Quest 3 Launch and AREALM Updates!

Co-located Multiplayer Working for 7 Quests and Counting

Meta's Quest 3 launches today! This is a seminal moment for augmented reality and Foundry Six submitted to the App Lab over the weekend.

AREALM for the Quest 3 will be the first co-located, multiplayer, mixed reality MMORPG.

Here's why I'm excited about what our team is working on:

Co-location is a gamechanger to our team because it facilitates players forming friendships in-person. We also believe that players are less toxic when they are in person which encourages healthy communication patterns.

Mixed Reality originally referred to VR and AR but usage is now changing to AR on HMDs (ie Quest 3 and Vision Pro). We believe that affordable mixed reality with color passthrough AR will allow people to experience reality in a way we only dreamed of in movies.

"Approximately three quarters of both males (76.2%) and females (74.7%) said they had made good friends within the game. The mean number of “good friends” made within a MMORPG for participants was seven." - (Social Interactions in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Gamers by HELENA COLE, B.Sc. and MARK D. GRIFFITHS, Ph.D.)

People make good friends through MMORPGs and now we can help people form friendships in-person with mixed reality in a way that was not possible with personal computers or smart phones. Once integration with platforms Niantic Lightship occur - we'll have outdoor, persistent experiences.

AREALM Updates:

- New Video Trailer

- Co-location confirmed to support 7 Quests simultaneously - big thanks to Sophie Ye and Alina Savu for helping us get here. We're in conversation with Meta to try to push this number higher to resemble a traditional MMORPG raid.

What's next:

- Single Player Gameplay - We wanted to validate co-location multiplayer and get the harder engineering challenge validated first. We did that and now we're going back to work on replayability on the single player side.

- Projectiles - Mass co-location experiences realistically require projectiles to have spacing between players.

How you can help:

- If you are based out of Los Angeles, DM me about a private playtesting session to give feedback

- We're looking to host playtesting sessions in West LA if you know any person or location interested in hosting - min 15x15 space.

- If you know any media folks interested in mixed reality or gaming, I'd love to chat with them!