Kansas City Crossing, Part Two: Atlas9

This is the part of the trip we never planned. If you missed the aquarium, K.K. Slider, and our yakiniku dinner, check out Part One.

A last-minute find

We literally didn’t know Atlas9 existed until the night before. We were scrolling social media from the hotel room, it popped into our feeds, and it seemed like a great win. We both loved Meow Wolf’s Omega Mart in Las Vegas, and this looked very much like the same spirit.

Atlas9 is an immersive art experience in Kansas City, Kansas, built inside a fictional 1990s movie theater. The setup: in 1995, an attempt to upgrade the theater’s projection system went haywire, and a secret government agency has been keeping an eye on the place ever since. You play an agent, armed with a wristband you scan at objectives throughout the building.

We ended up spending six hours there. The recommended visit is two.

Splice Bros. Pizza

We started with lunch at Splice Bros. Pizza, the in-world pizza shop. We had delicious Gouda mac and cheese bites and the hilarious, but still good, Dino nugget pizza.

Back to the ’90s

Then we went exploring, and it was everything we expected. As children of the ’90s, stepping right back into a retro movie theater was a joy. Neon, bright colors, concessions, and a free-play arcade were 100% the right way to kick things off.

The rest of the building is themed around fictional movies, like Trance of the Sapphire, The Scavengers, and Starbot, with a few others getting less of a spotlight. Tying it all together are the behind-the-scenes spaces of the theater itself: a projection room, an employee break room, the manager’s office, and more.

The whole place is also a goldmine for photography. Between the neon, the color-soaked rooms, and the empty theater corridors, there are great shots around nearly every corner. A lot of the in-between spaces have a liminal, “Backrooms” kind of vibe, the kind of hallway that feels familiar and just slightly wrong at the same time.

One of my favorite moments came in the popcorn room. A character kept talking to me in a made-up language, and I couldn’t tell what she wanted at first. It turned out she wanted me to film her. It ended up being hilariously memorable.

Two agents, two endings

At Omega Mart, we came close to finishing the story but ran out of time. This time, we spent the whole session and beat it, going after two separate endings. Helen took the good agent route, and I went rogue.

The endings didn’t change the experience much as a whole. It was still mainly about tracking down the objectives for each movie, several of which were a lot of fun.

The performers

The performers for the shows we caught were superb, with Cirque du Soleil-style acrobatics in some areas. The jazz lounge was a standout, and Helen got pulled into the jazz cabaret number, with performers dancing all around her.

A few rough edges

It wasn’t flawless. Some of the scan terminals didn’t track our wristbands properly, so we had to redo a few objectives more than once.

It also felt unevenly weighted in places. The jazz lounge clearly got a lot of love, but Starbot, a pivotal part of the story, felt more like an afterthought.

A highly divisive note… Some visitors may also take issue with the use of generative AI in a few spots, like the movie posters that insert you into them. Personally, it didn’t bother me. That feature simply couldn’t exist without it, and it complemented the storytelling rather than replacing it. I do want to note, that you can opt out of some of those features as well when playing along, it’s not mandatory from what I saw.

Worth the detour

For something we found the night before, Atlas9 ended up being the highlight of the trip. Six hours, two endings, and one gibberish-speaking popcorn lady later, I’d happily go back.

Agent report filed. Wristband scanned. Everything checks out.

Although the scanner did flag one more anomaly on the way out. Something about the projection room, and a reel that wasn’t on the schedule. I’m sure it’s n̷o̶t̵h̴i̷n̸g̵.

AGENT DEBRIEF // FILE 1995-10-24

Subject reports ██████ in Theater 9 after closing.

Rogue status: c̸o̷n̶f̵i̷r̸m̶e̴d̵. Recommend ███████████ immediately.

The film is s̶̢t̷̨i̸̛l̵̡l̶̢ ̷̛r̸̨u̵̡n̶̢n̷̛į̸n̵̡g̶̢.

██████████████████████

S̷̢̛e̸̡e̵̛ ̶̢y̷̨o̸̡ụ̵ ̶̢a̷̛t̸̨ ̵̡t̶̢h̷̛ę̸ ̵̡m̶̢ọ̷v̸̨i̵̡ẹ̶s̷̛.̸̨