After 20 years, Second Life is released on mobile

A second life Mobile preview.

He remembers A second life? The virtual world was launched on the desktop on the web in 2003 with 3D avatars and spaces for various social activities. Believe it or not, it’s been working consistently all this time — and now it’s coming to mobile for the first time.

In fact, this would be the first time this had been done A second life Expand outside of the PC (across Windows, macOS, and Linux) in any way.

In a post to the virtual world Community web forumcommunity manager for A second life Developer Linden Lab shared video With some details about the development of the mobile version, I announced that a beta version of the mobile app will be launched sometime this year.

The video shows that the app was built using Unity – in part to allow an easy path to release and maintain the app on multiple platforms, including iPhone, iPad, Android phones and Android tablets. Also includes a few minutes of footage A second lifeDetailed character models and environments, with accompanying commentary by the developers Linden Lab on bringing as much of the experience as possible to mobile.

newly condition In Game Developer about the announcement, he says the launch of the mobile version could breathe, well, a second life A second life. There’s reason to suspect it will greatly expand the virtual world’s audience, though; There are more recent attempts at the concept which has recently come to be called “Metaverse”. Even those who struggle, however, are not clear exactly what A second life– which seems saddled with a lot of technical debt, among other challenges – would offer what new startups do not.

Linden Lab has been working on a VR successor to second life, named Sensar, for years, but eventually stopped working on the project and sold it. sensor Her owners have jumped several times, and her future remains uncertain.

Although the application probably will not change radically A second lifeOn the market, it should be a welcome development for the vibrant community of virtual world fanatics.

As I wrote a few years ago, A second life It is still flowing with both users and revenue. Ambitions have been scaled back – it no longer aims to become a “second internet” – and the character of the community has changed dramatically, but it is in no way outsiders might expect it to be from a ghost town. It’s a niche, and a mobile app may not be enough to change that.

Listing image by Linden Lab

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