Pokémon GO has had its first significant leak, with a tiny part of its gameplay being busted wide open, but still plenty to gawk at. A YouTube user by the name of Eric F has uploaded an approximately minute-long clip of Pokémon GO from a SXSW conference given by Niantic CEO John Hanke. Niantic, the developers of Ingress, are also developing Pokémon GO, in collaboration with The Pokémon Company.
A Reddit user has since cleaned up the gameplay video and offered critique, sharing interesting info on what we know about the game so far. First and foremost, it seems each of the Pokémon will be rendered in full 3D, not unlike the newer handheld games. You can also throw Pokéballs at the Pokémon to try and capture them, which sounds about expected.
Interestingly, it seems that apart from the Pokémon themselves, the player character will also be levelling up this time, gaining XP from actions like throwing Pokéballs or catching Pokémon. There also appear to be “Crystals” in the game, which might be in-game-currency: not exactly surprising, given that the game is free-to-play.
Pokémon GO does not yet have a release date, but we expect it to come out some time this year. It will be available on iOS and Android. Take a look at the footage below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHgCmnVvfTI