Gigantic dinosaurs may soon be roaming the planet once again — at least on iOS and Android. Universal Studios and Montreal-based video game company Ludia have teamed up to create Jurassic World Alive. The title is a new augmented reality game launching this spring, and the premise is similar to Niantic’s Pokémon GO.
Players will walk around in the game on a map based on your current location to discover dinosaurs and collect their eggs. The game isn’t just a Pokémon GO clone, however, as Ludia promises the ability to battle other players directly. From The Verge:
The new game is debuting in time for the latest Jurassic Park franchise film Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom which hits theaters June 22nd.
Potential players can pre-register for Jurassic World Alive ahead of time to receive an in-game incubator when the game launches. There’s an over-the-top trailer that dramatizes gameplay in the real world:
Jurassic World Alive isn’t the only new AR title in the works. Pokémon GO creators Niantic are working on an immersive Harry Potter: Wizards Unite game, and the AR-based Ghostbusters World is also coming this year.
The use of augmented reality features should only continue as Apple continues to invest in its platform-level ARKit resources for developers.
These tools allow developers to plug AR capabilities into their own apps without creating the experience from scratch, and Apple’s ARKit 1.5 upgrade in the upcoming iOS 11.3 update takes the feature a step further with vertical surface mapping and higher resolution capture.
