The Human Element Encourages People to Leave the House for In-game Supplies

The Human Element, a cross-platform title in development by a team led by ex-Infinity Ward creative strategist Robert Bowling, potentially lets players gather in-game resources by visiting real world locations.

The game will use GPS-enabled devices to track players and reward them with in-game items when they visit relevant locations, revealed Bowling in an interview with Games Industry International. Once the items have been collected with the pocket extension of The Human Element, they can be shared onto another platform.

“Say you’re at home, you’re playing Human Element, you’re out in the world, you get injured. You’re hurt and you need medical supplies. You don’t want to risk going out to forage in the game world, or maybe you did and can’t find anything, but you know that there’s a pharmacy four miles down the road in the real world. So you go out and you’re out and about in the real world. You open up Human Element on your iPad. We’re overlaying the world of Human Element onto the Googlemaps API, FourSquare business API, we’re taking your real world and merging it with your game world.”

“So now you’re checking into places in the real world and you’re scavenging in those locations for supplies that are dynamic to those locations. We can do that anywhere there’s GPS map data.”

The system will also work in multiplayer, allowing one person to add to another’s game regardless of the platform they’re interacting with.

“Say my girlfriend doesn’t want to play the console experience but she wants to play on iPad – she likes that experience. If we have an alliance she can play the resource management game, that scavenging mechanic, and she can be benefiting my game by sharing supplies with my survivors.”

The Human Element marks Bowling’s dev team Robotoki’s first attempt at its own title. It’s not due out until 2015, when it’ll hit next gen consoles, mobile, PC, and tablets.