Pokémon Go, the mobile game single-handedly responsible for getting kids off the couch (#alternativefacts) just got a sequel: Pokémon Duel.
Hey, person still playing Pokémon Go! Yes, you — the one who owns every single Gym in the neighborhood and still puts lures on all the local Pokéstops because everyone else got over the pokégimmick three months ago — you’re probably really excited about this news.
As for the rest of us? Well… you tell me.
Pokémon Duel is a follow-up to Pokémon Go, although note that while Go was developed by Niantic, the ‘sequel’ is by The Pokémon Company and does not feature the augmented reality aspect that made the original game so groundbreaking.
Related: Pokémon GO adds Ditto, but he’s hidden (Plus: Finding Pokémon gets easier)
Instead, Pokémon Duel is pretty much what you would expect a mobile version of the actual GameBoy game series to look like — as the title suggests, the main focus of the game is battling, with users able to collect Pokémon and assemble teams of six that they can use to battle others online.
Ironically, Pokémon Duel‘s in-game battle feature is the key component missing from Pokémon Go, and which made catching and leveling up Pokémon seem kind of pointless after a while. If Niantic had managed to incorporate this feature into their game within the first few months of launch, we imagine that Go would have stayed relevant a lot longer than it did.
Conversely, without the augmented reality element, Pokémon Duel is pretty much just an online strategy game, which is great if you really want to test your Pokémon battling skills against your friends (and we’re sure actual Pokémon fans will love it) — but it probably won’t have the same widespread appeal to kids and families as Pokémon Go did.