Millions of users were able to participate in virtual worlds thanks to Second Life over two decades before Facebook and others started talking about the metaverse. After all this time, the game’s creator Linden Labs has now revealed that a mobile version is in the works, according to Ars Technica. Later this year, a beta version is anticipated to go live.
Some information regarding the mobile app was provided by the publisher in a YouTube video that was posted to Second Life’s community forum. Unity is being used to make it simple to create and publish the game for both iOS and Android smartphones and tablets. It also outlines how Linden Labs will make it as similar to the desktop game as possible and includes footage of characters and locations.
Although Second Life has seen over 73 million accounts registered to far and reached 900,000 active players during the epidemic, 17 years after the game’s release, Facebook has struggled to get the metaverse off the ground. According to what the corporation told Vice in 2020, typical virtual events include “live music performances, shopping fairs, fan fiction conventions, book and poetry readings, academic lectures, fashion shows, and art exhibitions.”
Sansar was a VR game that Linden Labs was developing when they ultimately decided to halt production on it and sell the rights in 2020. The business claimed that it done this in order to become “cash-positive,” adding that adoption of VR headsets wasn’t as rapid as it had hoped. A move to mobile makes logical in order to achieve this goal, but it is unclear whether users will still be interested in Second Life after all this time.
