When Will the New ‘Pokemon Go’ Capture Bonus Feature Be Released?

'Pokemon Go' is available now for iOS and Android devices. (Nintendo)

‘Pokemon Go’ is available now for iOS and Android devices. (Nintendo)

Niantic has just announced the latest major addition to Pokemon Go. What is it, exactly, and when can trainers around the world get their hands on it?

Essentially, the new update changes the way that medals work in the game. Prior to this, trainers could pick up badges for performing specific tasks, such as capturing a certain number of Pokemon of various types. Catching a bunch of fire Pokemon, for instance, gets you a medal called “Kindler.” What’s the point? There wasn’t one, really; it was mainly just a fun collectible to have and an excuse to have goals to work towards, similar to how achievements work on a video game console.

Now, though, Niantic is introducing tangible rewards for earning medals. In this new feature, earning medals for capturing specific Pokemon will increase your likelihood of catching that type of Pokemon in the future. So going back to our example of the Kindler medal, going forward, having that won’t just be valuable for bragging rights. It will actually give you a better chance of catching fire Pokemon, and so that pesky Charizard has a lower chance of running away than it did before.

So when will the update hit the app stores? Niantic has not specified, on their website simply saying that the feature is “coming soon.” But based on the app’s recent history, players can probably expect it to hit within the next week, possibly as soon as Friday, October 7th.

Why is that? Well, Niantic has generally released an update every two weeks, and they’ve been pretty good about sticking to that schedule recently. With that in mind, an update should be hitting app stores on the 7th.

Niantic has also tended to announce a new feature relatively soon to when it goes live. For example, last month Niantic unveiled the new “buddy system” on September 2nd, releasing a statement just like they’ve done this time. The update finally went live on September 10th, although in this case that was an unusually long delay.

Stay tuned for further updates about this latest Pokemon Go feature.