Niantic launched Truffel at SXSW 2023 and described it as “Niantic’s new app that brings a city’s hidden gems to life.” It’s as if they merely blew the dust off Field Trip, their earlier virtual tour guide application for recommending nearby landmarks and other points of interest, and gave it a fresh coat of paint. Because that’s what it was.

When Niantic canceled Field Trip, they hinted that a “reimagined version of Field Trip” could return one day. Truffel was that day. Much like Field Trip, Niantic did almost nothing to market it, and it went largely unnoticed by a public that had already found their hidden gems on Instagram.

Between November and December of 2023, the writing was already on the wall: Niantic changed Truffel’s website from a waitlist signup to a simple redirect to Niantic’s main site, with no mention of Truffel anywhere on it. A company that redirects its own product’s homepage to a page that doesn’t acknowledge the product exists has typically made a decision.

In January 2025, Niantic announced Truffel would be closing down, and the app was subsequently removed from global stores. The dream of a shared social map that would make you care about the taco stand two blocks away died quietly, as most dreams involving taco stands and AR eventually do.

The Field Trip lineage is now complete. Both the original and its “reimagining” are buried in the same graveyard. We assume a third attempt is already in development somewhere.