Pokemon Go's Trading Feature is Live....But Only for Level 40 Players

Pokemon Go has enabled its much-anticipated friends and trading features, but only for players that have reached the game's highest milestone.

The popular mobile game announced that it would be adding a new friends system that would allow players to trade with each other. Players have wanted the ability to trade since the game came out, and it seemed like Pokemon Go would finally deliver on bringing one of the Pokemon franchise's core mechanics to their game.

Sure enough, Pokemon Go forced an update earlier today, and started its rollout of the new feature. But while Niantic said that players only needed to be at Level 10 in order to trade Pokemon, it seems that only Level 40 players can access the new features.

We’re gradually rolling out Friends and Trading. Currently, Trainers who are level 40 can now use these features. Thanks for your patience as we work to make these features available to a larger number of Trainers.

— Niantic Support (@NianticHelp) June 21, 2018

Multiple players have noted that the game feels very slow and laggy right now, so it's likely that Pokemon Go doesn't want to overload its servers, which has historically ruined their rollout of other features. Pokemon Go also slowly eased players into Raids, starting with high level players and then slowly enabling the feature for lower level players.

Level 40 players have shared some of the new features online, confirming that it will take 90 days of trading, battling, or sending gifts for players to become best friends. These players also confirmed that the Friend Code is a unique 12-digit number, which isn't entirely dissimilar to the friend codes used to connect players on Nintendo devices.

Interestingly, players can also view their friends' profiles and see the nickname their friends gave to their Buddy Pokemon. This is the first time that a Pokemon Go player can see what they named another Pokemon. It'll be interesting to see whether traded Pokemon keep their nicknames like in the main game.

We'll have more details about the new trading mechanic as we learn about them. Stay tuned, Pokemon Go fans!