When Pokémon Go was first announced, it felt like my childhood dreams were finally coming true. The original trailer featured trading with friends, battling random players on the street and massive group battles to catch legendaries. I’ve been a Pokémon addict since the original Red, exploring, Kanto, Johto, Sinnoh and every other region that Gamefreak could possibly think of, and I was ready to take my ambition into the real world.
Unfortunately, Pokémon Go didn’t live up to any of these promises on its initial release. Niantic had no idea the game would get as popular as it did, severely underestimating how obsessed 90’s kids are with their childhoods. The servers crashed constantly, Pokémon were annoying to catch and the game just felt unfinished. There was no trading, battling or epic community fights, just a half-finished idea that somehow became one of the most popular apps of 2016.
Now that it’s been a full year since Pokémon Go’s release, Niantic is finally getting around to giving trainers what they wanted all along. We don’t know for sure what’s exactly coming in July’s update, but APK data miners on the Silph Road have uncovered a few secrets as to what we can expect:
Gyms are getting reworked so that spoofing -- tricking a GPS into thinking its somewhere else -- can’t work, along with a new motivation system that requires commitment to a gym you want to control.
You’ll be able to heal in Gyms, pre-assign teams to fight and get rewards beside Pokémon coins.
A Raid boss system is coming to the game, allowing trainers to battle epic Pokémon in groups that they normally couldn’t capture on their own. A 3000+ CP Blissey needs a full squad to catch.
The most important thing of all, legendary monsters will soon start to appear around the world, though how or when they show up remains unseen.
It took them long enough, but Niantic is finally starting to incorporate the real world into their “alternate reality” game.
Niantic is also starting to sponsor physical Pokémon Go meetups, with the first United States “Pokémon Go Fest” event happening in Chicago in July. There will be challenges at Pokestops, event-exclusive eggs and even a rare Pokémon or two. When the game was first released, fans would swarm public places, like Central Park, meeting up with other trainers and comparing Pokedexes. If Niantic actually finds a way for all these fans to interact in-game, it’s likely some trainers who have quit would want to redownload the app.
It’s unfortunate that it took a full year for Pokémon Go to move in this direction. Now that the epic hype of June 2016 has died down and the game has a manageably sized player base, John Hanke’s company can finally start releasing the game we were promised. I’ve had dreams of teaming up with friends to fight a Mewtwo that spawned in Times Square and there’s a chance that could actually become a reality.
I’m beyond excited for the new Pokémon Go update. I will travel to the ends of the earth for a Ho-Oh, Lugia or a Celebi to add to my Pokedex. They may just be a bunch of lines of code locked away in an app next to Tinder, but they mean so much more than that. They’re part of my childhood, beacons of nostalgia that pull me back to a time before bills, apartments and responsibility. I can turn into a 10-year-old again, flicking my screen with a bunch of strangers whose only bond is wanting to be the very best.
Do you think the new update can save Pokémon Go or is it dead like a Magikarp using Splash? Tell us in the comments.
