In 2023, Verizon, one of America's largest providers of network, security, and cloud services, launched a promotional campaign during which they created an original game to showcase the possibilities of 5G technology. The game features rich visuals powered by real-time AR technology, made possible by 5G's high-speed data transfer capabilities. Directed by Keiichi Matsuda of London-based LIQUID CITY, the project’s core creative elements—including character design, worldbuilding, and animation for the original monsters known as “Overbeasts”—were all developed by WOW.

The story Matsuda proposed to WOW begins with a giant egg hatching in New York's Central Park. Players collaborate with fellow citizens in their region to raise a massive Overbeast unique to their locality, ultimately competing to secure victory for their area in a nationwide “Ultimate Overbeast Championship.” The game's most distinctive feature, beyond its real-time AR experience, is its citywide cooperative gameplay. When players hold their smartphones up to their local cityscape, their region’s Overbeast appears integrated into the environment. Communities work together to gather “pollen” resources floating throughout the city, collectively raising a single enormous monster. This creates different experiences across cities —residents of New York and Los Angeles, for example, unite to raise entirely different Overbeasts. The monster's strength is based on the amount of resources collected each week, culminating in weekend interstate battles where winners are determined by the level of player collaboration. These intense battle scenes form another highlight of the gaming experience.

The game's distinctive monsters and world concept were crafted by WOW's visual designer Shota Oga. He developed all the AR-projected visuals in the game. When tasked with designing unknown creatures inhabiting the parallel “Overworld,” his brief was simply to create “creatures the world has never seen before.” To achieve this, Oga conceptualized core “ability elements” that would form the essence of each character while imagining their effects in animation. He combined diverse biological features—body structures, surface textures, and functional capabilities—as he envisioned how they would appear in motion.

For example, the “Magnetic Bird” is an Overbeast that attacks by launching powerful scales with magnetic properties. While resembling a pterosaur or bird, it has syndactyl feet with three forward-facing fingers and one backward-facing toe, with additional legs growing from the tips of its wings. This unusual anatomy allows it to adopt quadrupedal postures when needed. Its evolutionary backstory explains that “its feathers evolved into scales to protect itself from enemy attacks, its legs grew because it could no longer fly, and it developed the ability to manipulate magnetic forces to attack from a distance.” Besides “Magnetic Bird,” there are other Overbeasts that control elements like wind and water. Altogether, there are six different types of Overbeasts, each with their own uniquely compelling visual identity.

Developed alongside the character design were effect and animation techniques, one of WOW’s specialties. To enhance battle scenes, the team spent nearly a year creating unique character abilities and imagining unprecedented movements for each Overbeast. This meticulous development resulted in powerful, distinctive animations—from particle effects and fabric textures to fur dynamics and smoke emission patterns—that brought the creatures to life with striking visual impact.

Character design for AR games isn’t simply about creating appealing visuals. Surprisingly, one of the most critical considerations was ensuring the characters wouldn’t be obstructed by buildings. When an Overbeast’s face was positioned too close to the ground, urban structures like buildings would hide it, significantly diminishing its visual impact. Through repeated testing with prototype applications, the team refined the character designs to account for these real-world environmental challenges.

The team also created facial variations so each Overbeast would be equally beloved across different regions, carefully striking a balance between “not too frightening, yet not too cute.” They sketched detailed character profiles and designs to present to the broader development team. Working with external modeling artists, they added more nuanced details, such as “having smoke come out of the spiracles on its abdomen since it resembles an insect,” etc., enriching each creature's distinctive identity.

Ultimately, all battle scenes were delivered to users as pre-rendered animations rather than real-time graphics. This approach, made possible by 5G’s high bandwidth capabilities, allowed for far more impressive combat scenes than real-time rendering would permit. The team created an astonishing 400+ animation components to fully express these sequences—an enormous undertaking that enabled extraordinary attention to detail and visual fidelity. This project combined the technological capabilities of the company with WOW's expertise in visual design and artistic expression, delivering a new and immersive world to users.