A decade later, Pokémon Go finally made good on its original promise
A decade later, Pokémon Go finally made good on its original promise
十年之后，《Pokémon Go》终于兑现了最初的承诺
When Niantic dropped the first Pokémon Go trailer in 2015, it was hard to grasp how a bunch of players could work together to catch a pokémon like Mewtwo. But this week at the game’s 10th anniversary event in New York City, Pokémon Go showed the world how it’s done. Almost 2,000 players (many of them Pokémon Go influencers) packed into Times Square on Thursday evening to participate in a special battle. It was cool to see Times Square briefly go dark before the billboards began lighting up, revealing an escaped Mewtwo Mega Evolving, and it was even wilder to see people living the fantasy depicted in the game’s first trailer.
2015 年，当 Niantic 发布《Pokémon Go》的首支预告片时，人们很难想象一群玩家该如何协作去捕捉像超梦（Mewtwo）这样的宝可梦。但在本周于纽约市举行的游戏十周年庆典上，《Pokémon Go》向世界展示了它是如何做到的。周四晚上，近 2000 名玩家（其中许多是《Pokémon Go》的网红博主）挤满了时代广场，参与了一场特别的对战。看到时代广场短暂陷入黑暗，随后广告牌亮起，显现出逃脱的超梦进行超级进化的场景，这非常酷；而看到人们亲身实践预告片中描绘的幻想，则更加令人震撼。
Even though most people had never played a mobile game like Pokémon Go when the game debuted in 2016, the trailer made the general idea easy enough to understand. Players were meant to go out into the world, and the game would tell them where they might be able to find wild, catchable monsters if they could get to a specific area fast enough. The trailer made gameplay seem like it could be a chill, solitary experience, but it also featured wild shots of crowds teaming up to take down powerful pokémon. Raids hadn’t been introduced to the game at that point, but it was clear that Niantic had plans to make things like catching legendaries feel special.
尽管 2016 年游戏刚推出时，大多数人从未玩过像《Pokémon Go》这样的移动游戏，但预告片让人们很容易理解其核心概念。玩家需要走出家门，游戏会告诉他们如果能足够快地到达特定区域，就有可能找到可捕捉的野生宝可梦。预告片将游戏玩法呈现为一种轻松的单人体验，但也展示了人群组队击败强大宝可梦的震撼画面。当时游戏中尚未引入“团体战”（Raids）机制，但很明显，Niantic 已经计划让捕捉传说宝可梦等活动变得意义非凡。
In a press release, Scopely — which acquired Niantic’s games business last year — VP of product Michael Steranka explained that the recent anniversary event was the company’s way of living up to that first trailer. “When we first dreamt what Pokémon GO might become a decade ago, hosting more than a thousand people in a single, local raid battle was just a pipe dream,” Steranka wrote. “Seeing that vision become a reality in Times Square was the perfect way to celebrate 10 years of playing together with our community.”
在新闻稿中，去年收购了 Niantic 游戏业务的 Scopely 公司产品副总裁 Michael Steranka 解释说，最近的周年庆活动是公司兑现最初预告片承诺的方式。“十年前，当我们第一次构想《Pokémon Go》可能成为什么样子时，在单一的本地团体战中容纳超过一千人简直是天方夜谭，”Steranka 写道。“在时代广场看到这一愿景成为现实，是庆祝我们与社区共同走过十年的完美方式。”
This latest in-person event was a far cry from the game’s first in 2017, when thousands of players descended upon Chicago only to find their poké-plans scuttled by network overloads and software issues that Niantic took ultimately credit for. Steranka joined Niantic that same year to help coordinate the disastrous Chicago event, and during a press briefing this week, he said that — at the time — he thought that he “should have been fired” for how things played out.
这次最新的线下活动与 2017 年该游戏的首次线下活动大相径庭。当时，数千名玩家涌向芝加哥，却发现他们的“宝可梦计划”因网络过载和软件故障而泡汤，Niantic 最终为此承担了责任。Steranka 同年加入 Niantic，协助协调了那场灾难性的芝加哥活动。在本周的新闻发布会上，他表示，当时他认为由于事情的发展结果，他“本该被解雇”。
“I also quickly discovered from this experience that the Pokémon Go team does not point fingers,” Steranka said. “Instead of trying to find someone to blame, everybody came together, and we spun up an offsite in Seattle to learn what went wrong and how to fix things.”
