'Pokémon Go' Will Have Events, Trading And PVP In 2017, Says Niantic CEO

Pokémon Go might be in the middle of a Valentine’s Day event, but its fans aren’t feeling the love. A lack of updates and communication from Niantic, combined with limited features that have barely been updated since launch, have left a lot of players salty. In an interview with Waypoint, Vice’s “trendy” gaming site, Niantic CEO John Hanke broke his silence and shared some information about what we can expect to come to the mobile game in the future.

For those of us with not enough time on their hands, here’s a TL;DR:

• New features will be launched soon, but according to Hanke they will be in "an abbreviated form" with more fleshed-out versions coming later. This most likely means Niantic plans to roll out updates in specific markets first before unleashing the final product out into the world, like what they did with the updated tracker.

• The patching and bug-fixing of the first few months delayed work on the features Hanke wanted implemented in the game.

• Generation 2 is still on it’s way.

• Trading and Player-versus-player battles are being worked on and if the servers weren’t so sketchy at launch, one of these would have already been in the game.

• Hanke said: "It is what it is. I'll take the massive wave of hysteria we enjoyed, and just deal with the fact that it's caused us to take a bit longer to get the rest of the features up. We're really happy to make our users happy."

• The original tracker will never come back. R.I.P. foot steps.

• Events are coming in 2017, though having them on the scale PoGo requires has been difficult to figure out.

• "It's complicated, though, to do (events) at the scale that Pokémon Go demands. But, to me, that would be the best demonstration of the vision of this company, which is all about playing games together, outside, with other people" Hanke said.

Don’t get too hyped about battles coming anytime soon, this is essentially the same information he gave Polygon back in July. Still, the optimist in me wants to battle with friends so badly, I’ll believe anything.