At an event in Tokyo, former Google subsidiary Niantic Labs announced its next project: an augmented reality game that aimed to bring the iconic world of Pokémon into the physical realm, with a new augmented reality game for smartphones. Niantic boss John Hanke was joined on stage by Pokémon Company president Tsunekazu Ishihara, Game Freak's Junichi Masuda, and legendary Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto.

Following the official announcement, Niantic went relatively quiet. But the following March, the studio released a series of screenshots and details showing what Pokémon Go would actually be like. Pokémon would appear superimposed on maps of the real world, and would only show up in specific locations. And to catch them, you would use your phone's touchscreen to toss a pokéball. What Niantic didn't provide was an actual release date.

A few months later, the app started rolling out on both iOS and Android. On July 5th Pokémon Go was available in select countries like Australia and New Zealand, and the following day it made its official debut in the US.

It didn't take long before wild Pokémon Go stories started to appear in the news. Just a few days after its official release, a teenager in Wyoming stumbled across a dead body while searching for pokémon near a lake.

The early, widespread success of Pokémon Go had a tremendous impact on Nintendo's stock price. On July 11th, Nintendo shares jumped nearly 25 percent, the highest increase for the company since 1983.

Cheating would go on to become a major part of the Pokémon Go story, and in the early days would-be cheaters were pretty inventive. Once such player used a drone to avoid all of the tedious walking the game necessitates.

Along with cheaters came a range of security concerns. Signing into the iOS version of the game included a request for Pokémon Go to access a user's entire Google account: something that turned out to be an error. Google itself eventually stepped in to fix things.

Pokémon Go requires players to head out into the real world in search of pokémon to collect, but they soon learned that they weren't welcome everywhere. Memorials in both New York City and Washington, DC issued statements requesting players refrain from catching pocket monster on their grounds.

The seemingly inevitable follow-up to "Twitch plays Pokémon" saw players all around the world team up to enter commands to control the same game of Pokémon Go. Things were naturally quite hectic.

Up until now, players in Europe had been side-loading the game to enjoy Pokémon Go, but a week after launch it made its official European debut with a release in Germany. It would soon spread to the UK and elsewhere throughout the continent.

In a sign of just how widespread the Pokémon Go phenomenon had become, presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton held a campaign event at a pokémon gym in Ohio. Meanwhile, Donald Trump's camp released a Pokémon Go-themed attack ad.

Nintendo continued to reap the benefits of Pokémon Go's success, doubling in value less than two weeks after the game's official launch. Even McDonald's Japan saw a stock boost thanks to the announcement of Pokémon-themed Happy Meals.

The success of the game led to a cottage industry of Pokémon Go-themed businesses and tools. That included everything from widely-used map apps, to Pokémon battery chargers, to in-game chat apps and even a dating service.

After watching the rest of the world catch ‘em all, players in Japan were finally able to get in on the craze with the game’s official Japanese release.

While Apple didn’t provide exact numbers, the company announced that Pokémon Go had broken the record for most App Store downloads in a single week. Early estimates pegged the game as making around $2 million per day during its first two weeks.

Following weeks of skyrocketing shares, Nintendo’s stock plummeted after investors realized the company didn’t actually make Pokémon Go, and only stood to profit a comparatively small amount from its success. Nintendo even put out a statement explaining that its income from the game would be “limited.”

Niantic made a number of changes to how the game works in order to cripple the burgeoning third-party map industry, making it harder for developers to make helpful tools for the game. Of course, as these things often go, it didn’t take long before enterprising creators worked their way around the restrictions and released new maps.

One of the more bizarre headlines to stem from Pokémon Go involved Japanese Olympic gymnast Kohei Uchimura, who accrued nearly $5,000 in roaming fees while playing Pokémon Go during the 2016 summer games in Brazil.

As part of its ongoing effort to keep cheaters out of the game, Niantic began permanently banning players who used tool like bots and GPS spoofing to gain an advantage in the game. "Our goal is to provide a fair, fun, and legitimate game experience for everyone,” the company explained.

Nintendo may not have made much direct profit from Pokémon Go, but it still benefitted the company in a big way. Less than a month after its debut, the awareness of Pokémon Go caused a huge surge in sales for Pokémon games on the 3DS, which jumped anywhere from 80 to 200 percent. Nintendo believed the surge was due to “widespread positive public reception for the Pokémon Go mobile app, which has renewed interest in core Pokémon games on Nintendo systems.”

After an incredibly successful launch, early reports suggested that Pokémon Go’s playerbase began to decline significantly in its second month. A chart from Axiom Capital Management claimed that the game went from 45 million daily users in mid-July to 30 million in mid-August.

In one of the game’s first major content updates, Niantic introduced new buddy pokémon to the game, who could become close to trainers and earn benefits based on how much players interacted with them.

In early September a Russian YouTube star was detained for two months and faced the potential for up to five years of prison time, all because he played Pokémon Go in a church.

After a number of delays, the official Pokémon Go wearable — the Pokémon Go Plus — released in mid-September. The Bluetooth-equipped wristband would vibrate when players neared a pokémon or pokéstop, so that they didn’t have to keep their phones out constantly.

Just in time for Halloween, Pokémon Go launched its very first in-game event. For a limited time, players had a better chance of catching rare ghost pokémon while also earning more candy. The event lasted for a week.

A few months after launch, Niantic finally added a new pokémon to the game’s lineup of monsters: but just one, the mimicking Ditto. Because Ditto is able to pretend to be other pokémon, catching one proved especially challenging.

The success of core Pokémon games continued in the wake of the Pokémon Go craze. The release of Pokémon Sun and Moon on the Nintendo 3DS set sales records in both the Americas and Europe.

In December, the first branded locations started to appear in the game. Over the course of two days, thousands of Sprint and Starbucks stores in the US were transformed into pokéstops and gyms. Starbucks even started serving a Pokémon-themed drink.

After months of waiting, players were finally treated to the addition of some new pokect monsters to catch and train. A handful of new pokémon, including Pichu and Togepi, were added to the game, though instead of catching them in the wild, players had to hatch them from eggs acquired at pokéstops.

The slow march of Pokémon Go across the globe continued with the game launching in India and several other South Asian countries. “The Niantic team had to resolve a few administrative challenges before launching in order to ensure we could provide the best experience possible,” the company said of the much-belated release.

Just before the end of the year, Niantic released a Pokémon Go companion app for Apple Watch. It wasn't the full experience, but much like the game’s official wearable, it let players perform a handful of activities without the need for pulling out their phone.

In one of the game’s biggest updates, Niantic added a whopping 80 new creatures to collect. And unlike the previous additions, these could be caught in the wild using a trusty pokéball. The new monsters included Johto region favorites like Chikorita, Cyndaquil, and Totodile.

In preparation for the game’s one-year anniversary, Niantic announced the very first official real-life Pokémon Go events. The first, scheduled for July 22nd In Chicago, is called Pokémon Go fest, though it’s not clear what exactly will be happening there. Other events are also planned for Europe and Japan.

In one of the biggest updates to date, Niantic announced that Pokémon Go would be getting significantly redesigned gyms, with the goal of making gyms more accessible to players of all skill levels. On top that, the update would also introduce new multiplayer raids, where groups of players could team up to fight extremely powerful monsters.

As part of its ongoing battle against cheaters, Niantic started permanently branding pokémon caught through illicit means. Such creatures would be displayed with a large slash across their avatar. Niantic also explained that these pokémon “may not behave as expected.”