Hands up, who’s spent many an hour sat on a games console over the past 18 months? Yup, us, too. You know, lockdown and all. It’d be a shame to see all that, ahem, training, go to waste, would it not?
Well, SAIC Design—the London-based creative studio responsible for, among other projects, MG Motor cars—may have the solution. It wants to turn that home-gaming experience into a real-world one. Specifically with this, the MG Maze.
The objective, it says, is to capture “the ‘at home’ gaming scenario” and convey that “in the form of a car.” So whereas at home, you’d have a sofa, a controller, and a screen, in the MG Maze, you’ll find two ‘zero-gravity’ seats, a controller in place of the steering wheel, and a “sophisticated User Interface” for a screen. No mention of snacks, though.
Cocooning you in your immersive gaming setup is an exterior inspired by gaming hardware. Explicitly, “high-tech computers that show off their components and celebrate their processing power.” Real talk. In simpleton terms, that means a full polycarbonate shell, with components such as the GPU, CPU, cooling, motors, and interchangeable batteries—which will be configured ‘plug and play’ style—visible in all their glory to the outside world.
The cockpit, meanwhile, is accessed through a vertically opening front canopy—which, SAIC notes, requires less space than your typical side-opening door. Urban-friendly, see?
Still, to pass the time—and because this is meant to be a gamers’ paradise—passengers can participate in a “real-world treasure hunt of digital art in their cities.” Players will see a 3D map, avatar status, and mission information, with points and rewards available. Oooh, fun.
Don’t expect to see it on the road anytime soon, with the Maze very much a design study for now. But if it wasn’t...thoughts in the comments below, folks.
NOTE: This article first appeared on TopGear.com. Minor edits have been made.
