Pokémon Go developer Niantic has announced its next game, Marvel World of Heroes, another mobile AR game planned to release in 2023.
There were a number of announcements at D23 this past weekend, which included a tease for Niantic’s next game, another AR game, this time bringing the Marvel Universe into the player’s hands. “In Marvel World of Heroes, players can create their own unique Super Hero identity and origin story,” reads the trailer’s description. Players will need to patrol their neighbourhoods to foil crimes, complete Super Hero missions, and thwart interdimensional threats.”
The description also notes that as players level up, they can unlock equipment and abilities, and will be able to team up with heroes like Spider-Man, Wolverine, and Captain America, where they’ll face off against various villains in order to save the multiverse.
On Niantic’s website, the game’s lead designer Neil Melville and senior producer Lyza Faylona went into some more details about what the game will be like. Melville expressed excitement for the character customisation, noting that there’s a lot of “a lot of flexibility for players to express different body types, gender expressions, and outfit customisation.”
Faylona also noted that they loved MMORPGs, and that they’re excited to bring that “to the real world,” making it sound like the AR game will be borrowing from the aforementioned genre design-wise.
Players will also apparently be able to travel to “multiple alternate realities in the Marvel Multiverse to engage with different characters and stories in the same location.”
Earlier this year, Niantic layed off 8% of its staff, and cancelled four of its at the time upcoming projects, which included a Transformers game, a game known as Hamlet, and two other unannounced titles known as Blue and Snowball. And last year it announced the news that Harry Potter: Wizards Unite was being shut down. So the developer hasn’t managed to find as big a hit as Pokémon Go just yet.