It has been almost two years since Niantic launched Pokémon GO onto the world. A mobile game that uses augmented reality (AR) to put the ridiculously famous pocket monsters into our world blew up right out of the gate, becoming a global phenomenon in the process. For months after its launch you didn't have to look far to see pictures of hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of players out there in the real world trying to collect their next find.
The furor has died down, as everyone expected it would eventually. Depending on where you stand, and what you think of the game, you might assume it died down pretty quickly, or maybe it went on a lot longer than you thought it would. Either way, while a lot of the attention has died down for the game, it's still a popular title.
Even now, as the weather gets nicer, I see people out and about that are playing it. I still play the game with my kids. They don't ask as often as they used to, but it's still something that if we find ourselves in a park or something they want to try out, just to see what they can find.
Now, here we are just a few months out from the two year anniversary of the title and Niantic has just announced one of the game's biggest updates ever.
The company is rolling out daily tasks, as well as more in-depth and story-driven research quests. Niantic, like many video game developers out there, wants to reward players for coming back to play the game on a daily basis. And, perhaps even more importantly, they are bringing in a story to the mix, too.
The developer hasn't been a stranger to new content in general, bringing in new pocket monsters on a semi-regular basis. But this update is definitely noteworthy. And it got me wondering: is it enough to bring back the players that have left the title? A lot of mobile games aren't really known for their story content, and there's no word just yet on how much of a story there is in the upcoming update, but maybe some is better than none?
Then again, the idea of just going out into the world and collecting Pokémon, while also battling other players at gyms, seemed to be more than enough at launch and up until this point. So maybe a new story element won't do anything to stir up attention for the game. One has to hope it's at least enough to keep the current players around a bit longer.
What do you think? Is a story mode what Pokémon GO needs as it nears its second anniversary? Let me know!