Another week, another Niantic employee teasing new features for Pokemon Go. Niantic’s Chief Marketing Officer Mike Quigley recently spoke at The Next Web conference in the Netherlands, and he gave a few new details about Pokemon Go‘s future.
Videos by ComicBook.com
The big news coming out of the interview was a tease of a new feature. Quigley stated that they were working on a way to make catching Pokemon a more collaborative experience. While catching Pokemon is currently an activity for single players only, Niantic was looking at a way to incentivize catching Pokemon together with other players, similar to how it’s a lot easier to defeat a gym when working together as a group.
There’s a couple of possibilities to what Quigley meant by that. The most obvious is that Quigley is hinting at a group capture function for catching Legendary Pokemon. We saw group battles teased in Pokemon Go‘s first trailer, and it’s widely assumed that the Legendary Pokemon will involve a MMO-style raid.
It’s also possible that Niantic is looking to tweak the capture system to allow multiple players to “stack” berry effects when two players are trying to capture it at the same time. While that would be a cool feature, it might not make sense given Pokemon Go‘s recent changes to how Pokemon spawn.
Like several other recent interviews, Quigley also hinted that Niantic was close to rolling out an overhauled gym system. Quigley told the audience that they considered the gyms to be the second biggest “game loop” (a repetitive feature that players complete over and over) after catching Pokemon, and they wanted to improve it for other players. Quigley also mentioned that Niantic has plans to “re-engage” players who have quit playing Pokemon Go, but that their current priority is fixing gym battles.
(h/t Pokemon Go Hub)
More Pokemon: Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon Announced / Pokemon Gold and Silver Coming to Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console / Pokken Tournament Deluxe Announced for Nintendo Switch / Pokemon Go Update Coming Later This Week/ New Pokemon Go Event Allegedly Leaked / Pokemon Go Makes Big Changes to Egg Pools / Legendary Pokemon and More Confirmed for Pokemon Go This Summer
