Titanic: Echoes from the Past (VR Exhibition, Eclipso Entertainment, London, UK)
Efforts to spotlight forgotten voices through a fresh lens are thoughtful and sincere, but the tech's limitations breaks immersion
There’s no shortage of Titanic experiences out there, so credit where it’s due: Echoes from the Past puts in a real effort to find a genuinely new angle.
Told through the eyes of William Harbeck – a Canadian cinematographer and real-life passenger I’d never heard mentioned before – the VR exhibition is more reflective than flashy, and all the better for it.
The VR experience mostly consists of you gliding through moments and parts of the ship’s story that often get glossed over.
The decision to foreground lesser-known names, such as Fang Lang, one of Titanic’s six Chinese survivors (h/t
); Chief Engineer Joseph Bell, who died keeping the lights on; and Katie Gilnagh, a third-class teenager who escaped through sheer instinct and luck, lends the piece real emotional heft.It feels more educational than sensational, which, in a sea of melodrama, is a refreshing quality.
Their stories are sensitively and thoughtfully told, underpinned by two years of research drawn from archives at the Cité de la Mer in Cherbourg and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Here, the aim is to impart history in an immersive way – and at times, it really works.
Descending the Grand Staircase might be predictable, but peeking through a deck window into the ship’s gym was a moment of ingenuity. It made the experience feel explorable and alive, not just something to passively watch.
The way your headset doubles as a head torch while exploring the seabed is a clever touch too, allowing you to freely wander the debris field and marvel at just how far Titanic fell. The spatial audio and environmental detail are well-executed, and the aurora borealis makes an appearance.
Some moments are undeniably striking. Watching the iceberg silently scrape past the hull from just feet away is chilling in the right sense.
But the final sequence – a sweeping pullback to show Titanic in all her glory leaving Southampton – is clearly meant to be the showstopper. And emotionally, it lands. Visually? Not quite.
For all its ambition, Echoes from the Past is confined by the limits of its technology.
The graphics are dated, textures muddy, character movements uncanny and clunky. Lips don’t match the voices, hand gestures miss their marks, and characters often reach for objects without ever actually making contact – small details, but enough to break the illusion.
Minor, but persistent, VR gremlins – floating hands, jittery animations, clipping through walls – break the spell.
Dialogue can be difficult to catch, especially when it overlaps with ambient sound.
Sadly, the unreality of it all constantly reminds you you’re watching a simulation, not standing on the quay.
The promotional material – featuring dramatic images of visitors peering into the engine rooms or gazing at the gaping hole where the Grand Staircase once stood – sets expectations the experience never quite meets, advertising a level of realism and detail the VR simply doesn’t deliver. Maybe it hints at what future versions could achieve. Either way, we’re not there yet.
And at under 30 minutes, it ends just as it finds its rhythm.
Still, the ambition is undeniable, and there’s something quietly moving about it all.
Echoes from the Past spotlights forgotten voices through a fresh lens. The framing through Harbeck is thoughtful, sincere and refreshing, and there’s real heart in the storytelling – just don’t expect to forget you’re wearing a headset.
Accuracy: ★★★★☆
Immersion: ★★★☆☆
Scale: ★★★☆☆
Overall: ★★★☆☆