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Pokémon will soon be able to hide behind real-world objects in Pokémon GO
The feature will be tested with a random selection of gamers in June
Pokémon GO might not be as popular as it used to be, especially amid a pandemic that has many of us staying home as much as we can, but the company behind it is nevertheless working on improving the game. As such, Niantic has announced that it will start testing reality blending next month, which will allow Pokémon to hide behind real-world objects that block your view, just as though they were real.
Niantic has revealed today that a new multiplayer feature tentatively titled Buddy Adventure should be coming to Pokémon GO sometime soon. This new feature will offer a shared augmented reality experience where players will interact with their friend's Pokémon via the AR camera. These friends can watch in real-time as you pet their Pokémon, and cross-platform support is expected, which means iOS and Android users can enjoy the upcoming Buddy Adventure mode together.
We've known that Niantic's upcoming location-based AR game Harry Potter: Wizards Unite would be coming to Android sometime soon, thanks to the recent betas in New Zealand and Australia. As of last night, the official Harry Potter: Wizards Unite Twitter account announced the official release date for the US and UK, and we only have two more days to wait. That's right, Wizards Unite will be available for download on the Google Play Store on June 21st.
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It's been 20 years since Pokémon Snap, the N64 game in which players roamed the Pokémon Island taking pictures of its inhabitants. Two decades later, humans now roam the Earth taking pictures for the Gram. With the similarly-named GO Snapshot feature, a much-requested photo mode for Pokémon GO, Niantic seems to hark back to the past.
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- Niantic has officially announced AR+ support for Android, and indeed, it's fully functional. If you have the latest version of Pokémon Go on an ARCore-compatible device and you're still not seeing the option, try logging out and back in (thanks, Ryan Montgomery).
Pokémon Go is still alive and kicking. Earlier this year, players finally got the ability to trade monsters with friends, a hallmark of the core Pokémon series fans had been asking for since the game's launch. Now, a new update is set to bring enhanced augmented reality (AR+) and creatures from the Sinnoh region featured in the series' fourth generation of games.
Pokémon Go developer Niantic Labs has announced a partnership with kid-focused web service company SuperAwesome to create a new platform called Niantic Kids Parent Portal. With it, parents can manage accounts for their kids, "review and approve [their] child’s permissions," and control what information about the child is shared.
"Pokémon Go" developer Niantic Labs has sure been keeping itself busy. The company has announced that it's acquired Seismic Games, developer of "Blade Runner: Revelations" and "Marvel Strikeforce." The studio employs veterans of some big names in gaming like EA and Activision.
Developer Niantic has begun to unlock the full partner potential of the Pokémon GO augmented reality game. Just yesterday a partnership between the game and Sprint retail stores was announced, teasing new in-game locations corresponding to Sprint, Boost Mobile, and Radio Shack stores. That rollout doesn't technically begin until December 12th, but the previously-leaked Starbucks promotion should be live right now, turning 7800 coffee shops in the US into new Pokestops and Pokémon Gyms.
While the Pokémon GO hysteria has mostly died down, there are still a lot of people playing. Those who have stuck with the summer's hottest mobile game will soon be able to enjoy significant improvements to training Pokémon at gyms and the way rare Pokémon are caught.
Despite much of the hype wearing off, Pokemon GO is still one of the most successful mobile games of all time. The game has become a cultural phenomenon, not to mention a money-maker for Niantic Labs, The Pokemon Company, and Nintendo. But just how many downloads has Pokemon GO achieved? Over 500 million across Android and iOS, according to a press release from earlier today.
Slowly but surely, the creatures are coming. They advance, nation by nation, relentless, refusing to stop until the entire planet is their domain. Hundreds of millions have felt their impact. Politicians and titans of industry are not immune. And even mainstream news outlets are scrambling to find "22 Tips For Catching Pokémon - #12 Will Make You Scream!" Today developer Niantic continues its bid for global mobile gaming domination by expanding Pokémon GO to 15 new markets in Asia, including hundreds of millions of new potential players on iOS and Android.
Niantic's augmented reality take on Pokémon GO continues to be staggeringly popular as it approaches its one month anniversary. It recently passed 100 million downloads across Android and iOS, despite some rather vocal negative press after the removal of the Pokémon step tracker and third-party tools for hunting monsters manually. Today Niantic is expanding the game to some of the biggest markets it hadn't previously supported: South America and Central America.
Pokémon GO's worldwide phenomenon is spreading fast and now, if you live in Europe, odds are you'll have more chances of seeing people huddled up acting weird staring at their screens and trying to play with imaginary creatures. Why? Because while we, lucky Android geeks, have been able to manually grab the APK and install it on our phones regardless of where Niantic has officially released the game, many regular Android users didn't know how to do it and almost all iPhone users simply couldn't.
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There are few games more hotly anticipated than Niantic Labs' Pokémon GO, and now the first non-beta players are getting their hands on it. The Play Store listing is now live for everyone, but only those in select countries will be able to install it right now. Well, unless you head over to APK Mirror where we have the game available for download too.
Last month Nintendo started a closed beta program for Pokémon GO, the augmented reality catch-em-all game that the company has been working on with Niantic. It looks like we're very close to a public release, at least according to Nintendo's presentation at the massive E3 gaming convention. As reported by Polygon, Nintendo announced that the game will be released on smartphones sometime in July.
There are Pokémon springing up in the land down under, and you can start catching them all if you're in that part of the world. Niantic Labs has announced the expansion of the Pokémon GO field test to Australia and New Zealand. It was previously limited to Japan.
The recent Google spin-off Niantic Labs is cooking up what might be the first worthwhile Pokémon experience on a mobile device with Pokémon GO. A bit of footage was shown off at SXSW last weekend, but now Niantic has posted some proper details and screenshots. Get your Pokéballs ready.
Now that Niantic Labs has left Google behind, we've all been wondering what its next big game will be. Ingress has managed more than 12 million downloads, but dare I say the just announced Pokémon GO will have even more. This game (coming in 2016) will have a similar augmented reality premise to Ingress, but instead of capturing portals you're capturing Pokémon.
Google's Niantic Labs is perhaps best known as the developer of the popular augmented reality game Ingress (it also makes the exploration app Field Trip). In the wake of the Alphabet announcement, Niantic is leaving Google behind, but not in the way you think. Google is spinning off the developer completely, turning it into an independent company.
Google's Ingress, made by Niantic Labs, has been quite a phenomenon. Those who have paid attention know the game has had a storied history since its initial launch as a closed beta in 2012, and a quick Google+ search shows that engagement doesn't really seem to be slowing down. The Ingress YouTube channel continues to pump out content and updates for players on various in-game goings on.