New Pokémon are coming to Pokémon Go – someday

Speaking at Comic-Con in San Diego over the weekend, Niantic CEO and founder John Hanke shed some light on upcoming features in his company’s massively popular augmented reality game, Pokémon Go.

The Verge reported that Hanke hinted at new Pokemon being on the agenda:

Beyond first generation, there are some others that may make their way into our universe. We’re looking forward to finding interesting ways to make that happen in the coming months and years.

He also talked about making pokéstops (real-world locations where in-game collectibles can be found) more useful: That’s a pretty cool idea that you can acquire an object that changes the function of a pokéstop and gives it a new ability.” One of Hanke’s ideas for modifying pokestops could see them turned into healing pokécenters.

In addition, Niantic is also working on features to enable trading and training features. However, Hanke didn’t have a set date for any of these updates, so it isn’t clear when they’ll become available in the game.

I’m keen to see if new features like these can help Pokemon Go stay relevant months and years after its release. Niantic certainly seems to think so – hopefully it’ll let in more international players before people lose interest; the game still isn’t available in many countries including India.