An artist’s rendering of Porgs invading your Ikea-decorated abode for Project Porg. Image : ILMxLab

The Porgs have invaded Star Wars at the box office, they’ve invaded it in the world of merchandising, and now, they’re gunning for reality itself. Virtually speaking, of course.




ILMxLab’s latest experiment in the world of mixed and augmented reality is coming in the form of a new experience dubbed, of course, Project Porg. Set to be officially unveiled at the upcoming Magic Leap Conference in Los Angeles, Project Porg tasks users, at the behest of C-3PO, with corralling a murder of Porgs (the official collective noun!) around their own real-world environment. Give them treats! Pet them! Love them! Acknowledge that as creations of pixels and polygons being beamed into your eyeballs by expensive virtual reality technology, they are not real. But they might as well be, thanks to the magic of augmented reality! Pretty sure that’s how it’s meant to work, right?

We’ll find out a bit more about Project Porg on Wednesday at the Leap Conference keynote—and hopefully not just get to see it in action, but to learn if we’ll able to own it any time soon, especially as the only version of the Magic Leap that’s even remotely close to being available right now is the very expensive developer kit version. But between this and things like Vader Immortal, it’s cool to see ILMxLab’s Star Wars projects help further the world of virtual reality technology, one fluffy little alien bird at a time.