HBO’s House of the Dragon premiere is only weeks away! And are you really prepared if you don’t have your own baby dragon? Even if it’s an AR Dragon? Luckily the House of the Dragon: DracARys app premiered last week at San Diego Comic-Con. It’s Tamagotchi meets augmented reality. Pokémon Go but with higher stakes. Steal a dragon egg, raise the hatchling, and train it to your will. What could possibly go wrong?

The app helps you learn commands—in the Valyrian language, of course. A voice recognition system means the dragon only listens to you. But from what we know of George R.R. Martin’s lore, even getting the egg to hatch may not be simple. Much less training a baby dragon. Its temperament will develop based on each individual’s interactions raising the dragon. Adults dragons are then free to roam the AR world and interact with other users. And because “Dracarys” is the most fun word to say, it seems likely that the virtual world will just constantly be on fire. 

Screenshot of an augmented reality app where a small orange dragon sits in a garden flowerbed
Warner Media

We learned about the app on DesignTAXI. It immediately transported us back to the stress of the Tamagotchi days. We’ll be much more sad if these baby dragons are neglected than we ever were seeing the tombstone icon on that little ’90s handheld game. This also isn’t the first fantasy realm to come to life in this way. Project Porg from ILMxLAB brings the invasive Star Wars birds into your house. And there’s even an R2-D2 Tamagotchi

Game of Thrones

The House of the Dragon: DracARys app is now available in the Apple and Google Play stores. The Game of Thrones prequel series House of the Dragon starts up August 21, 2022 on HBO Max. 

Melissa is Nerdist’s science & technology staff writer. She also moderates “science of” panels at conventions and co-hosts Star Warsologies, a podcast about science and Star Wars. Follow her on Twitter @melissatruth.