“我从这次经历中也很快发现，《Pokémon Go》团队从不互相指责，”Steranka 说。“大家没有试图寻找替罪羊，而是团结一致，我们在西雅图组织了一次场外会议，总结错误并商讨解决方案。”
Doubling down on and expanding the scope of its in-person, community-focused events has been key to Pokémon Go’s exponential growth over the years. According to Scopely, over 800 million people have downloaded Pokémon Go since the game first launched, and the company raked in $1 billion from Go in 2025 alone. For years, Niantic struggled to replicate that kind of success with its other IP-focused augmented reality games, like Harry Potter: Wizards Unite and Catan: World Explorers. Pokémon Go’s continued popularity is somewhat surprising considering how the core gameplay hasn’t really changed all that much. But Scopely’s games president, Ed Wu, attributes Pokémon Go’s staying power to the way the company has put much more emphasis on cultivating player communities.
多年来，加大投入并扩大以社区为中心的线下活动规模，是《Pokémon Go》实现指数级增长的关键。据 Scopely 称，自游戏首次发布以来，已有超过 8 亿人下载了《Pokémon Go》，仅 2025 年一年，该公司就从该游戏中获得了 10 亿美元的收入。多年来，Niantic 一直难以在其他基于 IP 的增强现实游戏（如《哈利波特：巫师联盟》和《卡坦岛：世界探索者》）中复制这种成功。《Pokémon Go》的核心玩法其实并没有太大变化，但它能持续保持人气，这多少有些令人惊讶。不过，Scopely 游戏总裁 Ed Wu 将《Pokémon Go》的持久生命力归功于公司对培养玩家社区的高度重视。
“What started as an invitation to explore the world around you has become something that brings players together across cities, countries, and cultures, from neighborhood meetups to celebrations that draw hundreds of thousands of people together,” Wu said in a press statement. “As we look ahead, our commitment remains unchanged: to keep evolving the game in ways that turn everyday places into opportunities for discovery and connection.”
“最初这只是一个探索周围世界的邀请，现在它已成为连接跨越城市、国家和文化的玩家的纽带，从邻里聚会到吸引数十万人参与的庆典，”Wu 在新闻声明中表示。“展望未来，我们的承诺不变：继续以各种方式改进游戏，将日常场所转化为发现和建立联系的契机。”
Scopely sees Pokémon Go as a forever game both because of the franchise’s ever-expanding roster of monsters and the fact that there are always going to be people — especially younger ones — who have never played before. With each new mainline Pokémon game launch, a new generation of players arrives. When I asked Wu how his team plans to evolve Pokémon Go in the future, he didn’t go into specifics. But he said that Scopely is looking into capitalizing on the ways that people of different ages (e.g., children and their parents) get one another into Pokémon and how gyms can be used to foster communities.
Scopely 将《Pokémon Go》视为一款“永恒的游戏”，这既是因为该系列不断扩充的宝可梦阵容，也是因为总会有新玩家——尤其是年轻人——从未接触过这款游戏。随着每一款宝可梦正统续作的发布，都会有新一代玩家加入。当我问及 Wu 他的团队计划如何改进《Pokémon Go》时，他没有透露具体细节。但他表示，Scopely 正在研究如何利用不同年龄段的人（例如孩子和父母）相互带动玩宝可梦的方式，以及如何利用道馆（Gyms）来促进社区建设。
This Saturday and Sunday, millions of people are probably going to be out and about participating in 2026’s global Pokémon Go Fest that will see the map light up with even more Mewtwo encounters and challenges that require players to work together. It’ll be the game’s most ambitious event yet, but with a set of new mainline Pokémon titles dropping next year, Pokémon Go will still have room to grow.
本周六和周日，数以百万计的玩家可能会走上街头，参加 2026 年的全球《Pokémon Go》嘉年华。届时，地图上将出现更多的超梦遭遇战和需要玩家协作完成的挑战。这将是该游戏迄今为止最雄心勃勃的活动，但随着明年一系列新的宝可梦正统作品发布，《Pokémon Go》仍有增长空间。