Wondering if Pokémon Go would ever get a sequel? It's unlikely, going by an interview with Scopely's president of games Ed Wu.
"I think that doing a sequel within a franchise is pretty clearly not the correct thing to do," he told GamesIndustry.biz.
"There's such a big community because of the way that our games can be a part of folks's lives wherever they go, however they explore the world.
"Creating a sequel that divides the community doesn't make as much sense," he continued. "If and when we do something new, it will really have to be from a different angle."
The comments were part of a wider interview lined up for the one year anniversary of Scopely's acquisition of Niantic and games Pokémon Go, Monster Hunter Now and Pikmin Bloom for $3.5 billion.
As well as discussing how the deal came about - "we really saw eye to eye with this deep focus on community", said Wu, who was previously senior vice president of Pokémon Go pre-acquisition - the piece delves into how the split between Niantic and Niantic Spatial was decided, what made Niantic a good fit for Scopely, and why it means they can now look further into the future than ever before.
Creating a sequel to a live service game has rarely worked out, with the likes of Destiny 2 and Overwatch 2 facing difficulties - so keeping Pokémon Go as a singular game is a wise move on Scopely's part, as much as a potential sequel would initially grab attention. Also, unless it came up with an entirely new map - which feels impossible when the game based on real-world locations - or mechanics, I'm not sure how it could be justified.
