Jaguars and Piranhas and Bears: Go Adventuring With ‘Unearthed’ on Meta Quest Today

“Mayday—I’m stuck in the Amazon. Any chance you can get down here, soon as you can?”

Blurring the lines between education and entertainment, Unearthed launches on the Meta Quest Platform today. When the Professor goes missing, you’re charged with exploring vast swathes of Alaska and the Amazon in hopes of both finding her and (by extension) saving these precious environments.

Along the way you’ll battle bears, fend off piranhas, morph into a jaguar and climb trees, shrink down to the size of an insect to collect pollen, and more, unlocking animal superpowers that will put a new twist on your adventure. Discover more than 80 real-life plants and animals under the watchful eye of your two robot guides.

With voice acting by Richard Ayoade (The Mandalorian) and Sian Clifford (Fleabag), and Indira Varma (Game Of Thrones) playing The Professor, Unearthed is a star-studded and unique look at the world we inhabit, and what it will take to preserve it for future generations.

We sat down with Mimi Harmer, Associate XR Producer at Factory 42, to discuss how the project got its start, the precarious pursuit of entertainment that’s also educational, caring for nature and protecting fragile environments, and more. Read on for details!

Mimi Harmer: Unearthed is a journey of discovery into the often secret, unspoken, and incredible world of plants, animals, ecosystems, and biodiversity. Players are encouraged to actively experience, connect, and interact with the natural world in surprising and magical new ways.

You are the Candidate, embarking on an innocent interview which turns into an unforgettable and educational journey through the Amazon Basin and Alaskan Tongass Forest to find The Professor, played by Indira Varma (Game Of Thrones, Obi-Wan Kenobi).

You need to follow The Professor out into the field, unearth the secrets of the world’s most amazing destinations, and discover hands-on The Professor’s unique perspectives on the importance of ecosystems and food chains. Along the way, you collect and collate knowledge to help biodiversity and ecosystems thrive by experiencing life as different animals—shrinking to the size of a bug, exploring mushroom forests with a very useful woodlouse, and hunting down reptiles with your razor sharp claws.

None of this is possible without your hilarious Ecobot sidekicks, Hazzi and Penni, voiced by Richard Ayoade (Soul, The Mandalorian) and Sian Clifford (Fleabag).

Throughout Unearthed, you will learn to understand, care for, and support nature, and be inspired to help protect the planet.

We’re fortunate to have the support of Meta Education, who approached us to create an experience after the success of our The BBC Green Planet AR Experience with Sir David Attenborough at London’s Piccadilly Circus. Unearthed has been developed in association with the United Nations Environment Programme, and with the expertise of University of Oxford Associate Professor of Biodiversity and Sustainability Robert Montgomery, who ensured learning outcomes and scientific accuracy was built into the script and gameplay.

MH: One of the focal points in developing Unearthed was the desire for players to experience nature from a set of new angles in a fun and engaging way, choosing to structure it on the food chain. Each level highlights the importance of a particular animal, their relationship with the wider environment, and how they fit within the ecosystem—especially focusing on unsung heroes like plants and insects. There can be so much focus on the power and mastery of apex predators that we wanted players to better understand and feel the fears a baitfish might have, or the epic journey woodlice have to go through to survive after human interference in the forest.

Our Creative and Design team did a huge amount of work in pre-production researching biomes that were unique and rich in diversity. We had a lot of knowledge of the Amazon Basin from our previous work, and then the Tongass stood out as a really interesting temperate rainforest as the ecosystem heavily relies on the entire chain to survive in a neat, cyclical way.

My favorite animal… An excellent question, and one that our QA Lead asks in every interview. Mine is the cuttlefish—I admire their adaptability and willingness to embrace change.

MH: We are so incredibly lucky and grateful to have Richard (Ayoade), Sian (Clifford), and Indira (Varma) lend their talent to Unearthed. They are three very compelling, skilled, and versatile actors who brought Unearthed to life through their performances.

Filming Indira was like observing a masterclass in acting—she dedicated so much time and energy to really understand the tone and meaning behind each recording, and was able to provide a diverse and authentic contrast between the lighter moments and the poignant, serious messages which reflected the brutality of nature.

Doing the voice over recordings with Richard and Sian was hysterical! Again, they are absolute masters at their art and were able to easily deliver the same lines of script with multiple inflections and intonations so we had plenty of material to work with, but the real magic came from the ad-libbed sections. The Creative Director would literally say “Go!” and they would embody the characters and riff off the script in the most hilarious ways. Everyone in the control room was howling at points!

MH: Absolutely! We see ourselves as making what we call “Impact Entertainment.” We combine the magic of technology with the science of stories to create emotionally engaging interactive experiences with purpose.

Unearthed is just that! It’s all about empowering and inspiring players to have more knowledge, understanding, sensitivity, and empathy towards the environment and our animal cousins. We also worked really closely with the audience research organization StoryFutures to make sure that players come away from Unearthed concretely learning something, and having an increased awareness which would be reflected in their values and behaviors.

There is a common misconception that edutainment or educational experiences are boring, which isn’t true! Learning through play and creative exploration is a tried and tested method of learning and teaching which has proven to be really effective. We used the work that we did with University of Oxford Associate Professor of Biodiversity and Sustainability Robert Montgomery and applied it to our stories so that players hit the key learning outcomes throughout the narrative.

In Unearthed, players are active participants in the story—we hope that they come away with a greater understanding of, and empathy towards, the fragility of our ecosystems; empowering them to be responsible citizens in the world.

MH: We have a super fun location-based augmented reality project launching at a museum in the US in the first half of this year, but that’s all we can say for now… Watch this space!

MH: Visit our website to find out more about Factory 42 and our work!

The Professor is waiting! Unearthed is available now on the Meta Quest Store.