ALL EYES ON AR

AUGMENTED REALITY IS STILL ON EVERYONE’S MINDS.

“I’m really curious to see what comes out of AR,” says Tribute Games’ Jean-Francois Major. “I feel like no one really figured out how to properly use AR. I wish I had the answer to this one, but I know it’s not overlaying a game world in your living room.” He’s right; augmented reality

can and should be a lot more than that, and we’re already seeing some of that in the most popular games of the last few years.

Pokémon GO was a huge step forward for the visibility and popularity of AR gaming, bringing the creatures to life not only on screen, but in the world around us.

“Games will trial other forms of AR (for example, handset AR, as in

Pokémon GO) more and more, but the huge opportunity is when it is absorbed into glasses, and ultimately into implants, but I suspect that will be more than ten years away,” says David Braben, with a near cyberpunk vision for what the future of AR could hold. That kind of integration into our daily lives would be a big step up from where we are right now, but the acceleration with which new technology emerges and finds traction means we wouldn’t scoff at his timeline prediction.

But what about right now? Can AR get a foothold immediately? Gary Bracey is betting on it with his Terra Virtua project. “We are not only focused on VR, but also actively building a strong AR component to the platform as well. We are developing a mixed reality app that enables users to stay connected to Terra Virtua even when they are on the move, and our platform will feature content specifically designed for AR as well,” he tells us. This kind of broader thinking may be the next natural evolution of what AR can bring to gaming.