Niantic introduced yesterday that its subsequent augmented actuality cell sport might be Pikmin Bloom, a collaboration with Nintendo. The free sport is accessible now for iOS and Android in Singapore and Australia, however will roll out globally within the coming days.
Like Pokémon Go, Pikmin Bloom will encourage gamers to get exterior and discover their neighborhoods. Solely now, as a substitute of catching Pidgey and Rattata, you’ll accumulate seedlings and create a squad of Pikmin. The extra you stroll, the extra Pikmin you’ll accumulate. These plant-animal hybrid creatures come from Nintendo’s technique and puzzle sport franchise of the identical title.
Pikmin Bloom marks the sixth installment within the Pikmin online game sequence. There are various various kinds of Pikmin to work together with, and as you stroll alongside them, you’ll depart augmented actuality trails of flowers behind you. In accordance with in-game footage within the announcement video (seen above), it seems like you possibly can customise your avatar as a Mii.
One other characteristic that borrows from Pokémon Go is Pikmin Bloom’s month-to-month Group Day occasions. Within the former, gamers are lured outside with particular bonuses and uncommon featured Pokémon as soon as monthly, encouraging individuals to get exterior and befriend fellow gamers. Niantic hasn’t launched particulars, however the firm mentioned that it’s going to host month-to-month Group Day occasions for Pikmin as nicely to plant and play collectively.
Pokémon Go has a weekly pop-up on Monday mornings that exhibits you the way far you’ve walked that week. However Pikmin appears extra particularly geared towards encouraging motion, exhibiting the routes you walked and the steps you took on the finish of day-after-day.
The final time the 2 firms launched a sport collectively, it shattered expectations — so, no strain to our floral pals. Even when Pokémon Go doesn’t really feel as ubiquitous because it did in summer time 2016, it’s making Niantic more money than ever, netting over $1 billion in 2020. However it doesn’t fairly appear to be there’s as a lot to do but in Pikmin Bloom as there may be in Pokémon Go or Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. So, this sport may be geared towards a extra informal crowd who simply wish to see some fairly pixels whereas they stroll — no shiny-hunting and raid battle coordination right here…not less than not but.
