Finally, The First POKÉMON GO Footage Appears!

Don’t freak out, but it looks like Niantic CEO John Hanke might have revealed the first gameplay footage of the company’s highly-anticipated mobile game, Pokémon Go, at SXSW. The footage has unsurprisingly made its way to the web and you can peep the clip (via YouTuber Eric F) for yourself above.

While many believe that the voice in the video sounds a lot like Hanke, we can’t 100% confirm this is authentic since he doesn’t appear in the clip. That being said, however, this does look like it’s legit, especially when you consider the fact that Pokémon Go will be field tested relatively soon in Japan.
In the short clip, Hanke talks about how monsters will be distributed all over the world, and how each one lives in the habitat that makes the most sense for its type. That means you won’t be finding a Squirtle out in the middle of the desert or Charmander in the sea. The encounter shown in the video features everyone’s favorite grass-type, Ivysaur. When the person who’s running the demo has trouble catching the little critter with a normal Poké Ball, they go into their inventory and switch to a Master Ball (why?!) instead. As you can imagine, it works like a charm.

Based on the footage shown, it looks like switching the ball type will be an important aspect of the title’s gameplay. It will be interesting to see whether this will play out as a micro-transaction within the game. I also wonder whether the monsters will be able to run away like they do in the RPGs. So many questions!

All-in-all, this project looks promising. What do you think of the footage? Is there anything in particular that caught your eye? Will you be playing this once it releases later this year? Let us know in the comments below.