Niantic’s upcoming virtual pet AR game sounds like the Pokémon GO crossed with Pikmin Bloom

You will raise and breed adorable creatures

Niantic has just announced a brand new collection-based augmented reality game. Seeing that this is almost the only style of play the developer creates, it comes as no surprise. What is surprising is that there is no brand attached; this is a fresh creation directly from Niantic, known as Peridot, and it seems that pet breeding is in focus. Peridot offers Tamagotchi-like mechanics where you will educate and unlock new types of adorable pets, combined with daily walks, and it will soon come in soft launch on Android and iOS.

The teaser trailer above gives a quick glimpse of a couple of adorable Peridots in real surroundings. This is more of a cinematic than an actual trailer as no gameplay is shown even though it is still early. Fortunately, Niantic has shared a few screenshots illustrating the current user interface. More or less, Peridot looks like a Niantic AR game, cute creatures and all.

So far, we know that breeding will play a primary role, more than likely taking a page out of Pokémon GO’s book. Like Pikmin Bloom, you can also take your Peridot on daily walks. So it seems that Niantic is taking the experience (and mechanics) learned from previous releases to implement them in this original title.

Peridot was soon to be soft-launched in select areas across Android and iOS, though it does not sound like this beta will go public. Of course, Niantic already offers a way to pre-register on the game’s website if you would like to receive a notification when Peridot is available in your country. Niantic says it will use this beta phase to gather feedback to prepare the game for its final release.

So there it is; Niantic is working on yet another AR game, but it’s an original feature this time around. The details are still light, so things like revenue generation have not been mentioned, but I hope that since Niantic again targets children with adorable collectible creatures, it gives up the exaggerated revenue generation found in its previous titles. With crossed fingers.

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