When it comes to technology, the future is now, but the future is also the future and it’s always going to be more impressive. So while we’re happy playing Pokémon Go on our phones, Moore’s Law rolls on into perpetuity to make sure that whatever’s amazing to us now will be stale in just a few years. Take augmented reality, for example: Nintendo did some cool stuff with the 3DS’ AR Cards a few years ago but didn’t really follow through. It took Pokémon Go becoming a worldwide phenomenon to see a mainstream push for AR.
Now, we’re seeing what we can expect out of the latest tech, and the future looks seriously cool. Peter Jackson’s Wingnut AR studio showed off its first game at the 2017 Apple Worldwide Developers Conference using Apple’s ARKit and Unreal 4 to create a stunning “tabletop game.” Unfortunately, we don’t know what it is, how interactive it is, and what exactly the objective is supposed to be.
Is it too good to be true? For now, probably. Apple’s current devices can’t even run the tech, and as any veteran gamer knows, the first games on new hardware are basically developers dipping their toes into the tech. The possibilities, of course, are endless. Plenty of gamers would love to set up their Dungeons & Dragons world and see it come to life through their handheld devices, and if this is promising that future, I can speak for all gamers by saying: we’re for it.
And this demo is no doubt mind-blowing, but what purpose does it serve? What can we do with it?
Thankfully for everyone, Unreal and Apple seem to be working together in harmony to push augmented reality into a whole new arena beyond gaming. The future of IKEA could be more impressive than Peter Jackson’s explosive game demo:
And with such strong competition from the Moving Around A Lamp program, we should see something even better out of Wingnut AR. The future of AR looks bright, as long as we can actually do something with it.