Magic Leap One, the upcoming AR headset from one of the most well-funded startups in history, is said to arrive sometime this year. While no real specs are known about the headset outside of a few choice bits revealed during its unveiling back in December, one important factor that’s been largely unresolved is starting to slowly materialize despite the company’s insistence on complete secrecy: content. Talking to Rolling Stone, Weta Gameshop designer and artist Greg Broadmore revealed that an upcoming first-person shooter called Dr. Grordbort’s Invaders, which is slated to launch alongside Magic Leap One, has been the headset’s longest-developed game.

Update (03/18/18): Weta Gameshop, a 50-person game development wing born from Weta Workshop, is now officially open for business, according to RadioNZ. The studio is made up of half Weta and half Magic Leap staff set in a warehouse at Weta’s site in Miramar, New Zealand.

Magic Leap first showed off a Dr. Grordbort-themed concept video back in March 2015, but it wasn’t clear at the time what end the video would play, be it a one-off marketing video or otherwise. Now it’s clear the concept video wasn’t simply a paid ‘what if’, but rather a game prototype Weta Workshop was toying with.

Speaking with Rolling Stone’s Brian Crecente, Weta Gameshop designer and artist Greg Broadmore revealed the company’s first-person shooter Dr. Grordbort’s Invaders has been in the making for more than 5 years now, something Broadmore says has been equal part game production, and equal part platform development.

“One [of our jobs] is to make a mixed reality game on Magic Leap, but the other is to actually help to define the platform in the first place, and we’ve been part of that feedback loops since the start,” Broadmore told Rolling Stone.

image courtesy Magic Leap

In order keep the business going post-Lord of the Rings, Weta Workshop started selling replica props like swords, helmets and Hobbit pipes—something to insulate the company from the “feast and famine” nature of producing props for the film industry. Eventually the company started looking for new places for revenue, which led to designer Richard Taylor to create the retro-futurist guns which soon became the basis of the prototypal space-faring English colonist Dr. Grordbort.

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Even though Weta Gameshop wouldn’t reveal much more about Dr. Grordbort’s Invaders to Crecente, they did say the game is releasing alongside Magic Leap One. By description the game is a wave shooter, but Weta told Rolling Stone there will be plenty of “character stuff” as well.

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Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • bobby reyes

    Oh this sounds exciting! Hopefully other aspects to that video are also work in progress like checking ur email or watching YouTube.

    • Hear about Magic Leap Screens yet?

      • bobby reyes

        nope, but I’m about to Google it haha

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  • David Herrington

    Wow what a fantastic game for a HMD that only costs $2000. What a bargain. And I’m sure those are the actual graphics for the game and not just some mock up of what they think it will look like.

    • Nice rebound hahaha :D

    • PK

      i’m sure the graphics will be impressive, greg’s an amazing artist and built a whole world around these characters already, but that video doesn’t look like actual gameplay and the bad acting doesn’t help.

    • Raphael

      Magic Leap won’t just be a single product at one price.

  • Jerald Doerr

    Ok… I can read it’s a concept “video” and this is off topic… but it reminds me when Sony played Killzone 3 at E3 and the CEO basicly put it on his kids that the demo was running in real time on PS 3 hardware. Lol

    • ZeePee

      Is that not killzone 2?

      I remember that trailer. It was the most mind blowing exciting trailer, and I still have fond memories to datedof how itifelt totwatch that as a kid excited for the reeleas of the upcoming PS3.

      I think it has to go down as the best trailer ever for me, purely because of how exciting and mind blowing it was aattthe time, regarsless of the fact that it was laterlrevealedlto be prerendered

      They still did a phenomphenojob with Killzone 2, it’s graphics, for a console player, were incredible, and aim some ways like the lighting, they actually surpassed thr trailer (was a downgrade obviously overall).

      • JJ

        I thought Killzone 1,2 and some of 3(lol) delivered really well.

      • Harry Cox

        Yeah….it was not even slightly close to the actual game. Then PS3 was delayed forever. Was pretty hilarious / embarrassing. Doesn’t build any hype for me personally, but I appreciate that’s perhaps just me

  • Peter Morris

    I see it is now labelled as a concept video, whereas in the past they tried to pretend it as actual footage.

  • brubble

    Get back to me when the fov is larger than a postage stamp.

    • silvaring

      Two postage stamps then?

  • impurekind

    And, given the previous examples of this kind of stuff I’ve seen in the past (on Hololens demos and even the early footage of this game too), I think this will actually just show people how generally gimmicky and meh this kind of experience is ultimately going to be on these AR headsets.

    • Marcus

      I guess you just have to buy the gun to have it lying around.
      https://www.wetanz.com/shop/weapons/the-righteous-bison?ref=brand

      • impurekind

        Yeah, I hope they don’t expect people to do that kind of thing with every game, where they end up selling endless peripherals that only really make sense for one or two specific titles.

    • NooYawker

      The video is a “concept” video. Meaning it’s all cgi. If the real thing even remotely resembled that they’d release it. I mean, why release a fake cgi video but not the real thing?

  • A game developed for 5 years??

  • Facts

    The magic leap is disqualified as augmented reality,the FOV is like a vhs tape held up at arms length, it’s more like a real bulky heads up display however if it works in bright lights and the battery last fir hour it would be neat tho, we got to start somewhere

    • WyrdestGeek

      I’ve heard some augmented reality setups have a very tiny fob. Are you sure that applies to Magic Leap specifically?

      • Facts

        I personally feel like real AR/VR should have a big fov, atleast 90° I mean people will want to watch movies on the magic leap right out the box I fair it would be another dust collecting gimmick when people realize the movie screen is the size of a vhs tape

      • Jim Cherry

        It applies to the kind of display HoloLens and magic leap use. It’s a known hardware limitation. Ms actually has some patents ment for increasing the fov but none of that tech has been seen in use yet.

  • Courtney A Jeff

    The game only costs 2000 bucks but the headset is really cheap at 14000 dollars.

  • Adil Hadri

    I think user can’t see real world through magic leap lenses but through special cameras that scran the real world and mix virtual objects on it then it will project to eyes.
    That why maybe magic leap lenses are very dark and objects looks real and that explain too why the FOV is low because actual technology not yet able to treat lot of sophisticated informations.
    I think Magic Leap is able to do virtual reality too with realistic 3D environnement.

  • Zachary Scott Dickerson

    Anyone that’s been gaming 20+ years will see right through this bullshit. You can’t just create technology to meet your wants like this at the speed they ask. Get ready for the tiny field of view only viewable in low light, and lack luster inside out tracking.

  • Suitch

    Another wave shooter is going to try carrying an entire platform? G.G.