Google's New AR Game Can Be A Pokemon Go Killer With Aliens In The Neighbourhood

Alphabet Inc.'s GOOGL Google and Square Enix' Taito have launched a new augmented reality game Space Invaders that lets you hunt down aliens and defend your city. Space Invaders: World Defense was announced at Google I/O in May.

What Happened: Google and Taito's latest AR game Space Invaders: World Defense lets you hunt down space aliens in and around your neighborhood. The launch celebrates the 45th anniversary of the original Space Invaders game.

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Available on both iOS and Android, the new Space Invaders game requires you to simply point your phone at aliens to blast them and defend your city. The game's mechanics are easier when compared to Pokémon Go, wherein hunting Pokémon requires more precise actions.

The basic premise is similar, though – you can discover and hunt new aliens in and around different neighborhoods. Just like Pokémon Go, you will have to walk around a bit if you want to hunt more.

Google says players can also unlock special power-ups and team up with other players, as well as share their achievements on social media. You can also take selfies in Space Invaders outfits.

AR Games Are Hard: Space Invaders: World Defense is not the first or the most unique AR game – several titles like Pokémon Go, Ingress, Harry Potter, Transformers, The Witcher, and others have been launched, but only a few like Pokémon Go and Ingress have become successful.

In that sense, Google and Taito have their task cut out. It's easy to launch an AR game, but building a user base that is sticky like in the case of Pokémon Go is difficult. In the latter's case, a cult-like fanbase helped game developer Niantic in making it successful, but aliens are a dime a dozen and Google will need more than that to go on.

You can download Space Invaders: World Defense from the App Store and Google Play Store.

Image Credits – Google

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