The defunct NBA Experience at Disney Springs is finally getting a replacement, and it sounds fantastic! In fitting ‘circle of life’ fashion, Level99–which you might even call a gaming ‘quest’ experience–will soon be coming to the massive empty building at Walt Disney World. This covers the announcement, along with our commentary explaining why this is great news and a perfect fit.
Level99, an interactive entertainment experience with locations on the East Coast, has officially announced it will open its newest outpost at Walt Disney World. This will be Level99’s first-ever Florida location, on the West Side of Disney Springs in the building most recently occupied by NBA Experience.
The opening at Walt Disney World will mark Level99’s fifth location as it continues to grow and scale its footprint, targeting national expansion. It brings something to Disney Springs that sounds like the the spiritual successor to DisneyQuest, which previously occupied this same space and, at the bare minimum, should be better than absolutely nothing. That might seem obvious, but I’m not sure it’s a bar that was surpassed by NBA Experience.
On its official website, Level99 describes itself as a first-of-its-kind destination for adults featuring real-world, interactive social gaming with over 50 physical and mental challenges set in artistic environments.
Level99 combines a variety of activities–interactive games, virtual reality experiences, escape rooms, arcades, and social spaces—all designed to engage visitors in unique and adventurous ways. Its spaces blend technology, creativity, and social interaction in a single place, with a variety of rooms offering a mixture of family fun, group activities, and adult entertainment.
Here are the highlights, per Level99:
Rooms with Themed Challenges – Work together in dozens of unique challenge rooms with your team of 2-6 players to test your body and mind. Your team has each room to yourself, but only 1-4 minutes to complete each challenge, so act quick!
Player vs. Player Duels – If competition is more your style, face off against your friends in a variety of player-vs-player competitions for glory and bragging rights.
Local Art – Installations by local artists. Featuring over 50 pieces of local one-of-a-kind art, Level99 games will have you searching, solving, and discovering every inch of this wonderland space.
Beyond the games themselves, Level99 features best-in-class design, an award-winning culinary offering, and craft beverages that are worth the trip. “It’s a video game come to life,” said Level99 CEO Matt DuPlessie, an MIT-trained engineer and Harvard Business School graduate who previously worked with Disney and Universal and leads the production team behind the Level99 experience. “This is where you can be the hero in your own entertainment.”
Walt Disney World selected Level99 for the defunct NBA Experience space after a comprehensive review of the location-based entertainment industry. Level99’s location at Walt Disney World will add to the growing list of dining, shopping and entertainment options at Disney Springs, which features more than 150 shops, restaurants and family-friendly leisure activities.
With its third and fourth locations set to open in 2025 at Tysons Corner Center in Virginia and The Corbin Collection in West Hartford, Connecticut, Level99 plans to open several more locations in the future, including Disney Springs. DuPlessie indicated that Level99 is “defining the category and setting the standard for out-of-home, interactive entertainment.”
DuPlessie added: “After spending two decades in the location-based entertainment industry, it became clear there was consumer demand for a concept like this – a real unmet need. Our vision is to make ‘challenge rooms’ a mainstream concept, and the opportunity to open at a marquee location like Disney Springs is the next step in our plans to expand the Level99 brand nationally.”
Considered by most to be the inventor of today’s modern escape room industry, DuPlessie launched the first escape room style concept in the world in 2004. He opened the first Level99 location in 2021 after contemplating for years how to build a more durable and broadly appealing experience that combined all the mechanics people love about video games with creative physical and mental challenges that could be repeatedly enjoyed in a competitive, real-life, social setting.
“One minute you’re in an ornate museum and the next minute you’re in a ninja dojo,” said DuPlessie. “These are short, punchy, immersive challenge experiences you can’t get on your couch or a screen.” Level99’s proprietary entertainment offerings are developed in the company’s game design studio where creators and engineers dream up and produce a variety of new challenges every year to keep the experience fresh and ever changing.
Level99 has established a footprint in New England where it has experienced industry-leading guest traffic fueled by players driving on average over half an hour to visit. A typical experience at Level99 includes at least 2-3 hours of entertainment play, followed by drinks and food at its scratch kitchen and bar, with some players staying all day.
The Disney Springs location will be Level99’s largest to date including the most entertainment options, with over 60 challenge rooms and duels. Level99 will occupy over 45,000 square feet in a two-level venue that will host upwards of 1,000 players at a time in the interactive gaming and bar/dining space. A two-story bar serving handcrafted cocktails and local beers will serve as the centerpiece of this location, accompanied by its chef-crafted menu including Level99’s signature, award-winning, Detroit-style pizza.
This isn’t Level99’s first rodeo taking over defunct spaces. In Providence, the company worked with dozens of regional Rhode Island artists to transform an empty JC Penny into the open world of entertainment and discovery you can step into today. This bodes well for the repurposing of the NBA Experience building.
The Disney Springs location will be Level99’s only outpost serving the greater Orlando area. The company plans to hire over 100 roles for its team at Walt Disney World.
Turning to commentary, I’m already bullish on this concept.
I’ve only spent ~70 minutes researching Level99 and its CEO Matt DuPlessie and I’m impressed with what I’ve read thus far, which includes this MIT Alumni interview detailing some of his experiences with Disney and desire to work in the themed design and entertainment spaces.
