The MG Maze is a futuristic EV concept inspired by video games

Hands up who’s spent many an hour sat on a games console over the past 18 months? Yup, us too. Heck, for many of those months there’s been nothing else to do. Y’know, lockdown and all. So 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, amongst 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.

Its 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, controller, and 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 set-up 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, DAIC notes, requires less space than your typical side-opening door. Urban-friendly, see? Can’t promise it’ll make escaping the maze that is London rush hour any easier, though.

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.