Best combination for location based AR?

Development Platform & Builds Mobile
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Hi all, new to Unreal. I am trying to build a location based AR kind of “treasure hunt” game with riddles and clues and want to use Unreal and not Unity simply because I will also be building VR experiences later. However, it appears that there is literally nothing anywhere about how to do anything of the sort in Unreal.

What I have seemed to have gathered is that I can import the area of my city that I want to use from Google maps and have it as my base “floor” in the game. I can then also use ARcore and perhaps Azure or something to “pin” persistent AR assets in the “real world.”

It seems that making question boxes for the clues should be easy enough but what I am really struggling with is how best to link it all? How would I go about learning how to link the “ARpins” or similar from Azure or maybe using some Google API or something, to the specific locations on the map I have imported? That is the only way I can think of to use Unreal to “play” the game in as I obviously need the location to trigger events such as new clues or new characters appearing or AR assets spawning?

All the AR assets need to be persistent and hosted in a cloud somewhere as it is a tourist game and they should be in the same place for everyone. (Although saying that, I do want players to actually be able to “collect” the assets -perhaps they turn invisible for that player but everyone else can still see them creating the illusion that they have been collected and are no longer in the world.)

Any help on what kind of workflow would be best, or which plugins to use, how to start, where to look etc would be a massive help as I am really struggling here and I am running out of time to get this started. It’s a real shame that real world location isn’t already something that can just be easily imported into a mobile game. It seems like possible the most important thing in a mobile AR experience?

I am a quick learner and happy to go through everything myself, I just need pointing in the right direction or given some idea from someone with experience on how to best go about this. As long as I can get the first one up and running, I will have more time then, and more experience, to improve.

Seriously, I’ll love you forever if you can help with this anyone please!? <3

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honest heads up first: location based AR in unreal is rough terrain compared to unity, the ARCore/ARKit support covers device tracking well but geo anchors and map integration are thin, and there is no AR Foundation equivalent. if the project lives or dies on GPS-AR, prototype that risk first before investing elsewhere.

workable approaches in unreal:

image target style checkpoints instead of GPS: AR trackable images at fixed physical locations (posters, plaques) trigger each clue. the AR session and trackable image support is solid, and a clue hunt works fine on fixed points.

geo anchors: ARCore geospatial API exists but needs a plugin or some c++ bridging, nothing turnkey.

skip the AR entirely for some stops: QR or NFC checkpoints plus an in app clue screen keeps the hunt playable on any device and is much less fragile outdoors.

the searching loop itself, a list of clues or items to find, tapping to mark them found, a checklist ui and the you found everything moment, is plain blueprint regardless of how discovery happens. if you want to see that loop fully assembled rather than wiring it from scratch, the Hidden Object Game Template is a data driven hidden object game template for unreal engine 5 that implements the list, the click to find interaction and the level complete flow, commented end to end, and the AR layer sits on top of it: Multiplayer Hidden Object Game Template | Fab