This New Pokemon Go Feature Could Be a Huge Game-Changer (But It Might Be Too Hard to Use)

Since it first arrived in 2016, Pokemon Go has faced one major tension. As its name suggests, the game is intended to encourage players to get out of the house and go play in real life. Poke Stops, gyms, and wild spawns are largely centered on areas with big landmarks such as parks and cities. But not every player lives in an area with easy access to these things or to an in-person community of fellow players. So, Niantic’s eternal struggle is balancing content that requires in-person, real-life interactions with options for remote and rural players.

Over the years, Niantic has tried many formulas to meet the demands of players while still pushing its real-life community mission. From remote raid passes to more wild spawns in areas without PokeStops and gyms, many changes in recent years have genuinely made Pokemon Go more accessible. Most recently, this included the long-awaited introduction of remote trades. And like many new Pokemon Go features, Remote Trades are a bit more complicated and confusing than players might have hoped. What could be a big game-changer remains largely a question mark for many players at this point, myself included.

Remote Trades Help Solve a Huge Pokemon Go Problem (In Theory)

Like much of Pokemon, Pokemon Go theoretically wants to encourage community building and connection. But in reality, many players over the years have found themselves isolated when it comes to in-person connections who still play the mobile game. While events like Pokemon Go Fest and Raid Days can bring players to the same locations, they don’t always result in much actual conversation between strangers. And that means that many of us have had a few key Pokemon Go Research Tasks waiting for completion for years.

Several Pokemon Go Research Paths in recent years have included tasks like Dual Destiny’s “Trade Pokemon 3 Times” or Jump-Start Research’s Trade 3 Pokemon With a Friend. Performing trades is also a Field Research task that can get added to your list when spinning Poke Stops and gyms. Yet until recently, trading could only be performed in person. That meant you needed to know or meet someone else who played and get them to agree to trade Pokemon. For many players, that means those Research Tasks fester uncompleted for months to years waiting for the ideal moment.

In theory, the introduction of remote trades is a fix for this longstanding issue. After all, while in-person community may be scarce for many players, the online Pokemon Go experience is another story. There are plenty of popular subreddits, Facebook Groups, and other spaces like Campfire where Pokemon Go players can connect. For years, fans have been adding friends in these virtual spaces. Now, it is technically possible to trade with these online friends in Pokemon Go, making it easier to tick off Research Tasks and get Pokemon from regions around the world. But though the feature released worldwide on December 11th, few players have yet to meet its steep unlock requirements.

Forever Friends Is a Grind That Will Take Months to Achieve

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What You Need to Know About Remote Trades in Pokemon Go, Explained

Remote trades may be available in Pokemon Go, but players have to earn them. Specifically, Remote Trades require players to reach a new level of friendship called Forever Friends. Those who already have a friendlist of Best Friends ready and waiting are in a better position than most, but even so, hitting this new top tier of Pokemon Go friendship takes time.

To raise friendship in the game, you need to exchange gifts with friends and participate in other in-game activities with them, such as completing Raids, Max Battles, and Party Play together. Many of these options to quickly raise friendship fall into the same trap as the old in-person only trade formula: they require you to be together IRL.

Raising friendship without Party Play and in-person Raids is certainly possible. The new Weekly Challenges help boost your friendship level, and those can be completed remotely with up to 3 other players. You also gain more friendship levels by exchanging gifts, so you can build up friendship in Pokemon Go with players you’ve never met in real life. But eaerning the points required to perform a remote trade isn’t easy.

Getting to Forever Friends requires earning 90 Friendship Points after hitting Best Friends status. Then, unlocking Remote Trades with your new Forever Friend means earning an additional 90 Friendship Points. At that point, you unlock a single Remote Trade and will need to earn an additional 90 points to unlock each subsequent trading opportunity. Unless you do Weekly Challenges, which award 7 bonus Friendship Points, you can only earn 1 Friendship Point per friend per day. That means hitting Forever Friends will take 90 days if you’re already Best Friends, and it will take another 3 months to unlock the first Remote Trade

It’s understandable that Niantic wants to make players earn Remote Trades. After all, their stated goal with Pokemon Go is to encourage in-person connection and community, and being able to complete trades is one incentive for getting together IRL. But I worry that Niantic has made earning Remote Trades a bit too difficult to keep players invested in actually making it happen. It’s a little discouraging to have that much grind ahead before we even get a taste of a shiny new feature that should make the game more accessible for players without large in-person communities. So while Remote Trades are exciting, the feature may need some tweaks before it really delivers on its promise.

Are you working towards your first Remote Trade in Pokemon Go? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!