Following the release of Pokemon GO in July 2016 the mobile game market has been flooded with rivals and competitors who have tried to do their own spin on the game's augmented reality formula. There have been games like the mystical Draconius GO all trying to cut themselves a slice of the lucrative market that Pokemon GO has helped to grow.

While Pokemon GO is no longer at the height of its popularity, we are still seeing these augmented reality game rivals and the next AR game pitching itself as a Pokemon GO competitor comes from an unlikely source. Will.i.am, a member of music group the Black Eyed Peas, reveals that later this year the band plans to release an augmented reality game that he sees as "the next Pokemon GO." This AR game will be based on the Black Eyed Peas' Masters of the Sun IP which is about zombies; Marvel is also set to release a graphic novel based on Masters of the Sun.

Will.i.am explains that "there’s Spotify and then there’s also Deezer, Apple Music and Pandora. There’s Instagram stories, and then there’s Snapchat. For everything there is another thing." But the musician says that this isn't the case with Pokemon GO, asking "What’s the other Pokemon? It doesn’t exist right? There is no other that." Will.i.am adds that "it’s amazing that there is no other Pokemon GO," suggesting that "nobody is trying to go out into the world and [make a Pokemon GO alternative] because to do that you have to have augmented technology."

Many Pokemon GO players may raise their eyebrows at will.i.am's comments, perhaps even calling them naive. As mentioned, there are plenty of other Pokemon GO alternatives already available including Sharknado: ShARkmented Reality (Pokemon GO with sharks) and Garfield GO (Pokemon GO with free food). Some upcoming Pokemon GO-style games include Jurassic World (Pokemon GO with dinosaurs), Ghostbusters World (Pokemon GO with ghosts) and even The Walking Dead is getting a Pokemon GO-like game which may be a direct competitor to the zombie-related game that will.i.am and the Peas' are currently developing.

But with this said, will.i.am is a smart man and when he isn't producing and making music, he is also a presenter on Apple TV's Planet of the Apps which aims to identify the next big thing in the mobile space. If Apple thinks that will.i.am has a good gauge of what can be hot in the mobile market then perhaps the Black Eyed Peas' Pokemon GO rival could actually be a huge success.

Source: Metro

Image source: Intel Free Press - Flickr (with a Creative Commons license)