Pokémon GO is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, mobile games right now. It’s hit $5 billion in revenue in its first five years and shows no signs of slowing down. Pikmin Bloom aims to emulate the Pokémon GO success with a world (or garden in this case) building twist that puts step counts at the forefront of its gameplay experience.
Nintendo has made some of their own mobile outings such as Mario Kart World Tour, Super Mario Run, and other ventures including their Animal Crossing and Fire Emblem franchises. Whilst they’ve all had mostly good feedback from fans and have performed well, they haven’t hit the heights of Pokémon Go. Nintendo and Niantic are obviously trying to make this a reality with other IPs based on the augmented GPS Map formula Pokémon Go is known for, which is where Pikmin Bloom aims to shine.
Pikmin Bloom gameplay features
Thanks to Eurogamer, we’ve got a solid idea of what kind of Gameplay elements make up the Pikmin Bloom experience. Here are some highlights:
- Plants flowers as you walk that in-turn helps Pikmin grow faster.
- Flower trails double as step-counting trails that recaps a players activity.
- Pikmin can be sent on Expeditions to collect fruit, than can be turned into necter and fed to Pikmin.
- Nectar gives Pikmin various petal colors and costumes that are linked to locations.
- A Life Log feature will give you a summary of each days activities.
- Flower coins will be in-game currency, but the game is free to play.
- Adventure Sync will be present at launch, which tracks steps when app isn’t open.
- Monthly community days have been confirmed, more details to follow at a later date.
When will Pikmin Bloom be available?
Like Pokémon GO and Harry Potter, Pikmin Bloom will see a staggered launch worldwide, with the ear east Singapore and Australia going live today (27th October) and other countries rolling out very soon. It would be nice to see a UK/US launch on Halloween weekend, it all depends on server stability and any issues that may arise as a result of a worldwide server activation. Worst case scenario, we’ll be looking at mid-November for a complete Pikmin Bloom release.
It looks like the Pikmin 20th anniversary is being celebrated in style. With Pikmin 3 Deluxe releasing a year ago on Nintendo Switch and Pikmin 4 in active development, it looks like Nintendo is far from done with the Pikmin franchise. You can currently wishlist Pikmin Bloom on the Google Play Store here, with the App Store Pikmin Bloom page now active here. For all the latest in iOS and Android news and guides, make sure to check out our News, Android, and iOS hubs