Snap selfies with Pikachu in Google Pixel's AR Playground

You don't have to wait until May 10th to see Pikachu come to life in new ways. Ahead of the long-awaited Pokémon movie, Google released Detective Pikachu, Charizard, Jigglypuff and Mr. Mime as Playmojis for the Pixel's Playground mode. As you can with Google's other Playmojis (previously called AR stickers), you can drop these characters into scenes around you and interact with them through the Pixel's cameras.

Google promises the four Pokémon look and sound just like their bigscreen counterparts. The company also said ARCore's motion tracking, light estimation and ability to understand the real world make the quartet appear a little more realistic. Playground works with rear and front-facing cameras, so yes, you will be able to take a selfie with Pikachu. And thanks to machine learning, he'll even respond to your facial expressions as you snap the pic. In addition to being available on Pixel phones, the Playmoji pack is available on select Motorola and LG devices.

Of course, this isn't the only way you can take pictures of your favorite Pokémon using AR. You've been able to take photos of them in the wild through Pokémon Go, and Niantic has been working to improve its photo mode so that you can interact with them, too. But Google is hanging this release on the Detective Pikachu movie, something we've seen it do with other Playmojis, like those it dropped just before Star Wars: The Last Jedi.