Nearly two decades before Facebook and others talked about the metaverse, A second life It was allowing millions of users to participate in virtual worlds. Now, all this time later, developer Linden Labs has announced that it’s developing a mobile version of the game, Ars Technica It has been reported. A beta release is expected later this year.
In a YouTube video posted on A second lifeOn the community forum, the publisher broke down some details about the mobile app. They are being built using Unity, so it will be easy to create and distribute the game on both iOS and Android phones / tablets. It also shows some shots of the characters and environments, and how Linden Labs will try to make it as closely resemble a desktop game as possible.
Facebook struggled to get the metaverse off the ground, but over 73 million accounts have been created for it. A second life So far, the number of active users has reached 900,000 during the pandemic – 17 years after the game’s launch. Typical virtual events include “live music performances, shopping fairs, fan fiction conventions, book and poetry readings, academic lectures, fashion shows, and art exhibitions,” the company said. Vice in 2020.
Linden Labs was working on a VR version of the game called Sansar, but ended up halting development and selling the rights in 2020. The company said it did so to become “critically positive,” while noting that adoption of VR glasses wasn’t to come as quickly as it had hoped. . To that end, a pivot to mobile makes sense, but it remains to be seen if people will still be interested in it. A second life After all this time.
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