The wonderful thing about the future is that it hasn’t happened yet – and so, theoretically, anything is possible with enough effort, imagination, and collaboration. That’s the thinking behind Mercedes-Benz’s latest initiative, which is designed to create a conversation around one idea: “Let’s imagine futures together”.
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If there’s one thing we love to do here at Media Molecule, it’s to imagine. So when we heard about the project – which began in 2019 at Mercedes and SXSW’s me Convention, a lifestyle festival and ‘future lab’ at which experts and convention goers drafted, sketched and modelled their sustainable and community-minded visions of the future – we knew we wanted to be part of the dialogue.
We knew the perfect tool for it, too: Dreams, of course! Imagination and collaboration are at the heart of our creative platform, and we figured that – with the help of our fantastic coMmunity – we could build our own interactive concept for a better future, and broaden the project’s reach to game fans all over the world.
“As a forward-thinking brand we always encourage collaboration and creativity. With Media Molecule we found an excellent collaboration partner to take our engagement within the gaming community to the next level. Dreams offers the perfect space for gaming enthusiasts to design desirable visions of the future” says Bettina Fetzer, Vice President Marketing at Mercedes-Benz AG. “This collaboration stands for a new way of exploring and creating favourable futures for next generations from all over the world.”
“Dreams and Mercedes” is the result, a gorgeous, narrative-based 2D platformer that presents one possible future: a world in which AI takes care of all the work, and humans are free to nurture their connection to creativity, the natural world, and to one another. Based on a concept from AI expert Alexandre Cadain and with input from the wider team at Mercedes-Benz, it was brought to life through the direction and talent of Dreams community creator Scott Vanderburgh (known in-game as [the_burgervan), plus support from developers here at Mm.
“The best collaborations are those that result in something new, unexpected, and exciting,” says Siobhan Reddy, our studio director here at Media Molecule. “Mercedes-Benz has been an inspiring partner for our first Mm Co-Labs Project. Throughout development, the Mercedes team has encouraged us to let our minds wander and imagine the future. We have enjoyed seeing our Dreams Specialist, Scott Vanderburgh, bring a completely different style of game to Dreams. Thank you to Mercedes for being our first partner on an Mm Co-Lab Project – we hope this is the first of many.”
You’ll be able to play Dreams and Mercedes very soon: it’ll be released in Dreams under the title “Dreams and Mercedes-Benz” on July 8, 2021. We hope it inspires you to imagine your own vision of the future… especially as we’ll be further collaborating with Mercedes-Benz to launch a game jam around the theme of ‘Imagined Futures’, which will run in-game as a Community Jam from July 13 to July 28, 2021! We can’t wait to see what you’ll make.
We’ll be keeping an eye on the social media hashtag #letsimaginefuturestogether, too, so feel free to post it alongside your ideas, thoughts and finished jam creations around this theme. We’re looking forward to it! (Is that a “future” pun? Well, we’re taking credit for it, anyway.)