Pokemon Go Dev Niantic Announces Plans For "New Real-World Adventures"

Niantic's Pokemon Go and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite have changed the way that mobile players interact with the world. Now, the developer has announced that it has new real-world games coming soon to phones everywhere.

First, the company announced the impending release of Catan - World Explorers, which is based on the high-profile board game franchise of the same name. According to the announcement, World Explorers will transform your neighborhood, town, or city into a giant game of Catan. While there's no release date as of yet, players can pre-register to receive updates from Niantic on the game's website. Niantic has indicated that World Explorers will enter beta soon.

Second, Niantic has announced a partnership with Punchdrunk, the "immersive theatre" company best-known for Sleep No More, an interactive exhibition based on the Shakespearean tragedy Macbeth. While there are no concrete details on what the partnership is likely to produce, Niantic says it's hoping to create a game that casts players as the lead characters in an epic adventure movie. What exactly that looks like remains to be seen. These are only two of the 10 projects that Niantic says that they currently have in development.

In other Pokemon Go news, the game is finally getting the Mega Evolution feature. The game's Bug Out event is live from now until 10 PM local time on July 1, which gives players a chance to catch lots of Bug type Pokemon.