Ordnance Survey partners with PRELOADED to create its first-ever world-scale AR game

13 Jul 2021 02:11 PM

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 of OS Leisure yesterday said:

"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, yesterday 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, yesterday 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.