Let’s be honest; the hype surrounding Pokemon Go died quite some time ago. Not that nobody plays it any more, as plenty of people still do, but it’s not the same craze that it was upon initial release. It’s a bit strange then, that there are several games coming up that will be in a very similar vein to Pokémon Go; augmented reality experiences that require you to physical walk places to play them. Not exactly a mainstream genre, but getting people to exercise as they have fun is never a terrible idea.
Strangely enough, the company publishing this new walking AR based game is none other than Square Enix; renowned far more for story driven single player experiences like Final Fantasy, NieR, and Kingdom Hearts. Of course, this walking game is going to bear one of their signatures; Dragon Quest. In fact, the app is outright going to be called Dragon Quest Walk. Technically we don’t have any concrete details on how the game will play yet, but based on the trailer, which shows people interacting with dragons in the real world (very similar to the trailers for Pokémon Go way back when) it’s pretty clear how the game is supposed to play out.
The one thing we do know that it possesses is the series’ signature turn based gameplay. How exactly it will be implemented is a mystery, but at least that’s something that Pokémon Go doesn’t really offer. However, as far as we know right now, the game will only be released in Japan this year. Whether or not there will be a global release is unknown, as no worldwide release date was given.
That said, if you really need this type of game in your life, you have other options besides Pokémon Go. In fact, Niantic, the developer for the aforementioned game, is also developing a Harry Potter game that’s very similar, called Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. That’ll be releasing around the end of the year.
Meanwhile, Pokémon and Nintendo are focusing on different avenues of rightfully taking our money. Their newest projects include Pokémon Sleep, which will supposedly turn our night hours into entertainment of some sort, and a Detective Pikachu game following the success of the movie.
While these are only a few examples of games coming out in the same vein as Pokémon Go, it kind of begs the question; is this genre of game going to grow more popular? Will every series and its disliked cousin now have a walking AR variant for mobile devices? Mario Go? Sonic Go? Anything in between? Maybe an old school favorite like Digimon could make a comeback. While this is all conjecture, it’s interesting to see some other publishers finally make a move on this strange genre that Pokemon Go essentially created, a few years after the fact.
