Will The Pokémon Go Team Introduce Legendary Birds Articuno, Zapdos And Moltres In Planned Events?

Just days after dropping hints on what’s to come for “Pokémon Go” fans in the near future, Niantic Labs CEO John Hanke is once again teasing about his team's plans for the most downloaded augmented reality mobile game.

Appearing on Recode Decode’s latest episode, Hanke said that the Pokémon Go Team is planning to hold in-person events for “Pokémon Go” players, noting that this idea was actually from the live events they held for Niantic’s older game, “Ingress.”

Because he mentioned these planned regular events, he was asked during the podcast if the events would serve as venues for the team to introduce rare Pokémon that players have yet to stumble upon in the virtual world of “Pokémon Go,” like legendary Pokémon Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres.

Hanke did not respond to the question, but just last week at TechCrunch’s Disrupt SF 2016, he proudly shared that they will be holding events and introducing new Pokémon because “it’s a natural way to keep the game fresh.”

Despite not giving the specifics of the events they are planning, Hanke admitted that they are already thinking of building new features for the game once things start to simmer down. “It’s been a busy two months, so we’re now happy that we’re kind of stabilized and able to start being a little more thoughtful about the next set of features that we want to build," he said.

According to Recode, part of these upcoming features is the ability that would enable players to trade Pokémon with their friends. This feature is part of the Pokémon video games ever since the first title was released in 1996, so it would just be appropriate for the Pokémon Go Team to introduce this to the “Pokémon Go” gameplay.

Another feature that will mostly be added to “Pokémon Go” in a future update is player-versus-player mode. As previously reported, Hanke admitted that the team has been talking about this battle mode a lot, so it is quite certain now that it will be part of the game’s roadmap.

Meanwhile, the latest “Pokémon Go” updates for the iOS and Android versions of the game come with the new Buddy Pokémon System and support for Pokémon Go Plus, the peripheral device that allows users to play the game without having to look at their phone’s display most the time.