Buddy Pokemon Officially Announced for Pokemon Go

Buddy Pokemon are officially coming to Pokemon Go. Niantic Labs confirmed that the new feature will be added to the upcoming version of Pokemon Go, which is expected to be released next week. The new feature was previously leaked earlier this week by players reviewing the mobile app's coding.

According to Niantic, walking with their Buddy Pokemon will open up special in-game awards and experience. Niantic confirmed that players will earn Candies for their Buddy Pokemon by walking certain distances, and teased other possible rewards too. Players will also be able to switch out their Buddy Pokemon at any time.

Niantic also released several screenshots of the new Buddy Pokemon system, several of which shows the Buddy Pokemon standing besides a player on the profile screen. The Pokemon are relatively sized to their trainer, so a Charmander barely reaches a player's knees while a Snorlax towers over them. Players can also view their Pokemon's progress towards the next candy via a small avatar picture in the bottom right hand corner of the screen.

The most obvious benefit to the Buddy Pokemon system is that players will no longer need to hunt down multiple Pokemon of the same species in order to collect Candies. With the Buddy Pokemon feature, players should be able to evolve and power up their Pokemon much quicker. This is a potential gamechanger for Pokemon Go, especially for fans who don't have access to areas with lots of Pokemon spawn points.

Niantic also teased that they were working on more features that will be made available later this fall. Pokemon Go players are still waiting for several other promised features, including trading, a new tracker system, and PokeStop customization.

This will be the second major new feature released for Pokemon Go in the last month. The last update introduced a new appraisal system that allows players to determine a Pokemon's IV stats.