Imagine your team landing on the Red Planet without ever leaving the office. Mission to Mars VR is our virtual reality team building experience designed to turn colleagues into a real space crew, split between explorers on the ground and a mission control team coordinating operations from behind the screens. It’s one of the most immersive formats in our tech and VR collection, built for groups who love a good challenge and aren’t afraid of a headset.
The mission
Groups of 4 to 6 people are dropped into a simulated Mars expedition. Some team members wear the VR headsets and physically explore the Martian surface, facing obstacles, puzzles and unexpected events. The rest of the team stays outside, watching external screens that show what the explorers see, and acts as mission control, guiding every move in real time. Nobody experiences the same thing at the same moment, and that’s exactly the point: the mission only succeeds if both sides communicate clearly and constantly.
How it works
Each participant is assigned a specific role, such as commander or engineer, reflecting how a real space mission would be organized. Roles rotate throughout the experience, so everyone gets a turn with the headset and a turn coordinating from mission control. This back-and-forth forces the group to develop a shared language on the fly, translating what’s seen inside the simulation into clear instructions for people who can’t see it directly. It’s a hands-on exercise in what we call asymmetric communication: information isn’t equally distributed, and the team has to organize itself to compensate.
Why it works
Mission to Mars VR isn’t just a novelty tech gadget for the office party. Because information is split between two groups who can’t see the same thing, the format naturally exposes communication gaps, unclear instructions and assumptions that don’t get questioned. Teams that succeed are the ones who learn quickly to ask better questions, confirm what they’ve understood, and build trust in what a colleague is telling them, even without direct proof. It’s an engaging, low-risk way to practice problem solving and coordination skills that translate directly to daily work, especially for tech-savvy, curious and challenge-driven groups.
How to organize it
We are TeamBuilding.it, and for 22 years we’ve been designing corporate experiences that actually change how teams work together. With more than 130 original formats across 7 thematic areas and offices in Rome and Milan, Mission to Mars VR is one of the experiences we can bring directly to your company or organize at one of our venues. If you’d like to explore this format or discover other options suited to your team, get in touch with us: our claim isn’t just a slogan, it’s what we do. We build teams that work.
Reach out through our contact page and let’s plan your team’s mission together.
Frequently asked questions
How many people are needed for Mission to Mars VR? The format is designed for small groups of 4 to 6 participants, which can be multiplied to accommodate larger companies with several simultaneous crews.
Do participants need any VR experience? No previous experience is required. The headsets and controls are simple and intuitive, and our team guides participants through the setup before the mission starts.
What skills does this format develop? Mission to Mars VR is built to strengthen communication, especially between people who don’t share the same information, along with problem solving, coordination and quick decision-making under pressure.
Is Mission to Mars VR suitable for non-tech teams? While it’s especially popular with tech, nerd and problem-solving profiles, the format is accessible to any team looking for an engaging and unconventional experience.
To protect participants’ privacy, the images were recreated with AI based on real events.
