At SXSW, Verizon and Doug Liman's 30 Ninjas teamed up on an Augmented Reality (AR) Adventure Thriller with Novelab, a France-based immersive company. The movie will take full use of the capability of 5G Ultra Wideband for an incredible immersive experience.
Helios (which means "sun" in Greek) is the outcome of this partnership, a narrative mobile AR experience that combines volumetric video (a fancy name for current 3D holograms) to give you a fresh viewpoint on mobile entertainment. A thriller about a missing sister, a coverup, a hacktivist who double crossed the wrong bad guy, and a young woman named Petra Barnes unfolds as you play. You must put together clues to obtain knowledge and solve the mystery as you go through the tale. But let's not give too much away.
Doug Liman, co-founder and partner of 30 Ninjas said that “I started 30 Ninjas with JulinaTatlock and Jed Weintrob for precisely this type of project and partnership with Verizon. We’re drawing on everything we know about making great entertainment and applying it to an entirely new medium. One with that you carry with you everywhere. Given the chance to build new worlds on the most powerful phones, untethered from home internet: The Mobile Metaverse has limitless potential.”
The metaverse is accessible through your 5G phone. Players wander about an augmented representation of their personal physical location (home, apartment, business, street corner) to find and fix "glitches." As the player progresses through the initial level of knowledge, additional clues (audio, visual, and written) become apparent, and the conspiracy becomes clearer. They will uncover additional story after the bugs are hacked.
Verizon and 30 Ninjas’ 5G content collaboration blends industry-leading storytelling with next-gen technology. We’re thrilled to work together to create a captivating interactive thriller that showcases the evolution of mobile entertainment and the capabilities that we can unlock in our smartphones on Verizon’s 5G network.”
Erin McPherson, chief content officer at Verizon
Helios will offer high-octane cinematic video material, augmented-reality puzzle-solving and gaming elements, and realistic 3D AR characters that users can interact with digitally. Verizon's 5G Ultra Wideband network's low latency and high capacity will enable seamless interaction, rapid download rates, and high-quality images to immerse users in a completely immersive narrative that expertly mixes cinematic storytelling with interactive gamification.