To help athletes learn the importance of staying hydrated on the field, we created a way to allow them to feel the effects of dehydration in virtual reality. Gatorade built Beat the Blitz, a groundbreaking virtual reality simulation designed to illustrate the symptoms of dehydration through an exciting and educational game.

The experience features former All-Pro quarterback Peyton Manning, who not only teaches athletes how to play the game, but also brings them inside the body to show the effects of dehydration. Beat the Blitz pushes innovation in VR to create a compelling way to help teens understand their hydration needs.

First we designed the game’s experience. The goal was to create gameplay that was immersive enough to have replay value with true-to-life physics and player movement. During development, we worked with the Gatorade Sports Science Institute to understand and portray the science behind hydration — bringing it to life in a realistic and accessible way for teen athletes. We turned to Microsoft to volumetrically capture Peyton Manning so he could be included in the experience as a brand ambassador and life-size athlete for users to interact with.

Beat the Blitz is currently available as a free download and has been featured at elite high school football camps across the country. To share more information on why Gatorade created Beat the Blitz, a behind-the-scenes video was distributed via social and pre-roll.

With more than 12,000 downloads on high end VR headsets within weeks from launch, Beat the Blitz users have averaged 59.5 minutes of play time. The behind-the-scenes video that explained Gatorade’s rationale for creating the experience captured more than 2.75 million views on YouTube. Gatorade debuted the experience at the NFL combine, where NFL players Josh Allen and Sam Darnold demonstrated the technology, garnering 73.7 million media impressions with mentions in Bleacher Report, the New York Post, FanRag Sports, and more. The VR experience will continue traveling to football camps through the summer.