Perhaps more importantly, Go is the first full-blown mobile-first Pokémon game, with the blessing of both Nintendo and The Pokémon Company. For a series that has long resisted the urge to migrate beyond Nintendo-made hardware, this release marks a pivotal moment for the franchise’s gatekeepers and its diehard fans. Not only that, but Pokémon Go may just thrust AR, a relatively obscure technology, into the mainstream, thanks to one of the most beloved brands of the last two decades.

Pokémon Go comes out later this year as a free-to-play title for iOS and Android. You’ll be able to fire it up, see your character on a map, and wander a city looking for and capturing the titular creatures in their natural habitats. Niantic says around 100 Pokémon will be available at launch, many from the series’ original 1996 releases, with more to come over time.

'Go' will include 100 Pokémon to start, many from the original Red and Blue versions

In a way, Pokémon Go is a completely rethought version of Ingress, which launched as one of the first publicly available AR games in 2013. Similar to Ingress’ global conflict, which had players pledging to a side to capture "portals" around the world, Pokémon Go will let you join one of three teams: Red, Blue, or Yellow. From there, you can travel to notable landmarks and take over gyms, which is Pokémon parlance for a kind of group HQ. To take a gym back from an opposing side, you’ll have to travel to that location and do battle against the opponent’s Pokémon.

"We know that dynamic from the Ingress experience works really well, drives a real-world social dynamic," says Niantic CEO John Hanke. "It’s something you can do, like seeing a movie, going to a baseball game, going to the park. It’s something you can do with your friends, and go outside." Because Niantic is working closely with Nintendo and The Pokémon Company, it has all the help it needs in making something that feels less like Ingress and more true to the Pokémon universe.

"It's something you can do with your friends, and go outside."

Although Niantic won’t disclose a concrete release date just yet, Pokémon Go is in active beta in the US, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. The company wants to have a global launch, and not be forced to release it in select regions on a rolling basis. That requires carefully improving the algorithms used to determine which Pokémon show up where. Niantic leans heavily on global mapping data, morphology, and other ecological traits to categorize environments. Combined with every scrap of data the Pokémon universe has to offer, its software can intelligently place Pokémon in locations that fit their descriptions.

In a demo of Go’s beta version last week, Niantic employees took me to the San Francisco bayfront to hunt for water-type Pokémon. We found a Tentacool near the ferry building, and captured it using a Great Ball, the series’ more powerful version of a Pokéball. You don’t have to weaken the wild Pokémon by battling it with one of your own. Instead, you simply tap on the screen to claim it. Niantic wants capturing to be an easy and quick process, so you can keep moving around the real world and exploring. "We’re not trying to re-create the experience of the game. Those are great experiences," Hanke says. "It would be silly for us to try and port that to mobile."

From there, we traveled to Cupid’s Span, a large bow-and-arrow sculpture that towers over the bayfront. It’s these types of landmarks Niantic hopes Pokémon Go can highlight for visitors and longtime residents. "The key points in Pokémon Go are built around historical places, museums, a fountain in your park," Hanke says. The game’s mission is to "help people discover the awesome stuff in your town."