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Google and Disney have teamed up for a new AR experience with The Mandalorian and yes, Baby Yoda is involved. The Mandalorian AR experience “puts you in the shoes of a bounty hunter on the trail of Mando himself, Din Djarin and The Child,” according to a blog post by Matthieu Lorrain, Director of Creative Partnerships for AR at Google. Players can interact with characters in AR and capture in-app scenes to share.
The app is built on ARCore, Google’s development platform for creating augmented reality experiences, and uses its ARCore Depth API, which enables occlusion, when an AR object is blocked from view by other real objects in a scene (useful if Mandalorian jetpacks walk in and your cat enters the picture).
Google worked with Disney and Lucasfilm to build models and animations based primarily on the first season of the hit Disney Plus show. However, new episodes of the experience will be coming to the app on a weekly basis, so season 2 is likely to be part of the experience soon.
One big caveat: while you don’t need a 5G connection to use the app, the Mandalorian AR experience is only compatible with compatible 5G Android devices (see the full list here) that have the Google Play Services for AR feature. Google says it’s coming to more Android devices soon.
This is not the first time Google has created a Star Wars-thematic AR experience; In 2017, it introduced AR Stickers for Pixel 2, which featured stormtroopers, R2-D2, BB-8, and porgs.
The Mandalorian AR Experience is available as a free download on the Google Play Store.
