ULTRAZONE
Back to Earth
From 1995 to 2020, next to the Sports Center in San Diego, CA, there existed a two-story laser tag arena. To middle schooler Quinn, who listened to a borrowed copy of Underworld's Everything, Everything in sixth grade art class and watched their dad play online Quake 1 and 3, this was the coolest shit ever. From the silly lore I took too seriously, to the website I poured over repeatedly at that age, and the doodles in the margins of my notebooks of different laser tag arena ideas... this page is dedicated to everything ULTRAZONE.
Table of Contents
Author's Note: Almost all of my personal experience comes from the 2004—2013 era. Anything past that point, I'm sort of riding in blind on, and mostly pulling what info was previously available on their website!
History of ULTRAZONE
ULTRAZONE's story begins prior to its official opening, all the way back in 1987. Laser tag arenas had been a thing since the mid-1980s, thanks to the success of Photon in Texas and other locations across the United States. However, our story instead takes us over to Australia, where a new arena was opening up: Phasor Strike! Two years later they would rebrand as Zone, not only for their location, but for their "empire" of arenas that would open up elsewhere – in this wake, arenas with names like "Darkzone", "Megazone", "Laserzone"... Sure enough, their empire's vast reach even came back over to the United States, where ULTRAZONE would open in Southern California, on August 24, 1995.
I know little about the early years of ULTRAZONE, as their website – which is about one of the only resources I can get my hands on – opened up in 1998. Sad... However, I want to say that, based on the way that things are discussed with updates that came in 1999 (more below), they had basic game modes at this point and maybe one Sentinel, in the second floor of the arena. According to the Laser Tag Museum, Zone Empire was running VERSION 4 of their platform at this point, so I think there's a good chance that's what the earliest version of ULTRAZONE was running.
In 1999, a major update came to the venue in the form of SYSTEM Z, a brand new Zone Empire laser tag platform that included further game modes and upgraded packs and phasers. At this time, the second Sentinel was also added to the lower level, and they were given sound systems that allowed them to "talk" to players...
2003 saw the team colors change to the Red, Blue, and Yellow I'm very familiar with; prior to this, Blue Team was Green Team, and I would suspect that this was changed to make it easier to designate between the three teams for those with color blindness? This isn't really worthy of its own paragraph, but I wanted to denote this in the history somewhere, for myself.
At this point, SYSTEM Z was out of date on the part of Zone Empire, who put out SYSTEM T in 2000. ULTRAZONE would skip this platform, however, opting for a major update in 2003, with the newly-released INFUSION platform. This notably introduced Player Powers. A year later, 2004, a new foe would enter the arena: the Alien. 2004 is considered to be ULTRAZONE's last year of its "classic" iteration, at least going by the lore (yes there is lore for this silly laser tag facility, are you really that surprised?) as it was adjusted in 2013. And speaking of...
Various other platforms would be released by Zone Empire over the next half decade; ULTRAZONE would finally have a massive revamp and update in 2013, using NEXUS PRO V2, which had released in 2008. This would also come with a complete overhaul of their website, lore, gameplay... everything changed, and for me, who's most familiar with the late-2000s iteration of ULTRAZONE, this stuff is wacky to see. A touch screen element was introduced to make Player Powers easier to use, among other gameplay consolidations to make everything run more smoothly.
At a certain point between 2016—2018, the NEXUS PRO V2 name was removed from the website, its description left intact otherwise. At this point, Zone Empire had already introduced its HELIOS PRO platform in 2014, with wildly different looking phasers and vests than what continued to be used at ULTRAZONE; HELIOS phasers had touch screens built into them, they're kind of crazy. So, they never made the jump to the newest tech, which isn't out of the ordinary for ULTRAZONE, who had a decade-long gap between its major system update.
In 2020, when COVID-19 hit the United States and the pandemic began its chaotic first year, ULTRAZONE was placed on a temporary close, waiting and hoping that things blew over and life would get back to normal, and people could adventure back into The Zone. This, sadly, would never come, as the temporary close became a permanent one. There was no feasible way that a place like ULTRAZONE, with physical gear that would get reused for each match and a dark enclosed space of about thirty people running amuck in could operate in a safe manner. And so, the legacy of a nearly thirty year old arena came to a close, with ZONEHEADS out there, mourning the loss with a single tear down their cheeks.
