Niantic's next game involves caring for and breeding fictional creatures - but it's nothing to do with Pokémon. Instead, Peridot is a brand new creation by Niantic itself - the company's first for many years - and one it's aiming at an even wider audience.
With Peridot, Niantic seems to be gunning for the now-vacant Neopets market (RIP Neopets), with cutesy Pixar-esque characters, Tamagotchi-style gameplay and - because this is a Niantic game - a good old nudge every so often to get you off your sofa.
"We want it to be a standalone pet simulation game," producer Ziah Fogel told Eurogamer this week via Zoom call, when asked why it was building a new app separate to Pokémon Go. Niantic's mission here, she continued, was to iterate on and improve the popular pet simulation genre. You'll be able to try it for yourself soon, too - it arrives in soft launch in certain countries within the next few weeks.