While the HoloLens was originally conceived as the next step in video games, Microsoft has since steered the augmented reality device down a path of education and business. That hasn’t stopped developers from pushing new limits, however. During Unite Europe 2017 developer conference this week, Ubisoft showed its recent foray into HoloLens tinkering.
Most commonly known for their Tom Clancy’s and Assassin’s Creed series, the French video game publisher showed off three prototypes exhibiting using realistic objects with spatial mapping to create new games (via VRFocus). What ‘spatial mapping’ means is that it can identify surfaces to place holographic objects by shapes and placements, and by using this technology, augmented reality can essentially interact with the layout of your physical environment.
Ubisoft programmer David Yue showed off toy soldiers that could be manipulated by the user’s hand’s motions. With spatial mapping, these little figures could fight each other more efficiently by knowing what objects were able to be traversed. However, it seems one of the other prototypes titled Rabbid Rockets didn’t benefit from spatial mapping.
It’s clear that Ubisoft is still playing with the new technologies available in augmented and mixed reality. Even if none of the prototypes demonstrated become actual video games, working closely with Microsoft could set Ubisoft to become one of the first publishers to see next gen titles on the HoloLens or Microsoft Mixed Reality headsets.
