Insomniac Games, the talented game studio behind non-VR games like Spider-Man (2018) and VR games like Edge of Nowhere (2016) and The Unspoken (2016), today announced their first AR game called Seedling, coming to Magic Leap in November.

Without doubt, Insomniac Games is one of the most experience VR development studios to date, and now they’re turning their experience in immersive entertainment toward augmented reality.

Today at Leap Con, the company announced Seedling, an upcoming title for Magic Leap which is due to launch in november. As an AR experience, the approach is very different from anything Insomniac has done in VR, this time involving alien plants that the user must care for. The studio tells Road to VR that the experience will rely on real-world time, as plants slowly grow and need tending to over the course of many (real world) days.

Image courtesy Insomniac Games

The studio says the game has a story to tell that goes beyond just growing an alien garden, but they’re not saying much about what it will encompass or how it will be told.

Magic Leap is working with Insomniac as a publisher on the title, and while the experience was built by a small team, Insomniac tells us that Seedling has been in development for nearly a year and a half.

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Ben Lang
Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • Wednaud Ronelus

    I would love to try this out with my STEM learning environment in the Alchemist Club Studios. Let me know if Magic Leap would like to pilot test this idea in real classroom learning environment.

    Dr. Ronelus

  • I think this game is a thin justification the people working at the company use to get ahold of a few headsets for themselves. There’s no way they see Magic Leap as a series platform to develop for. They’re going to be making this stuff to show off to other developers and NOBODY ELSE.

    • Downvote King

      Lol, they don’t take it seriously but spent a year and a half making a game just get their hands on a Magic Leap…

      • jj

        yes, that’s what he said.
        Insomniac is an interesting company to say the least,I love them.

      • Seriously, who are they going to sell this game to? They might as well have made for it Hololens.

    • DanDei

      Or they are being actually co-funded by Magic Leap and jumped on the opportunity to be one of the first developers to acquire a know how basis in a brand new field of gaming. That know how can become so much more valuable than the sales figures of the game.

      • Insomniac getting paid by Magic Leap to make this game *does* make sense. I can even see them making it just to fill in some check boxes on the company’s profile for “Emerging Technologies”. But really, who’s EVER going to see this game??

        It’s not even a good platform to develop for. Getting ahold of the first Rift for $300 off Kickstarter makes sense. It’s clear, at that price range, there’s a future there for that tech. Even the consumer release at $800, the Rift still had *some* potential. But there is no future for Magic Leap. They’ll never touch that $300 price range, or even a $500 one. They might not ever dip below $1000! Even for enthusiasts, it’s a steep buy in for a toy.

        As for this “Year and Half”, I’ve seen what Insomniac can do in 1 year if well motivated. This is a part-time project at most. I’m thinking less then 100 man-hours of work.

  • V Z

    “plants slowly grow and need tending to over the course of many (real world) days”
    WOW! It’s literally as fun as watching grass grow! Well, alien grass in this case :
    I hope all 12 ML owners enjoy it :)