Background
The Local Police of Marbella has installed a virtual reality training system at its headquarters, making it the first police force in Andalusia to adopt the technology. The town council presented the system on 5 August 2026, positioning it within a modernisation programme that has already brought the force video surveillance systems and body-worn cameras connected back to headquarters.
The deployment
The system is Octopus, a tactical training platform built by the Spanish developer Last Monkey Studio. It places an officer inside three-dimensional, 360-degree environments in which police procedures are rehearsed under conditions intended to approximate a real call-out. The module Marbella has acquired specialises in dangerous building entries and carries enough variables that the developer describes the set of possible training situations as practically unlimited.
Rollout began with the instructor who runs the force's shooting range, where the equipment is installed, and will extend progressively to the rest of the force. A new intake of 25 officers currently joining will train on the system alongside serving staff.
What officers train on
The emphasis is on the judgement around use of force rather than marksmanship alone:
- decision-making under time pressure
- escalation and de-escalation in the use of force
- giving orders out loud during a building entry
- managing physiological stress
Simulated weapons form part of the setup, and scenarios reproduce stress conditions that require officers to speak and act in real time.
Hardware and software
Officers train in a VIVE Focus Vision headset and aim a replica service pistol fitted with a motion tracker, so the weapon appears in the simulation exactly where it is pointed. An instructor runs the exercise from a Windows PC driving a large wall-mounted screen beside the training area.
Octopus is designed and developed in Spain and is organised into modules, each covering a different aspect of police and law-enforcement training. In the developer's published account of the platform, a session runs in a clear floor space of at least five metres square, with base stations tracking the weapon and a torch, plus instructor controls and overhead recording so an exercise can be reviewed and critiqued afterwards. That description covers the platform generally rather than Marbella's specific installation.
Wider adoption
Octopus was first fielded by the local police forces of Elche and La Vila Joiosa, and has since been taken up by forces including La Nucía, Arrecife, Valencia and Oviedo. Marbella is the first adoption in Andalusia.
Outlook
The council has framed the purchase as the opening step in a continuing programme of investment in policing technology rather than a one-off, and the force's leadership has tied it to raising the preparedness of the entire establishment.
