The Pokemon Go buddy system has just been released. (Getty)
Pokemon Go has just rolled out its brand new buddy system, one of the biggest updates the game has seen since its initial launch.
With this system, players can select one Pokemon in their Pokedex to be their “buddy.” Once they do this, the Pokemon will walk around with them as they play the game, appearing alongside the avatar on the bottom left of the screen at all times.
It’s not just a cute way of forming a personal connection with one of the Pokemon, though. For every so many kilometers you walk, you will get a certain amount of that Pokemon’s candy. The amount of candy you get for each kilometer depends on the species.
So how do you select a Pokemon to be your buddy? Here’s what you need to do:
- Go to your avatar by tapping the bottom left of the screen showing your character’s face.
- Press the button with the three lines on the bottom right of the screen.
- Hit the “buddy” option.
- Your Pokdex will come up. From here, just pick whatever Pokemon you would like to be your buddy.
And that’s it! An animation should come up showing that this Pokemon has been selected as your buddy. From now on, it will appear next to your character whenever you go to the character screen, although it sadly will not appear on the map.
What should you pick as your first buddy? It’s up to you, but in general the idea is to choose something relatively rare, or something that you would not normally encounter in the wild. That’s because you get candy by walking this Pokemon, and the other way of getting candy is to catch that same species a lot and transfer the duplicates to the professor. Therefore, your buddy should be something you will likely not catch in the wild that often, and therefore which you will have trouble getting candies for without the buddy system.
You don’t have to spend too much time making a selection, though; unlike your team, your buddy is not permanent, and it can be swapped out at any time.