Hideo Kojima’s production company and Niantic Spatial released a new teaser showing off a concept for an AR game that the studios see as a “significant moment for both companies.”
The teaser, seen below, follows a player wearing a futuristic pair of augmented reality glasses, and traversing a very Death Stranding-inspired landscape.
“A new dawn. In the near future. Move beyond the screen,” a tagline reads. “The future starts today,” the teaser continues, revealing what could be ally, or fellow competitor on the horizon.
Speaking to IGN, Kojima isn’t revealing much at this point, although it’s clearly a geolocated, multiplayer AR game he’s after.
“I can’t really speak about details yet but, if you’re climbing a mountain… there’s still entertainment there,” Kojima tells IGN. “It’s like the real Death Stranding in the real world, and you can connect with people, or you can connect with the actual environment there in your city. Previously it was like virtual reality, but this time I’m thinking about connecting with the real environment.”
Niantic Spatial CEO John Hanke, a principal creator behind the company’s smash hit mobile game Pokémon Go, sees the project as a way of getting people to play together socially.
“I hope that it creates [an environment] that brings people together to play,” Hanke says. “If there’s one thing need we have in our society right now, it’s something that unifies us and doesn’t pull us apart. And I think that storytelling… has always been humanity’s way of coming together. And technology can support that. It can divide it too, but with an inspiring creator it can be an important force in the world.”
Niantic Spatial further says the partnership is a “significant moment for both companies and a shared vision to push the boundaries of what’s possible in interactive storytelling.”
There’s no release date yet—or target platform for that matter, simply because no such consumer AR device exists at this point. Devices like Meta’s Orion prototype (or something based on it) and Snap’s next-gen Spectacles aren’t out yet, making the trailer more of a concept showcase at this point.
Still, Niantic Spatial has been working specifically in AR since the parent company sold its gaming division responsible for Pokémon Go to Scopely for $3.85 billion in March.
A few months later, the company released XR pet sim Hello, Dot for Quest 3, a mixed reality offshoot of Peridot Beyond for Snap Spectacles, Pause with Peridot and Snap-a-Dot for Web AR.