The popular mobile game has seen a spike in players amid the recent 2016 Nostalgia Trend, which has dominated social media. What do players think of it in 2026?
It’s summer 2016. “One Dance” by Drake dominates the charts, Captain America: Civil War has just broken up the Avengers, and Willy Wonka actor Gene Wilder adds to the cascading list of celebrity deaths during the year.
However, this summer lingers in our memories because of the almost dystopian yet strangely joyful sight of children and adults alike, heads down, peering keenly at their phones as they wandered through streets and parks.
This was the summer of Pokémon Go, a moment when play spilt out into public space, connecting millions of people across the globe.
Developed by augmented reality (AR) app developer Niantic and the Pokémon Company, Pokémon Go was initially released on July 6, 2016, in North America, Australia, and New Zealand.
Using each smartphone’s individual GPS, the game allowed players to encounter and interact with Pokémon in-game, mapped onto real-world locations. Players could catch, train and battle Pokémon to earn rewards and progress through levels.
It was a simple enough concept, but one that, backed by the Pokémon franchise, had a monumental impact. Within a week, the game had amassed a record-breaking 130 million downloads, overwhelming servers in these regions and fuelling demand worldwide.
UK service operator EE reported that on July 13th, a day before Pokémon Go’s official release in the country, there were already 350,000 individual players on the network, accessing the game through various means, including via the US app store with a VPN. By the end of the game’s first quarter, the app had a staggering 228 million downloads. That’s more than three times the UK’s current population.
Now, in 2026, the scale has diminished, but recent data suggests a quiet resurgence. In early 2026, player numbers rose sharply, with tens of millions returning to the game. The surge in players coincides with a broader cultural turn towards revisiting 2016.
On platforms like TikTok, nostalgia for the year skyrocketed, with searches for “2016” increasing by 452% in the first 10 days of 2026, with more than 55 million videos created using the app’s filter named after the year within this period.
Luke Searle, 23, is a gaming streamer and content creator with a YouTube following of 12,100. His content focuses on console PvP (Player versus Player) oriented games, but he has played Pokémon Go on and off since 2016, picking it up again only recently.
“Coming back to something that was better and much nicer to do back in the day when you were a little bit younger … gives this sort of great sense of relief and nostalgia”, he said.
“The feeling of it allows you to sort of transport yourself back to like 2016 when things were fresh, and things were new.”
Memory alone doesn’t sustain play, however. At launch, the game was criticised for its limited expansion into the Pokémon universe. Only the first generation of Pokémon were available, and this didn’t include legendary Pokémon such as fan favourites Mew and Mewtwo, or shiny variants.
Social features were minimal, with no friend or trading system, and battles were entirely automated, which led to tedious battle mechanics and little strategic depth. All this was seasoned with constant server crashes and a flawed tracking system that disadvantaged rural and suburban players.
Ben Turpin, also 23, is studying for a master’s degree in Environmental Data Science and Analytics at the University of Leeds. He has played Pokémon Go since its release, but is critical of its early form.
“When Pokémon Go released in 2016, it was a very barebones game compared to what there is now,” he said. “So many quality of life features weren’t there; when I look back to how people played in 2016, it seems really archaic and, you know, just sort of like, not particularly fun.”
In 2026, the game is markedly different. Nine generations of Pokémon are available, alongside raid battles, trading systems, friendship mechanics and expanded progression systems, reshaping the experience into a more sustainable, accessible and social-driven game.
“I definitely appreciate how far the game has come, but it still feels really familiar,” says Ben, referring to the game’s current version. “The gameplay loop is essentially the same, the focus system is still the same, catching mechanics are still the same … so there are those bits I’m getting nostalgic familiarity with … but the quality of life features that needed to be added have been added, and I really appreciate that.”
That familiarity is central to the game’s continued appeal. While nostalgia draws players back, it is the persistence of shared play that keeps them engaged. Features such as raids and live events transform the game from a solitary activity into a collective one, encouraging players to gather, coordinate and participate together.
Paul Crabb, 25, a graduate student from Horsham, has experienced this firsthand. “The first time that I ever went on a plane in my whole life was to go to a Pokémon Go Fest in Germany,” he said.
Paul didn’t start playing the game until late 2017, so he never experienced the peak of its popularity. However, attending this event in Dortmund in 2019 gave him a glimpse of it.
“That was me imagining what it would have been like in 2016,” he said. “I think it was 20,000 people in the park walking around playing.”
Returning to the event in 2025, he noticed a smaller crowd but a similar atmosphere. “[There were] fewer people [than 2019], but still a huge turnout,” he said. “You’d have local businesses advertising Pokémon stuff, trying to get everyone to come into their cafe or whatever, just because of how much tourism it brings.”
Community is built into the structure of the game. On a sunny yet blustery Wednesday afternoon in Battersea Park, this presence is still visible.
A weekly raid event brings together a small group of players to defeat a powerful Pokémon to add to their collection. 18 players come together, frantically tapping on their screens in a desperate attempt to defeat and tame this powerful foe.
These Pokémon cannot be encountered in the wild, and defeating them requires a team of at least five players, making this feature inherently reliant on team-based play.
Oski* runs a local chat forum for Pokémon players based in the area. “What is keeping me playing is mostly playing with friends and helping build the community,” he says. “Competing on who can get the most shiny Pokémon in the park is one of the peak memories I have.”
As someone who wasn’t old enough to enjoy the game at its release, he relies on today’s community and his passion for the franchise to guide his play.
“I belong to a generation of players who are fairly new to the game, but I also think we are the primary target audience,” he says. “Many people my age remember trading cards back in 2016, which I think has made the game even more fun because we already know what Pokémon are, recognise their names and understand how to catch them.”
By the time the sun begins to dip behind the trees in Battersea Park, the raid is over, the group disperses, and the moment passes almost as quickly as it formed.
Ten years on from that summer of 2016, the frenzy that once defined Pokémon Go has softened into something quieter, but no less significant.
In parks, on street corners, and through fleeting encounters with strangers, Pokémon Go made play a way to reconnect with a game, a place, and a moment in time that never fully disappeared from our collective consciousness, even a decade later.
In 2026, Pokémon Go is now as much about sustaining a shared memory as it is about catching ’em all.
* The interviewee’s name has been changed at their request.
Featured image by Harry Turnbull.