Pokemon GO took the gaming world by storm in 2016, turning the real world into a virtual haven for pocket monsters and sending people into graveyards, parks and other landmarks to catch and battle. Five years later, the mobile game is still wildly popular, but as the world it’s based on changes some fascinating things have happened in its virtual landscape.
One of the more striking examples of this is apparently happening in Afghanistan, where US troops are leaving the country military bases there after two decades of occupation. And while there are far more significant ramifications of that occupation and departure, one odd side effect is many of the base’s Pokemon GO players have essentially abandoned Pokemon at gyms that became a big part of the gaming life there.
Stars and Stripes reported about the circumstances, which are fascinating in a number of ways. At bases like Bagram and at New Kabul Compound, many US soldiers passed the time by battling it out for control of gyms and finding Pokemon they couldn’t catch back on American soil.
Bagram once had a thriving Pokemon Go community of troops, contractors and civilians who played the game while exercising and after work.
“We weren’t expecting Pokemon Go to be thriving in Bagram, and yet it was,” recalled U.S. Army Spc. Corey Olsen, an electrical technician for attack helicopters who played the game with others from his shop in 2019.
The game uses GPS to see where players log in and populate those locations with new creatures to spawn, and once you get to a certain level in the game you can suggest new landmarks for Pokestops and gyms. But now, those gyms are essentially being abandoned, leaving behind some Pokemon with them.
Screenshots of Bagram after the troops left show low-level Pokemon, normally easily defeated, stuck guarding locations, perhaps indefinitely. A tiny Lotad has defended the former Warrior Chapel at Bagram for 10 days, while a lowly Aron has defended a memorial to a fallen servicemember for about two weeks.
Still, Sutter said he assumes someone from Afghanistan will take over his gym, someday, if they haven’t already.
“I’m sure somewhere in Afghanistan, some kid is bragging about how he took control of an American Pokemon gym,” he said.
It’s a very strange reminder of what’s left behind by occupying forces, and the many ways the real world is impacted by our digital lives. Hopefully someone new can take control of those gyms and release those Lotads and Arons back to their owners in due time.
[via Kotaku]