Niantic delivered a welcome surprise to players of the augmented reality (AR) mobile game "Pokemon Go" by introducing some familiar details from the main Pokemon role-playing game series.
The mobile game developer announced on its "Pokemon Go" blog that players will be able to dress their characters with some new avatars that many die hard Pokemon fans will surely recognize. These avatars are similar to the player avatars found in the role-playing games (RPG) "Pokemon Ultra Sun" and "Ultra Moon," and are meant to celebrate the release of the new role-playing game.
"Trainers can dress their Pokémon GO avatars in the colorful tropical outfits worn by the main male and female characters seen in the Pokémon video games," the Pokemon Company announced on Monday.
The new avatars reflect characters from the tropical region of Alola and are now live in "Pokemon Go." For girls, the character can be dressed with a sun hat, sandals, shorts, and a flowery tank top. Players with male characters will have a new pair of sneakers, shorts, a bucket hat, a tank top, and for some reason, a pair of leggings.
This is the first time that Niantic used its popular mobile phone game to promote a title in the main RPG series since the launch of "Pokemon Go" in the summer of 2016. Although part of the same franchise, "Pokemon Go" and the Pokemon RPG series were developed by different companies. The AR game was developed by Niantic, a pioneer of AR technology, while the RPG series was developed by Game Freak.
"Pokemon Go" is currently preparing to introduce the third generation Pokemon into its roster. It still has a long way before it can catch up to the content players are currently enjoying with the RPG series, which currently includes the seventh generation of Pokemon. However, with the crossover in player avatars, more collaborations between the games may not be far off into the future.
