Nearly two decades before Facebook and others talked about the metaverse, Second Life it was allowing millions of users to participate in virtual worlds. Now, all this time later, developer Linden Labs has announced that it is developing a mobile version of the game, Ars Technica has reported. A beta version is expected to launch later this year.
In a YouTube video posted on Second Lifecommunity forum, the publisher detailed some details about the mobile app. It is being built using Unity, mainly to make it easy to build and distribute the game on iOS and Android phones/tablets. It also shows some character and environment images, and how Linden Labs will try to make it as close to the desktop game as possible.
Facebook has struggled to get the metaverse off the ground, but more than 73 million accounts have been created to Second Life to date, and the number of active users reached 900,000 during the pandemic, 17 years after the game’s release. Typical virtual events include “live music performances, trade shows, fan fiction conventions, book and poetry readings, academic conferences, fashion shows, and art exhibits,” the company said. Vice in 2020.
Linden Labs had been working on a VR version of the game called Sansar, but ended up halting development and selling the rights in 2020. The company said it did so to become “cash positive,” noting that headset adoption Virtual reality isn’t coming as quickly as I had hoped. To that end, a turn to mobile makes sense, but it remains to be seen if people will continue to be interested in Second Life After all this time.
