Pokémon GO – so what’s been happening with that? The Augmented Reality smartphone game that let’s us catch, battle, and train our own Pokémon in the real world (kind of) is finally getting a beta test later this month. Unfortunately, it’s only in Japan.
Developer Niantic has confirmed that they cancelled their appearance at GDC 2016 (where we expected to learn a lot more about Pokémon GO) in order to get the beta going and start improving the game. Can’t argue with that, really.
While the initial test is currently only bound for Japan, it’s likely that it will be rolled out to other parts of the world. That doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed to come to the U.K of course, but if we all wish really hard, it might just happen.
Niantic explain:
The Pokémon Company and Niantic will be inviting users to field test Pokémon GO in Japan later this month. The Pokémon GO field test program will give users the opportunity to share early feedback and help improve the Pokémon GO experience. Please stay tuned for information about expansion of the field test to other markets.
It’s a bit of a bummer that GDC was set to offer us our first real look at the game, and now that’s gone – but if they’re working hard to get me my very own virtual Dragonite buddy as soon as they possibly can, I won’t grumble.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.