Niantic wants AR to work on high-speed networks with low latencies.

Niantic broadens access to Niantic Lightship AR dev tools

Niantic is expanding the developer platform to access its next-generation augmented reality tools using its Niantic Lightship platform. The platform will now be available to just about any third-party game developer.

Previously referred to as the Niantic Real World Platform, Niantic Lightship is offering broader access to the new Niantic Lightship Augmented Reality Developer Kit (ARDK), enabling developers to build interactive and immersive AR applications.

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Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.