Pokemon Go Update Adds New Pokemon, Moves

Pokemon Go's next update provides some big teases about what's coming next in the game.

Yesterday evening, Pokemon Go announced they were pushing a new update (95.3 for Android, 1.65.3 for iPhones) that would add the ability for trainers to link to their Facebook accounts. While Pokemon Go had previously announced that feature earlier this week, dataminers discovered some other additions that could tease what's coming next for the game.

Most notably, Pokemon Go developers added code related to Spinda, one of the few "Gen 3" Pokemon still not available in the game. Spinda are unique in the main series game in that each individual Spinda has their own unique spot pattern.

While Pokemon Go can't replicate the over four billion different potential Spinda patterns, dataminers discovered code related to eight Spinda variants. While there's probably no difference to what these Spinda can do in battle, the eight new Pokemon variants will probably be a fun addition for collectors.

Pokemon Go also added code related to two new moves: Frenzy Plant and Weather Ball. We already knew that Frenzy Plant was going to be added to the game, as Pokemon Go announced it would be the new move for the next Community Day, but Weather Ball is a bit of a surprise. Weather Ball is Castform's exclusive move and changes its typing based on the weather. Sure enough, dataminers found four different Weather Ball variants, one related to each Castform type in the game. We'll see exactly how this new attack works when Pokemon Go officially rolls it out.

Two other potentially big changes were also spotted in the most recent update. Dataminers found a line related to quests, indicating that Pokemon Go developers are still working hard on this new feature. We knew that Pokemon Go were working on adding in-game quests to the game earlier this year, but developers recently scrubbed all mention of quests from the game's code. A line related to "Pokemon encounters" popped up in the most recent update, so it seems that developers are still plugging away at what's probably Pokemon Go's next big addition.

Finally, it appears that Pokemon Go could be toying around with a way for players to submit potential PokeStop locations in the game. Currently, Niantic uses submissions from Ingress, their other AR-based game, to determine PokeStop locations, but this could be a way to incorporate Pokemon Go's significantly larger player base.

Players should get the new update in their Apple App or Google Play stores in the next couple of days.