Australia’s VR and XR industry is small compared to the US or Europe, but what it lacks in scale it makes up for in quality. A handful of studios across the country are producing work that competes internationally, spanning games, enterprise training, architectural visualisation, and immersive film. Here are five worth knowing about.

1. Prism Interactive — Melbourne

Focus: VR games and interactive entertainment Team size: Around 25 Notable work: Fractured Skies, a VR flight combat game; Beneath the Surface, an underwater exploration title

Operating out of Collingwood since 2019, Prism has bet on building their own catalogue of VR titles rather than surviving on client work.

Their most successful release, Fractured Skies, has sold over 80,000 copies on the Meta Quest store and earned positive reviews for its intuitive flight controls and Australian-designed landscapes. Co-founder Liam Park has spoken publicly about wanting VR games to reflect Australian environments rather than defaulting to American or European settings.

The studio is currently working on a multiplayer VR experience set in a fictional underwater research station off the Great Barrier Reef.

2. Vantage XR — Sydney

Focus: Enterprise training and simulation Team size: Around 40 Notable work: Mining safety simulations for BHP and Rio Tinto; healthcare training modules for NSW Health

Vantage XR is the largest dedicated XR studio in Australia. Founded in 2017 by former mining engineer Sarah Okonkwo and software developer James Chen, the studio started with a single mining safety module and has since expanded into healthcare, defence, and logistics.

Every training module goes through validation with subject matter experts, and they measure outcomes with pre- and post-training assessments. This evidence-based approach has won them long-term contracts with some of Australia’s largest companies.

Their emergency department triage training module, developed with NSW Health, is now used at five hospitals across the state. The studio recently opened a second office in Brisbane, signalling growing demand from Queensland’s mining and energy sectors.

3. Spatial Canvas — Brisbane

Focus: Architectural visualisation and real estate Team size: Around 15 Notable work: Interactive walkthroughs for Mirvac, Stockland, and several boutique developers

Spatial Canvas occupies an interesting niche: they build VR experiences specifically for the property and construction industry. Their core product is a platform that converts BIM models and architectural renders into interactive VR walkthroughs that buyers and stakeholders can explore.

Using Unreal Engine 5, they produce walkthroughs that rival pre-rendered architectural visualisations but with full interactivity. Buyers can change finishes, adjust lighting, and see how a space feels at different times of day.

Mirvac has used Spatial Canvas for several off-the-plan apartment projects in Brisbane. According to Mirvac, the VR suite at their sales centre has been involved in roughly 30% of off-the-plan sales for those projects. The studio is now expanding into commercial property, building VR fit-out tools for office tenants.

4. Ochre Immersive — Adelaide

Focus: Immersive documentary and cultural experiences Team size: Around 10 Notable work: Country, an immersive experience exploring Indigenous Australian landscapes; Below Zero, an Antarctic research station documentary

Founded by documentary filmmaker Megan Thornton and VR artist Daniel Yirrkala, Ochre Immersive creates immersive non-fiction experiences at the intersection of documentary, art, and technology.

Their most recognised work, Country, is a 30-minute experience created with Anangu elders from Central Australia. It uses spatial audio, 360-degree film, and interactive elements to convey Indigenous perspectives on land and connection. The piece has screened at Venice, SXSW, and the Adelaide Film Festival.

Below Zero places viewers inside the Australian Antarctic Division’s research station during winter isolation, using photogrammetry captured on location combined with audio interviews from winterers.

Ochre Immersive operates on a mix of arts funding, festival commissions, and partnerships with cultural institutions. The cultural impact of their work has put Australian immersive storytelling on the international map.

5. Forge Reality — Perth

Focus: Industrial training and digital twins Team size: Around 20 Notable work: LNG plant operations training; port logistics simulation; mine site digital twins

Perth’s proximity to Australia’s resources sector makes it a natural home for industrial VR studios, and Forge Reality has positioned itself squarely in that space. They build VR training and digital twin applications for mining, oil and gas, and logistics clients.

Their most significant project is a complete VR replica of an LNG processing train for a major North West Shelf operator. New operators learn startup and shutdown procedures without disrupting actual production — a scenario that previously required classroom instruction or expensive downtime on real equipment.

Forge Reality has also developed a digital twin platform for port operations that overlays real-time data onto a VR model. Logistics managers can walk through the virtual port and visualise vessel scheduling in three dimensions — the kind of tool that resolves stacking conflicts in thirty seconds rather than an hour of radio calls.

The Bigger Picture

These five studios represent different facets of Australia’s XR industry. What they share is a pragmatic approach — building products for specific audiences with clear value propositions, not chasing hype.

The Australian VR industry is still young, and it operates without the venture capital runway that US studios enjoy. That constraint has been a strength, forcing studios to find paying customers early and build things that work rather than things that demo well. If Australia’s XR sector continues to grow, these are studios that will be at the centre of it.