How Atlas Obscura plans to embrace the 3D net

That is Lowpass by Janko Roettgers, a publication on the ever-evolving intersection of tech and leisure, syndicated only for The Verge subscribers as soon as every week.

Atlas Obscura has been crowdsourcing unusual and great locations from all all over the world since its founding in 2009. Up to now, the positioning’s customers and editorial employees have collected and curated articles and photographs for over 32,000 such locations, starting from deserted theme parks to hidden seashores to Japan’s Cat Island. Atlas Obscura’s group has created over 93 million lists all through the years, and the corporate has been releasing books and podcasts to additional spotlight the obscure and visit-worthy.

In fact, lots of the listed locations are merely out of attain for most individuals. “The premise of the corporate was to make exploration out there to all people,” says Atlas Obscura’s chief content material officer, Doug Baldinger. That features individuals who can’t afford costly worldwide journey. When shopper VR first emerged a decade in the past, its potential to move folks to faraway locations appeared an ideal answer for journey seekers unable to go to them in particular person. “We [wanted] to indicate folks that you may have entry to those issues wherever you might be,” he says.

Alas, the tech wasn’t what it was cracked as much as be. Aiming for max publicity, Atlas Obscura wager on inexpensive headsets like Samsung’s Gear VR and Meta’s Oculus Go, solely to shortly understand that these gadgets got here with huge limitations. With out six levels of freedom, visiting a spot in VR didn’t actually really feel like being there. Plus, most of these early headsets ended up catching mud, with disillusioned customers giving up on them after a number of weeks.

“The supply platform wasn’t actually as much as what we wished to do with it,” recollects Nathan Anderson, whose New Canvas studio has been serving to Atlas Obscura with its immersive media efforts.

Atlas Obscura gave VR one other shot final 12 months by re-releasing its app with remastered content material on Meta’s Quest, and in latest weeks additionally introduced it to Android XR and Steam. Now, the corporate is on the brink of convey immersive experiences to anybody it doesn’t matter what gadget they’re utilizing. In early 2026, Atlas Obscura plans to launch a WebXR-based social 3D expertise referred to as the Obscura Society.

The Obscura Society shall be a digital lounge that Atlas Obscura group members can go to to hang around with the assistance of 3D avatars, have voice chats, and discover locations from the positioning’s huge catalog collectively. There will even be a bartender serving up digital drinks and factoids about real-world locations, and folks utilizing headsets will be capable to use portals that immediately take them into the Atlas Obscura VR apps.

The Obscura Society shall be powered by HTC’s Viverse platform, and Baldinger freely admits that he wasn’t all that aware of it when New Canvas first proposed the collaboration. Nevertheless, Viverse in the end received out over competing metaverse platforms like Meta’s Horizon Worlds or VRChat as a result of it has a decrease barrier of entry. “It’s about accessibility,” Anderson says. “Even on Horizon Worlds, you continue to must have an account to log in.”

Viverse not solely works with out an account, it may be immediately embedded into the Atlas Obscura web site, permitting group members to hop from an article or a podcast into the digital lounge with or with out a VR headset. “The overwhelming majority of individuals shall be coming in by means of desktop and cellular, we anticipate,” Anderson says.

HTC’s platform already sees about equal utilization from desktop, cellular, and VR customers, based on Viverse head of development Andranik Aslanyan, whose firm contributed to the funding for the Obscura Society by means of its creator funds. “We’re utterly device-agnostic,” he says, including that this extends to immersive {hardware}. “There’s extra Meta headset customers that use our platform than HTC [Vive headset] customers.”

Viverse already hosts over 23,000 3D worlds, however Aslanyan prefers to not name it a metaverse. “We simply usually keep away from the phrase because it has this connotation that it’s one normal world,” he says. As a substitute, areas just like the Obscura Society operate as separate 3D net entities, which Aslanyan likens to YouTube participant embeds. “We need to get as shut as we will to video consumption,” he says.

New Canvas envisions lounges just like the Obscura Society as a brand new type of third locations within the metaverse. Locations that aren’t explicitly video games, however gathering grounds for like-minded folks. “Typically, you simply need to meet with folks and simply hang around with them,” Anderson says. Locations that may be low-stakes entry factors into digital worlds, whereas additionally providing portals to full-blown VR experiences for individuals who need to go deeper.

The Obscura Society can be betting on AI, which permits the bartender to tug nuggets from Atlas Obscura’s huge information base. That’s not with out danger: AI is a little bit of some extent of competition for Atlas Obscura today.

The corporate behind the positioning just lately confronted employees and reader pushback over the CEO’s plans to combine AI into Atlas Obscura, in addition to vital employees reductions. “There’s a variety of sensitivity round it when it comes to how we’re dealing with manufacturing,” says Baldinger. “We see it for example of AI that might truly assist foster human connection.”