A new way to imprison and force gladiatorial combat upon your favorite adorable monsters is coming to Android and IOS devices in 2016. Pokémon Go, an app collaboration between former Google startup Niantic (best known for their location-based AR game Ingress) and The Pokémon Company, uses GPS technology to aid players in tracking down the titular beasts with a map on their phones, directing them to discover their quarry hidden in real-life locales. Pokémon can then be captured, traded, trained, and used to battle against others for the amusement of their trainer overlords. To help make this even more unfair, Nintendo has built the Pokémon Go Plus, a small Bluetooth device shaped like a Poké Ball that alerts the owner when Pokémon are near.
The trailer below attempts to explain the concept, showing among other things a terrified Pikachu cowering behind a bush awaiting the inevitable, a surprise attack on a bridge, and a gathering full of smiles in a bucolic setting where an exchange between phones decides the fates of tiny warriors with the push of a touchscreen. There is also some hinting at special public events where hundreds of crazed fans might gather at a specific spot to possibly amass their power to take on and destroy some poor little guy minding his own business like Mewtwo. While things probably won’t turn out exactly like depicted in the video below, the concept is still very cool, perfect for the franchise, and shows some of the interesting ways Nintendo can expand into the mobile games market.
The Pokémon Go app is set to release initially as a free download sometime in 2016.