Pokemon Quest has finally been released in China, three years after it came out on Nintendo Switch and mobile devices around the world. The game, which features blocky, lego style characters and scenery was greeted with plenty of hype in China. As video game analyst Daniel Ahmad pointed out on Twitter, 700,000 LED lights are being put to use to promote the game across 2.3 kilometers in central Hangzhou. The light show features iconic symbols such as pokeballs as well as pokemon running across buildings. The Chinese version of the game will differ from international versions, and has added features for players, including boss battles and player versus player features. It’s been released by Netease, which evidently invested quite a bit of money into advertising around the game. Besides the light show in Hangzhou, a group of Pikachus descended on Shanghai’s Bund earlier in the week to perform a dance ahead of the launch.These marketing methods seem to have worked. The game has been downloaded over 500,000 times on the Huawei App Store alone since launching. You may also like:
Netizens have been reacting with glee to the news of the launch of the game. Under a post with a video of trucks beaming out footage of Pokemon Quest, one user wrote, “hahaha, log in to pick cute Pikachu.”Another user commented on a video of the Hangzhou light show and took the opportunity to slam Pinduoduo, one of the biggest companies in China, saying, “So great, I hope there won’t be any Pinduoduo activities in the future.”Famously, one of Nintendo’s previous Pokemon games, Pokemon Go was banned in China in 2017, as it was deemed to have a "big social risk".Cover image by Thanakrit Gu