I’m also impressed that Level99 is relatively reasonably priced, with tickets costing as little as $29.99 for 2-hour blocks and $49.99 for all-day experiences. It should go without saying that pricing will be higher at Walt Disney World. But hopefully we aren’t looking at anything like the recent Cake Bake debacle, where this is priced so high from the jump that it’s prohibitive for most families.
Level99 also just looks flat out fun, interesting and engaging. While I love the idea of something like a Meow Wolf or TeamLab, this strikes me as meatier and more substantive, where there’s more of an esoteric quality to those. That’s just my gut and keep in mind that I’ve never visited Level99 and am going solely off their own description and reviews. But this sounds to me like something pitch-perfect for Walt Disney World’s guest demographics.
Obviously, I would also prefer something purpose-built by Disney for this location. However, I’m also a realist. Imagineering has a ton on its plate right now, and I would rather see its top talents working on things in the theme parks–attractions and lands that benefit all guests, as opposed to niche hard tickets.
There’s also the unfortunate reality that Imagineering cannot deliver anything efficiently. Every project is expensive, and most go over budget. This has been an ongoing and recurrent problem, and is probably one of the big reasons that DisneyQuest was never updated and ultimately failed. For something like this, it’s key to keep startup costs and operating expenses down so that ticket prices can follow suit. Otherwise, it’s doomed to fail before it ever opens. (See also, Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser.)
For whatever it’s worth, I never felt this optimistic about NBA Experience. The totality of our coverage was a lame running joke where I pretended to forget what was replacing DisneyQuest and feigned surprise that the project hadn’t been cancelled. My commentary repeatedly questioned whether the market for such a huge venue dedicated to a single sport existed among Walt Disney World visitors.
It did not. Even while open, NBA Experience struggled to draw guests and offered aggressive Cast Member deals and even free admission. Obviously, the closure of Walt Disney World and subsequent slowdown during the phased reopening didn’t help. However, business had been booming at Disney Springs for over a year at the point when Walt Disney World announced in 2021 that the NBA Experience would permanently close.
The closure of NBA Experience was inevitable. It would’ve happened regardless of March 2020. That was not what killed the NBA Experience–it’s what gave a convenient face-saving cover to close the incredibly unpopular attraction. We didn’t cover the NBA Experience while it was operational because there was zero reader interest. We didn’t receive a single comment asking when we’d review it.
The point of all this backstory is that whatever Walt Disney World does next with this space (or allows to happen via a tenant), they need to be sure that it’s cost-effective and has not just the potential–but the probability–for success. My hope is that Level99 fits the bill on that front, and has both the capability to build something in this space that’s not prohibitively expensive and is reasonably appealing to a sufficient number of fans.
My hope is that Level99 starts out small, essentially cloning the winning formula from its Rhode Island locations at Walt Disney World. A company that prides itself in creative ambition and transforming dead JCPenny stores sounds like a winning combo to me. Again, just having something in this space will be a win, and Level99 getting up and running without breaking the bank on build-out will help avoid a repeat of the Cake Bake debacle.
Hit the ground running and have that function as proof-of-concept and a foundation for the experience to evolve. Longer term, what I’d love to see is a true partnership with Disney like the (also now defunct) Void. This was another Disney Springs location that went out of business in 2020, but unlike NBA Experience, it was awesome.
We did the Void VR: Star Wars Secrets of the Empire and absolutely loved it. Truly an underrated Walt Disney World experience. When it closed, here’s what I wrote: “I believe immersive virtual reality experiences have a strong future. The Void was ahead of its time, and I can only imagine tech companies will further iterate upon the idea, improve it, and scale it up. Hopefully Imagineering has such projects in the pipeline.”
We now know that Imagineering does have such projects in the pipeline, as prolific patenter Lanny Smoot created the HoloTile floor. For those who are unfamiliar with it, HoloTile is the world’s first and only multi-person, omni-directional, modular, expandable, treadmill floor. Using HoloTile, any number of people can have a shared virtual reality experience, walk an unlimited distance in any direction, but never collide or walk off its surface.
The HoloTile floor plus whatever other tech Imagineering has created plus a larger space plus a partnership with Level99 could be the perfect recipe for the former DisneyQuest/NBA Experience space. If we really want to get into wishful thinking territory, they could probably even do something Star Wars and recycle some of the technology, games, and other elements from Galactic Starcruiser!
Suffice to say, I’m optimistic about the possibilities presented by Level99 going into the former DisneyQuest space, and offering a spiritual successor to that gamified experience. As a native Michigander, I also love Detroit-style pizza and find that there are no good places to get it at (or even near) Walt Disney World. I don’t normally associate spaces like this with good food–more like the urban legend that Chuck ‘E’ Cheese recycles its pizzas–but if it does, that alone is enough to sell me on this concept!
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YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you think of Level99 replacing the defunct NBA Experience at Disney Springs? Think it could be a fitting spiritual successor to DisneyQuest? Will Level99 be a good fit for Walt Disney World’s guest demographics? Do you agree or disagree with our assessment? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback—even when you disagree with us—is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
