For those of you who play Pokemon Go, be on the look out for a sizable update coming to the game. The update is a combination of new features and refinements to improve the game play and performance of the popular game. The most notable new feature is the Buddy Pokemon addition. Here you will be able to choose a Pokemon that you have captured as your buddy. They will walk with you and be a part of your game avatar and you can earn Candy with your Buddy Pokemon by walking with them. Not only does it add a new element of game play but it brings a bit more personalization as you can have your favorite Pokemon as part of your avatar in the game.
As for improvements, it is now a lot easier to select smaller Pokemon on your screen which was a frustration for some players, especially those with smaller screened devices.
Pokemon Go
Here is the complete rundown of the improvements and updates from the Release Notes for the game.
- Implemented Buddy Pokémon: Trainers will now be able to choose one of their Pokémon to be their buddy. A Trainer can earn Candy for their Buddy Pokémon by walking a certain distance.
- Made it easier to select smaller Pokémon on the screen.
- Fixed an issue where Eggs would sometimes hatch without displaying the animation.
- Improved performance reliability when a device switches networks to no longer cause the application to hang or stop updating.
- Pokémon GO Plus support.
- Minor text fixes.
One important change for those of you who have rooted Android devices or jailbroken iOS devices. Niantic Labs has removed support for these devices as they want to cut down on the bots that people deployed to make big advancements in the game. In other words, they want to try to stop those cheating. If you have a rooted or jailbroken device, you will now get a warning telling you that the OS is not supported.
If you have the game installed, you should see the update over the course of the next day or so. If you don’t have the game installed and want to join the hundreds of millions playing, you can download it in the Play Store.
