Maze Theory, a London-based XR studio that has made award-winning games, is launching its mysterious Infinite Inside mixed reality game on July 12.
The puzzle-adventure mixed reality game will debut in virtual reality on Meta Quest, PlayStation VR 2, Pico and Steam. It’s also debuting on the Apple Vision Pro, coincident with the European launch of Apple’s new immersive headset. What’s interesting about it is the developers have tried to take mixed reality technology — where you see both the physical world and a digital world — to a new level.
Maze Theory has previously made games like Peaky Blinders: The Kings Ransom, Doctor Who: The Edge of Time and Doctor Who: The Lonely Assassins. Maze Theory was bought by immersive technology and gaming company Saltwater Games in December 2023 and operates as a subsidiary of Saltwater Games.
That gives the studio a chance to experiment, and with the mixed reality project, Maze Theory has a chance to do something no one else has done before, said Ian Hambleton, Maze Theory CEO, and Russ Harding, chief gaming officer, in an interview with GamesBeat.
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With the upcoming European launch of Apple Vision Pro (and following the Asia Pacific launch), Infinite Inside will also be among the first games available for the new handset. Hambleton sees the chance as an advantage to be early on the Apple platform as it means the company will be able to learn how to make games for the platform at an accelerated rate.
The Infinite Inside is one of the first mixed reality experiences that seamlessly blends augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), making these multi-dimensions a fundamental part of the storytelling and gameplay.
Origins
The idea for the game came from a project called Valentina, Harding said. The studio got distracted by work on Doctor Who. The team wanted to experiment with the idea of portals, but wanted something that was tangible and tactile, where hand interaction was going to be really key. Using hand controls, you can navigate and teleport through the environment without any game controllers. They wanted this notion of moving between augmented reality and virtual reality, as that transition can seem magical.
“We’ve always got this balance in what we do between gaming and entertainment. In Peaky Blinders, there’s a lot in story, there’s a lot in Doctor Who,” Harding said. “There are influences like the Da Vinci Code. Inception. It’s like being in those sorts of worlds, and just in a much more immersive way. And to be honest, that’s where we see a lot of the Apple Vision Pro stuff going. I think there are gonna be major crossovers between big entertainment IP like Disney and gaming. And there’s this nice space in the middle.”
In recent months, the team learned more about developing for the Apple Vision Pro. Now they’re watching how Apple evolves the tech based on the second version of the developer platform that was unveiled along with the eight new countries.
“The Infinite Inside is really important to us because we managed to try out some new mechanics and learn for some of these smaller titles,” Hambleton said.
The aim is to create a game that is stress free.
“If could play in room scale, and you you walk around the outside of it, and then you enter it,” Hambleton said. “When you come back outside, it feels very believable. It’s very strange to explain, but it’s something that we will really want to play with going forward. Moving people between the different realms. There’s something in it that we’ll explore further and further.”
“We’re pretty proud of the mechanic, as we haven’t seen it anywhere else,” Harding said. “We have not seen it used anywhere else. It’s a mechanic driven by story. It’s so satisfying.”
Game synopsis
The game certainly has an interesting beginning, based on a short demo I saw. In a mixed reality headset, you can see that a “plinth,” an ancient sculpted pillar, appears in your living room. This is a kind of illusion that mixed reality is particularly good at show you, as you can see your own home in the background while you’re trying to figure out how this stone pillar got in the middle of it.
It’s an enigmatic ancient artifact known as the Plinth, and it just mysteriously materializes in your home. It opens a portal to a tranquil, dream-like world, filled with impossible architecture and hidden secrets.
Guided by echoes of past explorers, players will collect shards, solve three-dimensional puzzles, and assemble keys to unlock the mysteries of a secret society, committed to maintaining the balance of order and chaos. Players are enticed to solve the puzzles, reveal the truth about society, the legacy of the Plinth and own their place in this mystical world.
Key features
The game uses room-scale gameplay that seamlessly blends mixed and virtual reality. It also has five immersive worlds, where players escape into peaceful and soothing labyrinths filled with mysteries.
Players can manipulate 3D geometric puzzles using precise and intuitive hand tracking. Players engage with a deep and captivating story embedded in the world. And for the Apple Vision Pro, the game features 3D spatial audio and cinematic sound design.
You have to manipulate the mysterious thing as if it were a puzzle.
“One of the things we’ve really tried to bring to life with this game is the ability to go around and inside a labyrinth experience in VR and hop in and out as part of the storytelling of the game,” Harding said.
On the Meta Quest 3, you can play the game at room scale and walk around and explore the plinth and find its secret drawers and puzzle pieces. It’s not a fitness app, but you are actively moving around an object in a safe space, Hambleton said.
“The main thing that you’re doing is searching the environment looking for hidden drawers, or hidden puzzle pieces. You’ll see wooden puzzle pieces where you have separate components that we pulled together to where they’re cut into [pieces]. You need to find pieces,” Hambleton said.
You may see echoes of people from the past and learn about a secret society. There is an atmosphere of mystery.
Being early on a new IP and new platform
Harding said the team started working on it about 18 months ago, just as mixed reality was starting to become the next big thing for XR headsets, which are now loaded with cameras that can pass through images of your living room while you’re inside a computer-animated experiences.
“As a as a studio, we took a bit of a gamble on what we thought was coming next. We began designing for an Apple headset that we didn’t know exactly. We really wanted to focus on hand tracking. We really wanted to experiment with mixing AR and mixed reality in the room,” Harding said.
Making the game for all the platforms was demanding, as they range from PC-connected devices to mobile headsets to the standalone Meta Quest headsets. The nice thing is that the passthrough technology is starting to become more present across the different manufacturers of headsets.
Ubisoft used to have a lot of focus on developing for new game platforms as that was considered the best time to launch a new intellectual property. After that, the opportunity to make bigger sales can arise via sequels that appear when the platform has a larger installed base. But even Ubisoft pulled back on that strategy as the sales on early platforms are hard to predict.
Still, Hambleton believes there is value in learning lessons early and then being ready when the platform comes into its own and hits massive sales.
“When a new headset arrives, being the game that everyone plays during that new launch is something you can be pretty proud of, and that’s an opportunity,” Harding said.
If you want to establish a new IP later in the cycle, you have to throw a lot more marketing dollars at the problem, Harding said.
“We’ve always been involved with the new technologies in gaming, VR and AI,” Hambleton said.
As the Meta Quest 3 came together and the Apple Vision Pro took shape, Maze Theory felt like it was striking at the right time. With the Apple Vision Pro, Harding said the team finally saw the tech that was the “transition between VR and mixed reality. We knew that we took the right gamble.”
About 100 early users rated the experience at 4.8 out of 5. That’s a tiny sample, but Harding is excited about it.
“What’s really interesting was thinking about creating something in mixed reality. We wanted something that was really tangible,” Hambleton said. “There’s a key panel. You find the pieces of the key, put those together, and it unlocks the plinth so you go inside it.”
The studio has about 50 people. For a company that size, there is a real market available for the work they can produce, Harding said.
But it’s not like an explosion in the same way that the iPhone was.
“I think there is a growing market. It certainly has its ebbs and flows with different launches. I think we’re going to probably see a lot more support with Apple in the next year or two, but even that’s going to be relatively slow burning. It’s steady as she goes,” Harding said.
