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Pokemon Go is a new mobile game from the creators of Ingress

A new Pokemon mobile game has been announced. Pokemon Go will be a new collaboration between The Pokemon Company and Niantic Labs, the creators of Ingress.

Ozzie Mejia

September 9, 2015 11:18 PM

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What happens when "Gotta catch 'em all" meets "How's your Ingress?" You end up with Pokemon GO, a new mobile gaming effort from Niantic Labs, the creators of Ingress. The new game was announced late tonight during a press conference from The Pokemon Company, announced as a collaboration between Niantic, The Pokemon Company, and Nintendo, with the late Satoru Iwata cited specifically.

Like Ingress before it, it appears that this new game will involve catching Pokemon by exploring real-world locations. Wild Pokemon will roam different real-world environments, like parks, streets, or even landmarks. Different Pokemon types will appear in different location types. Users will then toss their Poke Balls to catch the pocket monsters and then use them to battle real-world players. And as is tradition in Pokemon games, users will be able to trade Pokemon with one another.

A new wrist peripheral called Pokemon GO Plus was also unveiled during the presentation, demonstrated by both series producer Junichi Masuda and Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto. The Pokemon GO Plus will use an LED display and vibration function to inform players when certain Pokemon are nearby, communicating with a user's smartphone via a Bluetooth connection. The design was kept intentionally minimalistic to reduce power usage, so don't look for voice recognition or any other advanced features along those lines. The Pokemon GO Plus' function is mainly to alert users to a Pokemon's presence without requiring them to keep their eyes glued on the screen.

The Pokemon Company is also teasing integration with future main installments of the Nintendo 3DS Pokemon series. Pokemon GO is coming to iOS and Android in 2016 as a free download. Pricing details on the Pokemon GO Plus were not revealed.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?