During yesterday's Disney and Marvel Games Showcase, Niantic announced its next augmented reality mobile game: MARVEL World of Heroes.
Once an internal startup within Google before becoming its own independent entity in 2015, Niantic rose to fame thanks to its patented Real World technology (later renamed Lightship) that melds real world locations with augmented reality game experiences.
The first successful game released by Niantic was Ingress, though Pokémon GO was the real breakout hit for AR mobile games, smashing all kinds of player spending records. It has since spawned a whole genre, and even the likes of CD Projekt RED attempted to dip into the AR craze with Spokko's The Witcher: Monster Slayer.
That said, not even Niantic could properly replicate the success of Pokémon GO yet. For instance, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite didn't really last long, having been shut down in January 2022 following a June 2019 launch.
MARVEL World of Heroes won't have it easy, but its developers seem excited about the upcoming soft launch. Lead Game Designer Neil Melville explained:
It has been a joy to work with this talented and passionate team in crafting a game that will let players get a taste of the Super Hero lifestyle right in their own neighborhoods. It is my goal that this game instills in its players feelings of freedom, power, curiosity, and cooperation, and will inspire them to make the world a better place. I am very excited about the character avatar system in MARVEL World of Heroes, because it gives a lot of flexibility for players to express different body types, gender expressions, and outfit customization. I can't wait to see what kind of characters the players will create on their journey to become famous local heroes.
Senior Producer Lyza Faylona added:
The best part about being a producer on MARVEL World of Heroes is I get to experience first-hand all of the awesome work by the team through the lens of both a player and game developer. Some days my world revolves around team operations, and other days it's partnering with our creative and technology leads on upcoming features. I love MMORPGs, so I'm most excited about bringing that to the real world. To arrive at a location, view and interact with it through the lens of a Marvel Super Hero is what I'm really excited about. I can't wait to see how players interact with these locations and form their own origin stories.
The developers also shared that MARVEL World of Heroes will take advantage of the multiverse setup to allow players to travel to multiple alternate realities to engage with different characters and stories in the same location.
The game will be available next year on iOS and Android devices.
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