Earlier this week, Niantic announced a new game that they'll be developing that centers around the widely-popular Harry Potter series in collaboration with Warner Bros. Known as Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, the game will allow you to use spells and battle with mythical creatures in augmented reality sometime in 2018.
Obviously, this is not related to Pokémon, so we don't plan on covering it on PNN.com or playing it. But, obviously, the new game will have some implications on Pokémon GO. Niantic is a small company for a game developer (although they did say they're hiring), so a small amount of resources may have to be diverted to this new game. And it seemed that this announcement sent a wave of uncertainty throughout the Pokémon GO community.
Last night, Niantic published a blog post on their website saying they reaffirmed their commitment to working, improving, and regularly updating Pokémon GO. This is part of what they said:
Obviously, this is not related to Pokémon, so we don't plan on covering it on PNN.com or playing it. But, obviously, the new game will have some implications on Pokémon GO. Niantic is a small company for a game developer (although they did say they're hiring), so a small amount of resources may have to be diverted to this new game. And it seemed that this announcement sent a wave of uncertainty throughout the Pokémon GO community.
Last night, Niantic published a blog post on their website saying they reaffirmed their commitment to working, improving, and regularly updating Pokémon GO. This is part of what they said:
We - the Pokémon GO development team - want to say that we are 100% committed to creating an ever-changing and growing game ... We're actively expanding the Pokémon GO development team to build many more features in 2018. Stay tuned for an update next week on upcoming improvements to certain features.
Firstly, we were shocked that Niantic, given their history of communication, even made this statement. That said, this statement was needed, with the current dead-state in the game. We believe that Niantic is sincere with this statement, and will try to keep equal (if not increased) amount of attention on their older games (Pokémon GO and Ingress). Time will only tell what happens.
Now the big news. The phrase that we have put in bold surprised us even further when we read the statement last night. Niantic is not fond of giving their news a head's up, but it seems that this could be something major. Niantic's word-choice seems to suggest that an already-existing feature is changing, instead of a new feature being introduced.
As for what it could be, we aren't setting our expectations too high. The most feasible answer seems to be Niantic's new system for handling EX Raids. An update for this system is greatly needed, as the system is seemingly random and totally unfair. We could also see more information (hopefully a release date and time) on the upcoming release of Generation 3. On an absolute wish, we could see news on a battle-system rework (as Trainer Tips has been pushing for) if we will see it at all in 2017.
Thanks for reading, Trainers. Stay tuned next week for coverage on Niantic's promised news, speculation, and a bit of Pokémon Ultra Sun and Pokémon Ultra Moon thrown in.
Now the big news. The phrase that we have put in bold surprised us even further when we read the statement last night. Niantic is not fond of giving their news a head's up, but it seems that this could be something major. Niantic's word-choice seems to suggest that an already-existing feature is changing, instead of a new feature being introduced.
As for what it could be, we aren't setting our expectations too high. The most feasible answer seems to be Niantic's new system for handling EX Raids. An update for this system is greatly needed, as the system is seemingly random and totally unfair. We could also see more information (hopefully a release date and time) on the upcoming release of Generation 3. On an absolute wish, we could see news on a battle-system rework (as Trainer Tips has been pushing for) if we will see it at all in 2017.
Thanks for reading, Trainers. Stay tuned next week for coverage on Niantic's promised news, speculation, and a bit of Pokémon Ultra Sun and Pokémon Ultra Moon thrown in.
SOURCE: Niantic's Official Website