Pokémon Go creator Niantic announces Ingress animated series for Netflix this fall

Pokémon Go makers Niantic and Netflix will, this fall, launch an anime based on Ingress, the augmened reality game that inspired much of Pokémon Go’s original design.

Ingress: The Animation will be produced by the animation studio Crafter, with Yuhei Sakuragi as director and Takeshi Honda as character designer, reports Variety. It will introduce Ingress Prime, a sequel to the 2012 game for iOS and Android.

Ingress: The Animation will tell the story of two characters, Makoto and Sarah, who develop paranormal abilities from exotic matter leaking into their world. Together, they uncover a company abusing this matter infiltration to experiment on humans and take it down. Ingress: The Animation will introduce an antagonist named Jack who will also debut in the new Ingress Prime game.

Ingress Prime was announced in early December 2017; Niantic said that much of what it learned from developing, publishing and supporting the Pokémon Go megahit would inform the new game, which is both a sequel and a revamping of the original concept.

In Ingress, players move about their real-life environment to take control of virtual “portals” for the side they choose, either the Enlightened or Resistance. Though nowhere close to the sensation that Pokémon Go became in 2016, Ingress still acquired a dedicated following, with more than 20 million downloads. Niantic founder John Hanke told Variety that Ingress: The Animation will carry on the canon of the original game, but also said “Think of it like a reboot of a superhero franchise.”

Ingress Prime does not yet have a launch date.