The Pokemon Go Halloween 2017 event is now live but it won’t be the biggest news updated dropped by Niantic this year.
With a bunch of new Candy bonuses available, as well as new Pokemon to catch, Trainers will be pretty busy for the rest of the month.
But what does Niantic have planned for the future.
Well, it just so happens that CEO John Hanke has confirmed that the company what to keep the game going for 20-years.
That’s a long time and event with the massive back catalogue of generations, there not going to last that long.
The next step will be the big Gen 3 list launch in December, which sounds like it will be a rolling update.
This will likely takeover from some of the Legendary Raid currently being switched around by Niantic, but there’s even bigger plans afoot than that.
Pokemon Go was launched as a big AR experiment which has since been bypassed by other features.
Hanke recently discussed this feature of the game, adding that he thought the AR part of Pokemon Go wasn’t that sophisticated, and only accounted for around t’s 5% of the experience.
So what’s the next step?
It appears the next major Pokemon Go update news will surround the launch of new AR headsets.
This seems to be something are betting on pretty hard, with Hanke confirming that they were ready to start supporting devices like it, albeit in a more basic form than currently offered.
One that stands out is Magic Leap’s upcoming mixed reality headset, with Hanke revealing during Wall Street Journal’s WSJ.D Live conference: “There could be an opportunity for us to build an app for that device.”
Apple’s ARKit is another stepping stone that could see one of the game’s main features grow in greater functionality.
At WWDC Apple showed off a number of ARKit demos. One demo showed a table being mapped and then a teacup placed on it.
The big show-stopper was when Wingut AR, a new company helmed by Lord of The Rings director Peter Jackson, took to the stage.
They showcased a dazzling demo for an AR game. In it, a person using an iPad walked around a table placed on the stage at WWDC.
On their screen they were able to see a huge battle taking place in a futuristic town that had a Wild West style feel.
Spaceships appeared and attacked the town, at one point crashing into a building.
All this was viewed through the iPad screen, with the real-life view from WWDC, including the massive audience, seen in the background.