Pokemon Go fans have been given a glimpse at what the future holds for the popular app.
In a new blog post on the Niantic website, Big Heritage founder Dean Paton discusses the historical benefits of Pokemon Go.
During last year’s anniversary celebrations, Niantic teamed with Big Heritage to bring Pokemon Go to historical locations throughout Chester.
Players were able to take part in trail activities, while historical landmarks were transformed into PokeStops for the duration of the weekend.
There were even activities in Chester Castle, which was open to the public for the first time in 20 years.
Paton believes that Pokemon Go players often stumble upon heritage, and that the app can bring new people to ancient sites.
The Big Heritage founder would then tease new projects, before talking about the potential of augmented reality technology.
Paton writes: “We are already working on new projects with our friends at Niantic, and appreciate how seriously they take some of our (often bizarre!) ideas on board, and share our common goal of encouraging people to enrich their lives through the power of gaming.”
Paton argues that advances in AR technology will help the real world become a bigger part of gaming apps like Pokemon Go.
“I think we can add a new layer of depth and engagement through the harnessing of advances in AR technology,” he continues.
“AR allows us to almost remove the barrier of the screen that comes between players and the real world. With AR, the world doesn’t become just a backdrop for playing games, it becomes an active agent within it.
“Future games could enrich player’s experience of their surroundings by ‘recognising’ the individual buildings or landscapes they are playing in through user-generated information or through already existing information such as Historic England’s building data sets or Google’s 3D maps of cities.
“As we begin to digitize our historic records, even historic residents of buildings could become part of our gaming world. Our phones could become our gamified Tardis, helping us explore not only the world around us, but with the people that once existed in the same space.”
The news comes as Niantic announces the second Community Day event.
Niantic has confirmed that the next Community Day will take place on February 24 from 10am UK time until 1pm GMT.
The three hour event will focus on Dratini, although its unclear what its exclusive move will be.
Players will earn three times the amount of Stardust for the duration of the event, while Lures will last for all 3 hours.
If the first Community event is anything to go by, Dratini could get a Shiny variant.
It’s also useful if you want to evolve your Dratini into Dragonair and the powerful Dragonite.