Seismic Games is about to go from making virtual reality games to augmented reality ones.
Pokemon Go developer Niantic Labs this week announced that it has acquired the Los Angeles-based studio for an undisclosed sum. Seismic Games was founded by former members of the EA-owned Pandemic Studios, and is best known for Marvel: Strike Force, a free-to-play mobile game starring the popular comic book heroes. The studio is also behind Blade Runner: Revelations, a launch title for Google and Lenovo’s Mirage Solo standalone VR headset.
In a blog post announcing the acquisition, Niantic confirmed that Seismic will finish up work on its existing titles before moving on to work on “all new AR experiences” as part of the company. Specifically, Niantic noted that the studio will accelerate its work on the Niantic Real World Platform, which is improving its existing AR experiences adding new features like support for occlusion. We saw the tech at work a few weeks ago, and it’s pretty impressive. Revelations was notable for achieving high-quality visuals on a mobile device using Google’s Seurat software, so the studio is no stranger to using new technologies.
Elsewhere, Niantic is also working on a Harry Potter AR game and a sequel to its original AR title, Ingress. It’s not clear if we’ll see an actual game from Seismic just yet, but we’re certainly interested to see what they can do with the medium.
