NEOM, the visionary development in northwest Saudi Arabia, has committed to protecting 95% of its land and sea for nature, with an active rewilding programme that has reintroduced more than 1,100 animals across multiple species — including Arabian oryx, Nubian ibex, mountain gazelles and red-necked ostriches — to its expansive Nature Reserve. As part of its strategy to integrate conservation with tourism, NEOM commissioned Habitat XR to create an immersive technology experience that would commemorate and build public understanding of the forthcoming Hisma rewilding effort.
Habitat XR designed and produced the Hisma HoloGorge, a site-specific night-time hologram walking safari set within a 500-million-year-old sandstone canyon in the Hisma landscape. The studio 3D-scanned the canyon to ground the experience in real terrain, then modelled and animated 12 hyper-realistic 3D animals from scratch, ensuring each digital creature appeared scale-accurate and physically present within the natural environment. Custom projection-based holographic hardware was engineered specifically for outdoor use at scale, paired with a positionally-aware audience system that synchronised spatial audio narration to each moment of encounter along the guided route.
The narrative layer was designed as an interpretive thread, with a desert Jinn — a spirit from Arabian folklore — guiding visitors through short stories about each species, linking wonder to conservation science and NEOM's wider ambitions around ecosystem protection, restoration and rewilding.
Across the six-month exhibition period, the installation was experienced by an estimated 5,000 participants, including tourists, NEOM staff and government VIPs. The project demonstrated how immersive technology could embed conservation storytelling directly into a physical landscape, creating a participatory experience that connected diverse audiences with the ecological significance of the region's rewilding programme.
