‘Pokémon GO’ Trading Update Confirmed: Niantic CEO John Hanke Talks Plans For New Features, Legendaries This 2017

During his appearance at the Mobile World Congress last week, Niantic CEO John Hanke only shared the usual things he would say about “Pokémon GO” since the mobile gaming app’s release. And in an attempt to build up the hype over his company’s famous game, he only announced that there will be three more updates coming this 2017. However, it seems Hanke had a change of heart the day after his MWC conference, and he instead decided to confirm the things that fans should expect to arrive within this year.

Hanke did an interview with WIRED at the Gendarmenmarkt in Berlin-Mitte last Friday and the CEO generously revealed exciting details on what’s in store for “Pokémon GO” following the release of the Gen 2 Update. To be exact, there are four major updates for the game this 2017. The first one, which is the Gen 2 Update, has already been rolled out, and it brought some changes to the game and added more than 80 new Pokémon for Trainers to catch.

It’s already been more than two weeks since the first major update was released, so it won’t be surprising if the number of active players are starting to decrease again. One primary reason for this is the absence of game-changing features in the Gen 2 Update. At this point, everyone’s painfully anticipating the arrival of Trading, PvP and other things present in the mainline games.

Thankfully, Hanke has already confirmed the features that many players are asking and waiting for. For instance, there’s Trading, a feature that enables players of the main Pokémon games to exchange pocket monsters with one another. Trading makes it possible for players to collect all Pokémon — something which is very difficult to do in “Pokémon GO” because of some region-exclusive creatures. But Niantic is about to change that. According to Hanke, the developers are going to come up with a way to enable Trainers to trade monsters this year.

In addition, Hanke also acknowledged the limited gameplay the Pokémon Gyms in “Pokémon GO” provide. “There is very limited gameplay in the arenas. They simply do not work as well as we wished,” he said. “We will rework this aspect of the game so that there will be more teamwork and people will have more incentive and reward to participate in.” This is clearly the first step for Niantic’s plan to bring a player vs. player mode to the game, and it is also a reiteration of what Hanke told el Periodico last Wednesday that cooperative gameplay is definitely in the cards this year.

Another matter that Hanke covered in his latest interview is the introduction of the Legendaries into the game. Since the game was launched, many fans were hoping to hear the inclusion of the Legendaries to the list of catchable Pokémon in the game. The flying trio Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres; the Red, Blue and Yellow elusive creatures Mewtwo and Mew; Gen 2’s Legendary canines Raikou, Entei, Suicine as well as the other Legendaries Lugia, Celebi and Ho-oh have yet to be officially part of the mobile game. Although Hanke did not say that all of them will be coming this year, he did mention that Legendary Pokémon are making an appearance this year.

According to Hanke, the upcoming update after Gen 2 would be the one that would overhaul how the Gym system works. “We will rework this aspect of the game, so that there will be more teamwork and people will have more incentive and reward to participate in,” he said. Then, speaking of the other two remaining updates, he simply said that they would be about trading monsters and fighting against each other or PvP. He did not really specify if the third update will bring Trading and the fourth one will be PvP, or vice-versa. He also did not indicate if the Legendary Pokémon are going to be part of any of the three updates, or if they will appear through in-game events.

Aside from talking about the three major updates for each of the remaining quarters this 2017, Hanke also tackled the problem with spoofing. “It is our responsibility to prevent cheating,” Hanke said. He admitted that some users continue to cheat using apps or websites that allow them to play the game from home. “I wish they would not. They destroy themselves by cheating the greatest fun of the game. The reward of ‘Pokémon GO’ is to get movement and see parts of the world you have not visited.”