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Back when the HTC Vive launched in 2016, one of our favorite experiences was ‘Gnomes & Goblins’. This experience, set in a magical forest deep into the night, found players in the middle of a small village of Goblins, with intricate tree houses and little bridges going between them. If players held still for long enough, shy Goblins would appear in the tall grass, trying to get a look at you but still stay a safe distance away. It was only when players grabbed an acorn from the trees above and befriended a Goblin with a bit of sustenance that the real magic started.
It’s these types of experiences that Favreau has been working on in his career, and one that he’s ready to begin again now that he’s finished up with the recently released The Lion King remake. Favreau is also famous for Iron Man 1 and 2, and worked on Gnomes & Goblins between the second Iron Man movie and The Jungle Book. Gnome & Goblins was designed to be a preview of an experience yet to come, but it never saw the light of day for whatever odd reason, and the project that started out with so much interest floundered with the developers going dark on info.
RoadtoVR found a Tweet from Wevr, the studio that’s been working with Favreau on Gnomes & Goblins and is also known for other immersive interactive experiences like TheBlu, resurrected the idea that the full game experience could finally be happening.
The Gnomes & Goblins site now even has a banner declaring “Full Adventure Upcoming”, which is more than we’ve heard from the project in over 3 years. Favreau’s work on The Lion King was made possible by working in VR, as he talked about in interviews, and it seems the original work from the Gnomes & Goblins preview helped build a foundation of tools that have not only helped further film making in a new way, but could end up providing a better experience than we would have gotten 3 years ago because of it.
The revamped site describes Gnomes & Goblins as a “fantasy adventure VR simulation” and a “story-driven game” where players build a relationship with inhabitants of a fantasy land. The original preview felt a bit like you were tending to virtual pets who were then compelled to bring you into their world once you had proven to be a peaceful friend.
There were few experiences in 2016 that felt as immersive as Gnomes & Goblins did at the time, and it only got better once you were shrunk to the size of the Goblins and were able to experience their world at a miniature size. There’s no word on platforms that it’ll launch on or an expected date, but it originally launched on Steam and is still available for players to experience for free if they want.
Given that it’s already been 3 years since the last update, we don’t expect this one to be cooking for too much longer, so stay peeled for updates in the very near future.