Respond XR
Practicing Workplace Violence Situations Safely
RespondXR is an immersive XR simulation designed for practicing the prevention and management of threatening and violent situations in social and healthcare environments. The simulation enables learners to encounter realistic aggressive behaviour, practise their responses, and develop confidence in situations that would be difficult or unsafe to reproduce in traditional training.
RespondXR is developed in the InnoXR project in cooperation between Kajaani University of Applied Sciences and the Wellbeing Services County of Kainuu. Its technical implementation is created by the Clever Simulation team. The simulation is intended especially for social and healthcare students and professionals, but its approach can also be adapted to other fields where employees may encounter threatening behaviour.
Gameplay
In RespondXR, the learner wears a Meta Quest 3 headset while remaining aware of the real physical environment through passthrough technology. A virtual person is placed directly into the learner’s actual surroundings, such as a reception room, treatment room, classroom, or other training environment. This allows the exercise to take place in a setting that closely resembles the learner’s real working conditions.
During the simulation, the learner practises recognising warning signs, communicating with an agitated person, de-escalating the situation, withdrawing safely, and calling for assistance when necessary. Depending on how the situation develops, the virtual person may become calmer, remain at the same level of agitation, or escalate into increasingly threatening behaviour.
The simulation is controlled in real time by an instructor using a separate control interface. The instructor observes the learner’s reactions and actions and determines how the virtual character responds. Because the character’s behaviour is not limited to a single predetermined sequence, the same scenario can develop differently each time and can be adjusted to match the learner’s experience and training goals.
Teaching Content
RespondXR is designed to provide a safe and repeatable way to practise situations that are difficult to reproduce realistically with traditional teaching methods. Lectures, role-playing, and conventional simulations can support learning, but scenarios involving genuine physical threats are understandably difficult to recreate safely.
The simulation makes it possible to practise anticipation, situational communication, de-escalation, safe withdrawal, and requesting assistance without exposing participants to actual physical danger. At the same time, the immersive nature of XR helps create emotional involvement and a sense of presence that supports experiential learning.
An essential part of the training takes place after the simulation. Because threatening situations can create strong emotional reactions or remind participants of previous real-life experiences, sufficient time is reserved for guided reflection and debriefing. The aim is not simply to complete the scenario, but to discuss what happened, why the situation developed as it did, and how the experience can be applied in real working environments.
Game Design
The simulation content has been developed together with social and healthcare professionals and educators using service design methods and evidence-based information. Development workshops collected examples of real workplace violence situations, their warning signs, and the different ways in which these situations can escalate or calm down.
Based on these experiences, three different virtual characters were created: a gender-neutral teenager, a middle-aged man, and an elderly woman. The characters can be given different backgrounds and behavioural patterns, allowing instructors to create both familiar and unexpected situations without relying solely on visual stereotypes.
Each character has a detailed behaviour structure describing emotional states, reactions, speech, gestures, and possible escalation. Their movements, facial expressions, and dialogue have been produced using motion capture and camera-based facial capture in cooperation with local actors to make the encounters feel believable.
A central design principle is flexibility. Rather than following a fixed script, the virtual person reacts according to choices made by the instructor. This allows the intensity, dialogue, emotional expression, and progression of the situation to be adapted during the exercise.
Future Development
RespondXR will be piloted and finalized during autumn 2026.
Alongside the game itself, the project will produce a facilitator’s handbook and technical instructions to support its use in teaching, training, and competence development.
Download
The game is planned to be released by 2027 at the latest and will be available free of charge for Meta Quest devices.
The long-term aim is to provide a practical and impactful tool that supports more inclusive practices and deeper understanding of neurodivergent experiences across education, social and healthcare services, and everyday life.
