Peridot: Pokémon Go Developer Niantic Announces New AR Pet Game for Android, iOS

Peridot is the next augmented reality game from Niantic, the developer behind successful AR mobile games such as Pokémon Go and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. Like Pokémon Go, Peridot is full of creatures and involves both real-world and AR elements. In Peridot, players will have to tend to the creatures by training, feeding, and playing with them. You'd also have to help them grow from tiny critters to grown adults, and then continue breeding them. It's like Niantic's own Tamagotchi game.

Here's the setting for the world of Peridot, from Niantic: "after thousands of years of slumber, Peridots are waking to a world vastly different from the one in which they used to roam, and they'll need your help to protect them from extinction.”

Like Niantic's previous games — including Harry Potter: Wizards Unite — much of the gameplay requires the player to step out into the real world and experience the outdoors. There's plenty of real-world experiences in the game, such as looking for breeding nests in the wild, taking your Peridot for a walk, or finding specific kinds of food for it. Another interesting thing about the game is that there's no death in the gameplay, as the Peridots never die.

Similarly, AR appears to be a large component of the game, just like in Pokémon Go. Peridot is being built with Niantic's Lightship Platform and the developer says that the game's virtual creatures can recognise different real-world surfaces such as dirt, sand, water, grass, and foliage and react to them accordingly. All of the creatures in the game have their own DNA and characteristics, which makes them different.

After the breakout success of Pokémon Go in summer of 2016, Niantic had mostly focused on more licensed properties like Pikmin Bloom, Harry Potter and, soon, Transformers. With Peridot, Niantic is returning to creating its own IP, as it did with Ingress before Pokémon Go.

Peridot doesn't have a specific release date, though Niantic says it will be rolling out in selected markets later in April both on Android and iOS.