Third Call is an innovative art-game developed by the VOLNA artists collective, created as part of the ongoing renovation of the Badisches Staatstheater in Karlsruhe, Germany. Commissioned for the theater’s 2025 season and spearheaded by its newly established Digital Theater division, the project offers players a unique opportunity to explore a reimagined interpretation of the theater's spaces. By merging architecture with gaming, Third Call invites audiences to engage with the evolving identity of the building through an interactive, artistic lens.
Built using Unreal Engine, Third Call transforms the theater’s architectural blueprints into a fully immersive, first-person journey. The game plunges players into a surreal, deconstructed version of the theater, where they navigate a looping quest to find their seat in a not-yet-revealed futuristic performance hall. This narrative structure echoes the ongoing renovation, creating a metaphorical and real-time reflection on the interplay between the building’s historical legacy, its present transformation, and its speculative future.
Visually, the game masterfully blends the precision of architectural renderings with the eerie atmosphere of liminal spaces, crafting an aesthetic that feels both familiar and otherworldly. Drawing inspiration from seminal works like The Stanley Parable and the cyberpunk ethos of Blade Runner, Third Call establishes its own distinct identity, fusing clarity and ambiguity into a cohesive artistic experience. The result is a space where storytelling, architecture, and digital media converge, inviting players to contemplate the theater not just as a building but as a living, evolving concept.
As part of the Badisches Staatstheater’s initiative to integrate digital innovation into performance art, Third Call reimagines what theater can be. By turning the theater’s physical metamorphosis into an interactive journey, the game blurs boundaries between audience and performer, space and narrative, reality and simulation. This bold exploration of the intersection of digital media, architecture, and performance art challenges traditional notions of what constitutes "theater" in the 21st century.
As The Third Call clearly demonstrates, game engines like Unreal are increasingly central to digital art production, enabling creators to push the boundaries of interactivity and immersion in ways previously unimaginable.
Formed in 2016 as a loose cooperative of architects, artists, engineers, cultural workers and artisans, VOLNA is based in Karlsruhe, Germany. We have an extensive track record of successful collaborations with major museums, theaters, festivals, biennials, educational institutions, grassroots cultural initiatives, nightclubs, and corporate clients. Whether it's mechanical flowers under your feet or intricate environmentally sustainable art objects in the Alps, a dramaturgically designed immersive light forest for a choreographic performance or interactive light mirrors for a university bus stop, light set-ups for underground music venues or the entire architecture for a festival with 15,000 visitors, or even a virtual Kunsthalle with lifelike lighting effects, in all of our projects VOLNA creates unique and exciting artistic environments that integrate organically into each site with own unique context and specifics.
For more information, visit VOLNA Media’s official website.