Pokemon Go's New Update Offers Blended Reality and Other Quality of Life Improvements

Pokemon Go's newest update provides quality of life improvements for all players, along with the first wave of rollouts for the game's new augmented reality feature. Earlier this week, Pokemon Go's latest update went live on both the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store. The new update contains mostly minor quality of life features, such as adding an Apple ID sign-in for iOS users, and providing players with a visual indicator to show how many Charged attacks a player has stockpiled during raids and trainer battles. The biggest addition in the update is limited to only a select number of Android Phone users, the addition of new "blended reality" functionality to the game's AR features.

The "Blended Reality" feature allows players to better reflect real world objects when they take snapshots of their Pokemon in Pokemon Go. For instance, players can now have their Pokemon hide behind trees, whereas before the Pokemon would appear super-imposed in front of the tree, even if the Pokemon were originally placed behind the tree. Although this is mostly an aesthetic feature, it does represent a major advancement in Pokemon Go's AR snapshot technology, which has been a key part of the game since its release.

Pokemon Go players can expect a busy month of events and features. The game is currently in the middle of a Throwback Challenge event featuring Unova Pokemon and Galarian variant Pokemon. The game will also host Bug Out and Solstice events later this month, along with a new Community Day event and other regular weekly features. Niantic also announced that it would donate all of its proceeds from July's Pokemon Go Fest event (which is open to all players) to Black game creators and non-profits as a response to the recent worldwide protests against systemic racism and police brutality.

Pokemon Go is available to download for free on Apple and Android devices.