Pokémon GO’s Gen 5 Reveal Image Has A Massive Hint About A Potential Chinese Release

Pokemon GO

Niantic

Yesterday, Pokémon GO rolled out new Gen 5 Pokémon from the Unova region for the first time. The Unova region is loosely based on New York City, and like there usually is with this kind of release, there was an official image put out accompanying the new update that you can see above.

It makes sense that Unova Pokémon would show up against a city backdrop, given the location of that game, but that’s…definitely not New York City behind them. Rather, investigators at the Silph Road have found something rather significant:

The city shown here is actually Shenzen, China, a huge city of 12 million on the mainland, with this angle taken from Exit B of the Grand Theatre Metro Station, right in front of the Shenzhen Grand Theatre, according to the super-sleuths.

Now, it’s certainly possible that the graphic design team at Niantic just wanted a generic “city” background, and one that wasn’t immediately recognized as New York, I suppose, and they came up with this image.

And yet it also seems like it could be an easter egg hinting at a future release of Pokémon GO in mainland China, which has long been the white whale of the series as it has been unable to arrive there so far. Pokémon GO has been banned in China because they deem it a “threat to geographical information security and the threat to transport and the personal safety of consumers.” But China has also been open to the expansion of the video game industry before, so anything’s possible.

There have been no official announcements about whether or not Pokémon GO is coming to mainland China any time soon, but many fans assume this may be some kind of nod in that direction. Again, it could all just be a grand coincidence and some sort of stock photo issue when creating the image, but it does seem little coincidental that Niantic would use a city from the largest region on earth they’re still trying to break into. And they’ve hidden stuff in past images like these before.

My guess is that we may be hearing some kind of announcement soon, though this kind of secret is hardly confirmation in and of itself. But it’s definitely worth taking note of, as that would be an absolutely massive expansion for GO and open up an whole new realm of possibilities for the game.

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