playing the same room, they anchor to the belief that it doesn’t change, and the odds of a third return drops dramatically. If on their second visit the experience is different, that surprise and delight anchors in their memory, and the likelihood of continuous repeat visits increases,” said Bob Cooney, a VR consultant and executive director of LEXRA, the trade association for location-based XR, who began his career operating immersive location-based entertainment in 1989. Cooney publishes The VR Collective.
Activate’s release does not say how often rooms or levels rotate.
For FEC operators, Fürth puts twelve Activate rooms inside an existing Next Level Funpark within weeks of the standalone Berlin mall venue. For vendors of headset-free formats, Activate arrives in Germany through VRex Entertainment, an operator that already franchises EVA and BattleKart. For investors, Activate has 80 locations in twelve countries, with three German-speaking openings dated through spring 2027.
Where is Activate’s first location in Germany? Inside Mall of Berlin, opened August 17, 2026. Activate said it covers 10,097 square feet with eleven interactive game rooms and more than 800 challenge levels.
How do Activate’s interactive game rooms work? Teams of two to five move between rooms, each with a different physical or reaction challenge. An RFID wristband tracks each player’s levels and achievements across rooms and return visits.
Who is Activate’s partner in Germany? VRex Entertainment of Herzogenaurach, led by co-founder Christian Ebster, with Sounds Fun Entertainment. Activate has described VRex as the leading BattleKart franchisee and Germany’s first EVA franchisee.
Where does Activate open next in the DACH region? Fürth, inside Next Level Funpark, later in August 2026 with twelve rooms. Wiesbaden at Lili Mall follows in November 2026 and Vienna in spring 2027. Further sites are planned in Switzerland.
