The studio behind Pokémon GO, Niantic, has announced a new game called Peridot which features original creatures. While the studio is now most known for developing Pokémon GO, Niantic first gained recognition from its first AR game Ingress. This would become the basis for many of the gameplay elements of Pokémon GO.
When Pokémon GO was released back in 2016, it quickly exploded in popularity and helped Niantic become the multi-billion dollar company that it is today. The hype for Pokémon GO isn't as strong as in its first year, and the studio has had to make adjustments to the game during the pandemic, but Pokémon GO has fortunately been able to maintain its playerbase over the past few years. And with countries beginning to open up again, Niantic announced that it will be holding in-person Pokémon GO Fest events again this year.
In a new blog post, Pikmin Bloom and its step challenges, Peridot will have a focus on AR and walking outside so Peridots will be able to recognize the terrain they’re walking on and forage for appropriate items. Each Peridot is supposedly unique, through a combination of hand-crafted assets and procedural generation, although they all fall under certain archetypes. The creatures also feature DNA, which plays an important role when breeding them. Niantic says that Peridot will begin its soft launch in select territories soon. The announcement teaser trailer can be viewed below:
Just like Pokémon GO and the rest of Niantic’s current AR titles, Peridot will be powered by the studio’s Lightship ARDK. The augmented reality multiplayer platform will also be powering another of the company’s titles, the Pokémon GO-like Transformers: Heavy Metal. The new game, made in collaboration with Hasbro, is set to release later this year. It will allow players to team up with the likes of Bumblee and the rest of the Autobots.
After years of AR games tied to existing popular IPs, it’s great to see Niantic finally working on an original IP again where it can apply everything it has learned over the past decade. It remains to be seen how much of an audience there is for a wholly original IP like Peridot. However, given Pokémon GO's success, Niantic may have another hit.
