Niantic, the people who make Pokemon Go possible and who built their infrastructure on one of the world’s first location-based augmented reality game, has announced Transformers: Heavy Metal.
Working with Hasbro and Tomy, Niantic’s Lightship platform will allow gamers to use augmented reality through their smartphone to battle with Bumblebee and the Autobots.
A blog post from Niantic says;
In thinking about franchises that would be incredible to bring to life in AR, Transformers was a no-brainer.
This daily Ingress player suggests an even better Hasbro-owned brand adapt to the augmented reality mobile gaming genre. Dungeons & Dragons would, undoubtedly, be a great game to draw on. Those old Ingress portals, now boosted in volume by Pokemon Go players, could become dungeon entrances at which players battle augmented reality monsters.
D&D would be a much more complex game to bring to life, even if only on the surface with tier 1 battles against virtual guardians of virtual keeps. Could it be that Transformers might lay the groundwork for this more ambitious concept?
The Seattle-based Very Very Spaceship is the development studio for the game, suggesting that Niantic is the technology provider only in the deal.
There is already a lot on Niantic’s plate; alongside Ingress and Pokemon Go, Harry Potter Wizards Unite runs on Lightship. Catan: World Explorers is still in development, an AR version of the iconic board game.
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