It appears that, starting this Thursday, December 8, Starbucks stores across the US will appear in Pokémon Go en masse as PokéStops. Players who swipe the photo disc at any of the locations - said to be a "majority of company-operated stores", as opposed to franchised outlets - will be able to order a special themed Frappucino.
More interestingly for fans of Niantic's augmented reality game is a line in the briefing document referring to new creatures. It reads, "The world of Pokémon Go is about to expand with new Pokémon and a new Starbucks beverage!"
Images pointing to the promotion first appeared in two posts on Imgur. Although URLs are visible, they appear to have been taken down from Starbucks' site, though screencaps have been saved by eager players, courtesy of NintendoLife.
Multiple Reddit users claiming to be Starbucks employees have also verified the memo.
It's been widely accepted that the second generation Pokémon was headed to the augmented reality offshoot soon. A recent teardown of the Android version's APK revealing placeholder code for the next 100 characters and an entry for Ditto, the only one of the original 151 creatures not to be included in the game at launch. Ditto was added to Pokémon Go earlier this month, though the rest have yet to follow.
The partnership with Starbucks would also be in keeping with Niantic's plans to further monetise the game through sponsored locations. The coffee chain wouldn't be the first to do so though - in July, McDonalds in Japan teamed with the developer to deliver sponsored locations for Pokémon Go'sJapanese launch.
However, even if the next hundred Pokémon are added to the game this week, there's no indication they'd be available globally. The Starbucks memo only concerns American stores, with no indication of the promotion being active internationally.
At the time of writing, Niantic has not officially announced a release date of the Pokémon Gold and Silver monsters.
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