LONDON, July 14, 2021 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — Ordnance Survey, GB’s national mapping service, is working with BAFTA-winning games studio PRELOADED to develop a world-scale AR game that engages family audiences with the outdoors. The game will be built upon Ordnance Survey’s extensive mapping and will use geospatial data to deliver contextual experiences which drive exploration of our world.
Nick Giles, Managing Director, OS Leisure commented: “We want to make maps fun and geo-location games and gamified apps enable their players to collectively visualise the great outdoors as they wish to experience and interact with their surroundings. It’s no longer all about what is physically present in a set location. By creating a geo-location game of our own, this new mixture of realities gives us more opportunities to encourage people to explore and get outside more often.”
Phil Stuart, Creative Director at PRELOADED, said: “We’re at a point where advancements in AR and geospatial technologies allow us to connect with our real world in completely new and meaningful ways. We’re so excited to work with Ordnance Survey to bring the true potential of location-based play to family audiences in the UK and beyond.”
Mike Hawkyard, Head of Mobile Games at Ordnance Survey, said: “Augmented real-world locations can enhance an individual’s enjoyment of the great outdoors. Upon reaching a desired location, gamers might see a physical telephone box in front of them, but they have also reached a location where they can battle for a new PokéGym in the virtual sense. This new AR game reflects an exciting opportunity by building on the success of OS Maps and raising awareness of these highly engaging outdoor experiences.”
The AR game will be complementary to OS Maps, which has more than 3.5 million users providing access to a range of features including 3D mapping, augmented reality tools and over 4 million routes covering 30 million miles.
Ordnance Survey is planning to launch their first game in early 2022.
About Ordnance Survey
Ordnance Survey (OS), the national mapping service for Great Britain, makes it simple to enjoy an active outdoor life, live longer and get more out of every day. We inspire people to discover Britain’s great outdoors with our iconic maps on paper, mobile and desktop. They’re all designed to make the outdoors more enjoyable, accessible and safe. Launched in 2015, the OS Maps app puts digital versions of OS Explorer and OS Landranger maps for the whole of Great Britain in your pocket. We’re also helping people explore new places and create lasting memories in Britain’s cities and countryside with the new Secret Stories app. Our pioneering location expertise is recognised around the world and we recently launched OS Maps in Australia, with plans to roll out in other countries in the future.
About PRELOADED
PRELOADED is a BAFTA-winning games studio working in XR, connected play and geospatial technologies. We build games and immersive experiences to help organisations such as BBC, Disney and Save the Children reach mainstream audiences, and partner with technology platforms such as Magic Leap, HTC and Google to imagine the future. A part of Learning Technologies Group plc (LTG), PRELOADED is operating at the forefront of immersive technologies, bringing planet-scale AR to mainstream audiences. Last year, A Brief History of Amazing Stunts by Astounding People, the groundbreaking augmented reality story created by PRELOADED and Within won a BAFTA Children’s Award as well as a Kidscreen Award for Best Learning App.
Media Contact
Oscar Swedrup, PRELOADED, +442076843505, [email protected]
SOURCE PRELOADED
