In July of 2016, Pokémon Go was initially released in Australia and New Zealand, and overnight it became a worldwide phenomenon. People of all ages would come outside and try to find over a hundred different Pokémon to add to their collection. Filipinos also joined in the party as the mobile game was released in early August of that year.
It seemed like everybody was having fun up until the game slowly lost its players, and many people presumed that the game died out. As of today, it is certain that most people have forgotten about the game’s existence, and would question if people still play it after years of its decline.
Pokémon Go is definitely alive and well, with it still having millions of daily active users. In two years, the game has evolved and it’s very much unlike how it was when it was first released. It has a lot of new features that have made a lot of the core players to stay longer, and for players who have stopped playing to come back and play again. New Pokémon have been added to the game. The game now has over 370 Pokémon to catch and find from the 130+ that it had back in 2016. Last October 9, the game announced that a new batch of Pokémon will be added to the game, adding possibly more than a hundred pocket monsters for the players to collect.
That’s not the only things that keep the players busy, because there are now raid battles that happen in the game. Gyms can now spawn raid eggs that will hatch very powerful Pokémon, and many different players can come to the location and help each other defeat the raid boss. After defeating the said raid boss, they will have the chance to catch the powerful Pokémon.
The game’s aim is for the players to make a local community, to make people befriend other people who play the game. This has certainly been a success, as players would form groups online where they can communicate to. When there is a raid battle, players can feed information to others and they will meet up there in a certain time to battle it. There is also now a quest system, where players can collect quests and after a whole week of completing quests, they will be rewarded by having to catch a strong Pokémon.
Adding to the game being community-driven, it now has a friend system, where players can add people from around the world and send gifts to one another. The game also has a special day every month called ‘Community Day’, in which for 3 hours, a special Pokémon will be available in the wild for people to catch. What makes it special is that it has a possibility to have a ‘shiny’ variant, making it have a different color than what it normally has. Shiny Pokémon are very rare, and are sought after by the players.
The game is still planning to expand itself as time passes. And with the release ofPokémon Let’s Go Pikachu and Let’s Go Eevee for the Nintendo Switch this November, players will be able to transfer their creatures from Pokémon Go to the Switch games. Nintendo and Niantic, the developers of the game, still has many plans for Pokémon Go. Though it is unfortunate that the game has lost many players since its released, but the real players have never left. It is certainly not dead and it is far from dying. Only time will tell if the world will still recognize the game years after its peak, and only time will tell what else Pokémon Go has in store. –Gio Miguelo E. Ocampo / AUF Intern