Scotland will be home to an unusual new outdoor area known as Mythtopia, which mixes glamping with augmented reality (AR) and Live Action Role Playing (LARPing).
It was previously due to open in spring 2024, but this just been delayed by a year to spring 2025.
The Mythtopia site will be located in West Linton, a former golf course, which is about 20 minutes from Scotland’s capital city Edinburgh. It offers ‘an immersive AR adventure’ in the outdoors targeting gamers, couples, families and LARPers.
Mythtopia also claims to be ‘the UK’s first holiday destination exclusive to NFT token holders’.
An NFT, or non-fungible token, is a unique digital asset – usually an image or a piece of digital art – with the buyer receiving a digital receipt saying they own it. NFTs can be bought and owned and re-sold, usually for cryptocurrency. NFTs gained in prominence in 2021 and 2022 but have dwindled in popularity – and value – since.
Mythtopia will feature 150 low-carbon impact geometric domes and lodges, with a restaurant, clubhouse, bar and spa.
Founder of Mythtopia, Oliver Pyle-Santini, said: “Through Mythtopia, we are aiming to create a Scottish getaway with a difference in this new digital landscape, as well as an amazing experience to help unite families, teenagers, and adults alike.
“Something like this has never really been done before, and by blending together eco-tourism, gaming and the cryptosphere, we’re hoping to create a new era for travel and tourism.”
Oliver Pyle-Santini, Mythtopia
“We have been very careful to maintain the cultural heritage of the land the site sits on, by entwining Celtic stories into the experience for all ages to enjoy.”
Each guest will gain access to activities including a geofenced augmented reality playground based on ancient Celtic mythology called ‘Mythtopia Legends’. The game allows players to explore the natural woodland environment while following a story involving mythical creatures.
There are physical structures like statues, treasure chests, wishing wells, lakes and caves to explore as well as the forest.
Participants can build their own AR character, interact with talking trees and dwarves, and go on missions alongside the characters of their friends and family. Using Celtic legends, the AR experience will create a ‘digital theme park’ perfect for families, couples, gamers, and LARPers.
The eco-resort will offer open water swimming in its own lake, stargazing opportunities, horse riding, yoga classes and silent disco parties.
In addition, buying an NFT will support Mythtopia on its mission to plant over 120,000 trees. All NFT holders can stay at Mythtopia for up to three nights every year, and can take up to three other guests (four people in total) along with them. Alternatively, investors can stake their NFTs to earn a percentage of the booking revenue over their allocated nights.
Other developments include customers being able to purchase a cryptocurrency token called OXEGEN (OXE), which is like a ‘digital carbon credit’, where the liquidity will come from the carbon credits of trees planted.
What is Mythtopia Legends? How the game and LARPing works around it
Mythtopia Legends is an AR adventure game that takes players on a tour of the mythical land of Mythtopia, bringing you into a Celtic mythological story about goblins, kelpies, vampires, druids and giants.
The Mythtopia Legends part of the Mythtopia resort is set in over 50 acres of designated land and will host LARPers (live action role players) as well as digital characters to interact with.
The game involves the player creating a character to get started. As a first-person game, they won’t see their character whilst playing, but can get a 3D model of their character from the shop.
As your created character, you physically explore the terrain across Mythtopia resort picking up loot including new armour, weapons, scrolls, magic tablets and spells.
Digital NPCs (non player characters), appear at certain locations across the site (like in Pokemon Go) and you can interact with them. From talking trees to dwarves, elves, fairies and goblins, you will be asked to perform certain tasks and fetch quests. These will involve things like solving a riddle or puzzle, battling a creature or collecting a certain artifact either by finding and scanning it, or buying it from one of the on-site stores.
Battles take you into a one-on-one format where you use either your sword (slashing) bow (pull and flick) or magic (rune shape drawing) to beat your opponent until their health is low. At this point, once their armour is broken, you can kill or negotiate with the opponent, with different story elements being unlocked with each choice.
Check out more images of the site on our Instagram page below:
Each NPC has a backstory in Mythtopia, which you can discover from the audiobooks or by asking the right questions. You can also add certain characters into your companion group so they then help you with tips and directions to activities they are associated with.
There’s also a multiplayer format, where up to six players can operate as a team to guide one of the six around Mythtopia, in order to collect certain items in a given time frame. This will involve only one player at a time venturing out into Mythtopia, with the others communicating with the adventurer giving them directions, weapon drops and powers via the map, whilst the adventurer is unable to access their character or abilities.
They will essentially have to trust their colleagues to direct them to a clue or piece of a puzzle, then return so that another player can get another piece to then unlock the grand prize.
The story is episodic, with new seasons published every six to nine months, it follows the story of Mythtopia, the mysterious heart crystal and the dark forces of ‘The Shadow’. The story is based in Celtic mythology but the characters are unique to the game.
There will be LARPing characters offered as a weekend specific NFT, this is where anyone wanting to embody a specific Mythtopia character can purchase the LARP NFT.
The Larper can then dress up as that specific character and will be given instructions on what to say to guests and where to direct them as part of the story. Larpers will be roaming around the 50 acre site only. They will get accommodation for the weekend as part of the NFT. They cannot resell the NFT and it will run out at the end of the specific time frame.
There’s more info on the Mythtopia website
Related posts:
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
