Meow Wolf is set to make its first full foray into virtual and augmented reality through a mini golf game, the Santa Fe-based immersive art and entertainment company announced Friday.
The game, titled "Walkabout Mini Golf: Meow Wolf," will be created through a partnership with Austin, Texas-based entertainment studio Mighty Coconut. The game is set to launch this fall, according to a news release.
Anyone with a "compatible VR headset or AR-enabled iOS phone or tablet" can access the game once it's released, according to the release. Meow Wolf announced the game at South by Southwest, the massive technology and art conference and festival held annually in Austin.
Lucas Martell, Mighty Coconut's executive producer, launched Walkabout Mini Golf in September 2020. The game comes with around 17 different courses, said David Wyatt, head of communications for the Austin, Texas studio.
Wyatt said that a team from Mighty Coconut flew to Santa Fe late last summer to meet with executives from Meow Wolf, including Vince Kadlubek, a co-founder and creative director at Meow Wolf who had played the mini golf game.
"We realized we have a very similar DNA," Wyatt told Albuquerque Business First. "This is going to be a true co-creation and a really deep partnership."
While Meow Wolf has incorporated virtual reality and augmented reality into different pop-up installations, "Walkabout Mini Golf: Meow Wolf" represents the first time the Santa Fe company has incorporated those platforms in a standalone format, said Katie Murphy, vice president of public relations and communications at Meow Wolf.
Virtual and augmented reality could become part of what the company has called its Meow Wolf "multiverse," Meow Wolf's CEO Jose Tolosa told Albuquerque Business First last summer.
An app could become part of that multiverse by the end of the year, too, Tolosa, who joined the Santa Fe company last year, told Business First in late January.
Meow Wolf, which started in 2016 in Santa Fe with its House of Eternal Return, also has installations in Las Vegas, Nevada and Denver. Combined, those exhibits have entertained over 3,000,000 visitors, the company announced last June.
In January Meow Wolf announced plans to open its first installation in Texas this summer at a mall in a suburb north of Dallas. The New Mexico company wants to open another installation in Houston next year, too, it said last May.
The expansion could mean more hiring in the coming year. Meow Wolf plans to hire over 150 employees to serve its first Texas installation, and Tolosa said that the company could hire more to work on the app's development, although he didn't provide a potential number.
